so what your saying is that its amplitudes fault they have to abide by some of sega's rules/choices?

Hmmm...that is a bit surprising. I generally never buy titles with Denuvo included and I don't feel inclined to make an exception in HK's case.

Sadly...there aren't many folks who will think twice about it. If they remove it quickly after the initial launch window I'd buy but yeah...I bought all the other Amplitude games at launch but I'm going to have to make an exception here.

Isn't the denuvo argument practically same as steam? I guess Steam does have the offline mode though. But can you get your digital copy when steam is down?

Honestly even the steam startup is annoying me.

Most of amplitude's games get cracked quite early, but I would like to think that at least some titles converted piracy to purchases by simply being 'that great'.

If only the multiplayer support was a bit better those purchases would actually be quite rewarding. But I suppose your average 2-3rd world country pirate will just pass and wait out whatever protection there is or get it in humble bundle sale whichever comes first.

Denuvo simply takes long to crack at the moment and that seems to be a very legitimate reason to bring it along if only for a first year or so, who wouldn't want to protect their intellectual property.

koxsos wrote:

Isn't the denuvo argument practically same as steam?

But that's actually another argument against Denuvo. Steam already acts as DRM in that it requires you to download the game through the client and connect at least once online. Denuvo is thus redundant.

Besides that, Denuvo also worsens performance, requires frequent calls home (so no offline mode for single-player content), and comes with a license that lets it do anything at any time, even after you uninstall Humankind, with no guarantee from SEGA that it won't mess up your computer, open a security hole, or otherwise cause trouble.

If SEGA insists on having this obsolete, useless DRM in the game, then at the very least, they can alter the license agreement to tell us exactly what Denuvo is allowed to do and what SEGA is going to do to make sure that the paying customers aren't harmed by Denuvo's nonsense while the pirates get a better game.

Yeah this is really disheartening. I believe that Amplitude are confident enough in their projected sales that the old guard who may have been around since the days of Endless Space 1 are not who they are targeting with the marketing for HK.

My sale and purchase of all the DLC of the game going forward are not the dollars they are counting on. They are depending on streamers and the blind fans of the moment to secure as many sales as possible...so this kind of move has no effect on their bottom line. Still it is my dollar to do with as I will and will not be purchasing Humankind while Denuvo is in place.

I don't blame Amplitude, it's clearly Sega's decision. They are one of the few publishers who actively use it, but I hope Amplitude can influence Sega's decision to remove it in a few months after the launch.

If not I will probably not buy anything from the company any more since it will always contain Denuvo. Which makes me sad but such is life.

MumbaUmba wrote:

I don't blame Amplitude, it's clearly Sega's decision. They are one of the few publishers who actively use it, but I hope Amplitude can influence Sega's decision to remove it in a few months after the launch.

If not I will probably not buy anything from the company any more since it will always contain Denuvo. Which makes me sad but such is life.

Again, it`s not cool to call Amplitude children that have no free will can`t make choices for themselves and need parenting to get by. They are lead by adults that are free and can make their own choices

How do you think Sega and Amplitude made the choices together? Did Sega came in Endless Space ships and kidnapped Amplitude and forced them to do stuff or they met at a cozy dinner drinking wine, doing business counting money and signing deals and being glad that they don`t have now to count anymore on the core community that was there for them when they started and needed sales? They are now about the money and becoming a big corporation, the rest is just PR from how things are now happening

Denuvo, huh? I was going to wait on getting Humankind because it was a historical strategy game and I prefer settings to be fantastical with few exceptions, but was willing to give it a shot if the reviews were good. But the fact that Denuvo trashes performance and prevents me from playing offline means this is an easy skip for me. Now, if they continue to add Denuvo in future games, I'll eventually find another studio to place my trust in instead.

GlorySign wrote:

MumbaUmba wrote:

I don't blame Amplitude, it's clearly Sega's decision. They are one of the few publishers who actively use it, but I hope Amplitude can influence Sega's decision to remove it in a few months after the launch.

If not I will probably not buy anything from the company any more since it will always contain Denuvo. Which makes me sad but such is life.

