Ubisoft just added Denuvo to Assassins Creed Mirage via a day-1 patch a few minutes ago. AFTER all the major reviews went online.

Wait, but they already launched it without Denuvo. So pirates can easily crack the launch version without it, and only paying customers need to deal with the antipiracy bullshit? Nice, they took a pro-piracy hyperbole and made it actually real.
- DRM ONLY ever affects paying customers, ergo DRM is always unethical malware.
  Also, let’s never forget how Ghostwire Tokyo had Denuvo patched IN over a year after release.
  
  Eh, I only meant hyperbole in terms of antipiracy affecting the pirates that had to figure out how to crack it. As a broad gesture at the fact piracy (consumption) depends on piracy (effort) to work
- I'm thinking this too... like what's even the point of using denuvo if it's not applied day one? The whole point is to delay piracy so they sell more copies during launch week (in theory), so waiting until after day one completely ruins that since you can just pirate the easily cracked launch version.
  
  The point is that they purposefully left (or created) bugs in the day one version that are fixed in this patch after you install denuvo
  It’s not the first time they’ve done something like that, they broke another assassins creed game and leaked it to get people to buy the real copy, this is no different
  https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/935316-assassins-creed-directors-cut-edition/43146901
  
  It's not a day one patch, but day-1 patch. The game will be released a few hours from now.
- That's the thing: paying consumers always pay the price for DRM by having to jump through any hoops.
  
  There are no “hoops” here though?
- Sounds like they added it after the review embargo ended but before the game releases to the public.
  
  So time for those reviewers to send their version.
  
  You're right, according to Ubi the update on PC was 'included in the 41.6 GB game files ahead of Oct 5'. It was a prerelease patch, not day 1.
  Nice of Epic to start directly exploiting the lack of PC physical media around the same time people are talking about getting rid of disc drives on consoles.
- Reviewers get games prior to release day. So it may not be so likely that you can get a working game without the day 1 patch.
- Yeah, but pirates won't be able to get the newer updates/bugfixes

Ubisoft does the Ubisoft thing - nothing new under the sun.
Refund, refund, refund. The only single thing they will ever care about is the $.
- No one fucking cares. This isn’t Reddit.
  
  Why, you going to fight them one by one, Jay and Silent Bob style?
  
  No clue, cause my instance has downvotes disabled and idgaf lol
  Probably corporate bootlickere, why there are so many who feel like they need to defend the huge game companies I have no idea...

- Patient Gamers FTW
  
  I started Fallout New Vegas last month. It's pretty neat so far, glad I finally got to it after ... holy hell, it's been THAT long?!?!
- Or, just don't play UbiSoft or EA games. SEGA sometimes removes Denuvo after a time, so they're sometimes good ib a waiting list.
- Patient gamer all the way! I recently played dying light 2. Fun game but a year after release and it's still buggy as hell.
  
  One reason I'm glad to be a pretty broke parent gamer. I can only afford to spend money on games a couple times a year at best so I have to be really patient and picky about what I do decide to buy. I end up having no choice but to wait a year or more to pick up any games I'm excited about.
  
  I quite liked DL 1, but reading the reviews made me stay away from 2. It's not even about the bugs, but apparently the game is just meh.
  Maybe I'll get it in 5 years when it's 10$. Maybe.
- I'm a patient gamer so I don't normally preorder, but I made an exception with CyberPunk as a tribute for paying $5 for Witcher 3 (which was my first game of the series, I went in blind and I couldn't believe how good it was).
  I wasn't even mad with the shitshow but I decided wasn't going to play the game in that state.
  Fast forward a few years, the game runs almost 3 times as fast (went from 25 to 70 fps on my computer) and they fixed a lot of problems people were complaining about for the DLC release. Now it's ripe.
  Patient games keep being right
  
  Pretty much the same story here. Finally playing it now, and I can barely put it down. It's story is nearly as good as W3, and my car doesn't even take random hard lefts off the road for no reason whatsoever in this one. Actually, gameplay is a massive step up in general.
  
  It’s because people weren’t patient that they were able to fix it
  But it still isn’t the game they marketed it as
  
  I pre-ordered Elden Ring for a slight discount off of the launch price. No regerts whatsoever about that one. Best game of the 21st Century.
  But yeah usually I get games well after launch on sale. Starfield looks cool but they can eat a $70 bag of dicks before I pay that much.
- I'm learning this the hard way with Starfield 😢
- Hell, I'm still on Civilization III.
  