Again, it`s not cool to call Amplitude children that have no free will can`t make choices for themselves and need parenting to get by. They are lead by adults that are free and can make their own choices

How do you think Sega and Amplitude made the choices together? Did Sega came in Endless Space ships and kidnapped Amplitude and forced them to do stuff or they met at a cozy dinner drinking wine, doing business counting money and signing deals and being glad that they don`t have now to count anymore on the core community that was there for them when they started and needed sales? They are now about the money and becoming a big corporation, the rest is just PR from how things are now happening

considering sega bought and owns amplitude, yes sega has control of what requirements amplitude needs to have in their games, meaning if sega told amplitude to use denuvo, than Amplitude has to. refusal to do so could cause more negative things, like employee's being fired or licenses being revoked, who knows what sega could do if a company they own refuses to do something their required or told to do.

I just want to start by thanking you all for the show of support. When I made this thread, I wasn't expecting replies, and pretty much just resigned myself to shouting into the void.

The more support for the core message, though, the better the chances they remove Denuvo at some point down the line (which is the best we can hope for at this point).

So, thank you for that.

Maybe I'll get to play a Denuvo-free Humankind years from now, when all the expansions are out and the bugs have been mostly fixed. That could be nice.

DragonGaming wrote:

so what your saying is that its amplitudes fault they have to abide by some of sega's rules/choices?

100%.

They made the choice to "partner with" (i.e. "sell out to") SEGA, so whatever comes of that is absolutely their fault.

It wasn't a surprise, nobody held a gun to their head. They walked down that road willingly.

SpikedWallMan wrote:

[I]t ends up being a huge security risk like SecuROM/SafeDisc, etc.

Fun fact: Denuvo's from (at least some of) the same team that was behind SecuROM.

"Wikipedia page on Denuvo" wrote:

The company [that made Denuvo] was formed through a management buyout of DigitalWorks, the arm of the Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation that developed the SecuROM DRM technology.

koxsos wrote:

Isn't the denuvo argument practically same as steam?

Not at all.

Firstly, Steam itself isn't inherently DRM, it just provides the option for devs/publishers to use DRM through Steamworks. That's not up to Steam. And there are DRM-free games on Steam, which you can backup/move/play offline all you want after your initial download.

(for examples, you can look at this "List of DRM-free games", or "The Big List of DRM-Free Games on Steam")

Secondly, even within context of games using Steamworks' DRM (which many do), Steam itself is a service-rich platform that actually (potentially) brings value to the customer, so that makes the DRM-pill easier to swallow.

How valuable Steam's services are is rather subjective, of course, but it's undeniable that a lot of people do like what Steam offers.

Denuvo brings nothing of value to the customer; in the absolute best case, it's invisible.

koxsos wrote:

I would like to think that at least some titles converted piracy to purchases by simply being 'that great'.

That is absolutely something that piracy does at times, yes.

It's impossible to know true numbers, of course, but from everything I've read on the topic, it seems pretty clear that the kind of pirate that just gets a thing for free because they can, even if they could afford buying the game, is a relative minority.

For the most part, piracy is about convenience. People that don't have easy access to a legit means of acquiring something (perhaps because of where they live), people that can't afford it (who wouldn't be buying the game anyway, if they couldn't pirate it), and people who are just curious (don't mind trying the game for free, but are unlikely to pay for it).

The latter, especially, are the likeliest to be converted into paying customers, if they like the game enough.

Things like DRM, overpriced DLC, bullshit microtransactions, etc., that's all stuff that takes away from convenience.

When customers feel like they're treated fairly, they're much more willing to part with their money. In general.

Probably the best opinion piece on piracy I've seen, in case you're interested: "Piracy and the four currencies"

koxsos wrote:

Denuvo simply takes long to crack at the moment and that seems to be a very legitimate reason to bring it along if only for a first year or so, who wouldn't want to protect their intellectual property.

To various degrees. It used to take a long time, but over the years, it's gotten quicker and quicker. Before, months was normal. Now I think it's weeks or even days.

Honestly, I'd be a lot less opposed to Denuvo (or any DRM, in general) if they regularly got rid of them ~6-12 months after launch, but that's an exception, not the rule. It seems that we're seeing more of that these days, though? So I guess that might be a step in the right direction.

I still wouldn't like it, but it would be a lot more tolerable. I rarely buy games at launch, anyway.

Outside of multiplayer (larger player population at launch) and/or wanting to support a dev, a customer is pretty much always best served waiting. The longer the better.

With time, you get bug fixes, more content (paid and/or free), and lower prices.

Ultimately, though, DRM is about control, not protection. The only real effect of DRM is to give shareholders a false sense of security, and allow publishers to control legit customers. The alleged "Stop pirates! Protect IPs!" thing is secondary at best, for however short a time it barely works.

Slashman wrote:

Yeah this is really disheartening. I believe that Amplitude are confident enough in their projected sales that the old guard who may have been around since the days of Endless Space 1 are not who they are targeting with the marketing for HK.

My sale and purchase of all the DLC of the game going forward are not the dollars they are counting on. They are depending on streamers and the blind fans of the moment to secure as many sales as possible...so this kind of move has no effect on their bottom line. Still it is my dollar to do with as I will and will not be purchasing Humankind while Denuvo is in place.

Sadly likely true. They made that pretty clear when they sold out to SEGA.

MumbaUmba wrote:

I don't blame Amplitude, it's clearly Sega's decision. They are one of the few publishers who actively use it, but I hope Amplitude can influence Sega's decision to remove it in a few months after the launch.

If not I will probably not buy anything from the company any more since it will always contain Denuvo. Which makes me sad but such is life.

It's still Amplitude's fault for aligning themselves with SEGA in the first place. They were an up-and-coming upstart not-quite-indie punching way above their weight, having pretty much singlehandedly revolutionized and breathed new life into a whole genre. They had a bright future. They didn't need to sell out to a big publisher.

As far as SEGA and Denuvo go, though, they're actually not as bad as some others when it comes to that. With SEGA titles, Denuvo's a "maybe", whereas with a lot of the other big publishers, Denuvo's more of a certainty.

That's part of why this came as such a surprise and disappointment to me. Given that Denuvo wasn't necessarily a certainty with SEGA, and me having more faith in Amplitude than I should, I honestly didn't expect this to happen.

GlorySign wrote:

Absolutely true and this is happening as i said because Amplitude willingly when it was a free independent company sold themselves to Sega by their own free will instead of going to another publisher or getting crowdfunded projects like other small companies that did that successfully

[...]

https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/endless-space-2/blogs/452-amplitude-joins-the-sega-family

[...]

Time will tell but pretty sad times if nothing changes and this direction is the new standard, unfortunately.

Anyways much love to you guys who are passionate about good quality games and the ones that dedicate themselves to producing that with true quality and no compromise

Well said, and thanks for that link/reminder of their words when they sold out.

ElegantCaveman wrote:
They didn't need to sell out to a big publisher.

Unless you somehow have access to their finances, I will take that with a grain of salt. It's much easier to say 'take a look at all those that made it' and turn a blind eye on those that ended in the gutter when it's not your livelihood on the line.

I'm not amused by Denuvo news, but people behaving like they have forbidden budgeting knowledge and Amplitude are greedy assholes are starting to be slightly annoying.

Was going to note something similar, DNLH. I heavily dislike Denuvo, but it's irritating to narrow merge decision to simple "selling out".

DNLH wrote:

ElegantCaveman wrote:
They didn't need to sell out to a big publisher.

Unless you somehow have access to their finances, I will take that with a grain of salt. It's much easier to say 'take a look at all those that made it' and turn a blind eye on those that ended in the gutter when it's not your livelihood on the line.

I'm not amused by Denuvo news, but people behaving like they have forbidden budgeting knowledge and Amplitude are greedy assholes are starting to be slightly annoying.

As i said above, maybe you missed it: "instead of going to another publisher or getting crowdfunded projects like other small companies that did that successfully (look at Owlcat Games and their Pathfinder CRPG series and how successful they are making millions of $ out of loyal fans that love their very well made CRPGs and others). " Meaning that other companies really did made it (even financially) and also those that made it were not in Amplitude's position as ElegantCaveman very well describes: "They were an up-and-coming upstart not-quite-indie punching way above their weight, having pretty much singlehandedly revolutionized and breathed new life into a whole genre."

I think if you make a decision you should take responsibility for the results even if they are good or bad and not justify it through other excuses like "finances" or "the time was not right" or "i had no idea what will come in the future" things that you did not said when leaving Ubisoft and making your own company Amplitude because you wanted to make something different. And were you not also free will, independent deciding adults than when you left Ubisoft, have you not thought than of all "those that ended in the gutter when it's not your livelihood on the line", i guess you did but still wanted to make something great and different when you left and the results showed it as we all appreciated and loved their products

It will be also so ironic to leave Ubisoft because you wanted to do something different and found your own company as the founders of Amplitude did just to become afterwards a Ubisoft of your own (through different excuses)

+1 again for ElegantCaveman and his well written post