  I just play unciv instead now
  
  i’m still on fallout 2
  
  Unironically the best entry in the series. I play 5 occasionally, but 3 all the time.
  
  I’m still playing DooM. Nothing will ever top it.
- I play Factorio, it was more stable at 0.8 alpha than the average €/$ 60 AAA game at release.
- The only game I've ever preordered is Animal Crossing New Horizons. I knew it wasn't gonna be horseshit on release lmao. I wait until games are on sale and have been out for a while. My friends keep harassing me to buy Baldurs Gate and I'm not doing that until it has all dlc released and is on sale lol
  
  I'm the same way but I bought bg3 because of how not asshole they are. It's a great game and honestly worth the money. This is the first game I've bought at full price since games came on cartridges.
  
  Play Divinity 2 with your friend
  Then go into DM mode to run a DND campaign or into the SDK to build your own levels/quests

I think anyone who reviewed it should publish a secondary videos explaining this.
This seems like it's legitimately false advertising
- Where is the false advertising?
  
  None of the reviewers experienced the game with Denuvo. Reviews are a form of advertisement (good or bad)
  
  Denuvo has an impact on performance for many games, so they artificially inflated the performance, and some people don't buy games with Denuvo on principle, many reviewers will note that in their video.

If Denuvo's claim that their DRM has no negative performance impact were true, then why Ubisoft pull this shenanigan (adding Denuvo DRM just hours before release)? Ubisoft must've know their game run better without Denuvo so they want the reviewers to play the drmless version.
- Everyone knows Denuvo's statement isn't true. There are hundreds of games with Denuvo that have improved performance after being cracked, compared to the legitimately owned version. This conversation pops up all the time. It's quite funny when pirated games have a better experience. At least until Denuvo is removed to cut cost (it's a subscription).

Offering a specific version of the product for reviewers to write about that buying customers won't get? fry-im-shocked.gif

The sad part is that tomorrow they could release "Assasins Creed: Reflection". And people would make the exact same mistake all over.
You know Ubisoft has a shit reputation. You know Bethesda is famous for broken, buggy, glitchy games. You know Blizzard Activision isn't the same as old Blizzard. Don't you guys have phones?
I didn't buy this game. I didn't buy Starfield, and I didn't buy Diablo IV.
Anyone not blinded by hype could see this coming to all those games from a paid pre-alpha deluxe collectors gold season battle pass track booster mile away.
- the error is buying a game from a series with 11 games in development
  https://en.as.com/meristation/news/ubisoft-has-11-assassins-creed-games-in-the-works-n/
  they are going to run out of words in the dictionary to name these fucking games, they will start using words in a different language for the codenames.
  
  Origins was first AC game I played. 3 months after completing origins, which had bored me to death, I tried my hand at Odessey. The gameplay was exactly same. It felt like I was playing the same game again. Exact same mechanics and combat style. Uninstalled within half an hour.
  Then I tried Unity and Syndicate, because people praise them so much. And I realised that Ubisoft has been remaking the same game over and over for more than a decade now. They just change the setting and rehash everything. The animations in Unity look exactly same as Odessey.
  I had the same fear when I picked up Miles Morales, that it would feel the same as previous Spidey game. But they quickly introduced a few new mechanics which made the game feel ever so slightly different.

Why the hell would they add the DRM after release when the game is already cracked before the DRM was added? I can never understand this logic.
- To fuck over their customers. As usual.
- I don't know how the launch went but these days the release version of games is usually a buggy mess with half the content stripped out of it so they can sell it later as DLC or a season pass
- Before and on release date, most sales are to a minority of highly engaged gamers that then create reviews and hype. Ubisoft needs that hype as they know the majority of the profit they will make is from sales after the release when the general public reads those reviews and then decide to spend their dollar on the game because the reviews were good. Also the majority of the general public won't pirate anyway...
  
  But once it's out it's out. I at least understand the logic of DRM from launch because it delays cracks, but once you've released without DRM it's out there lol.
  
  I have a hard time believing most people read reviews
- But... it's not cracked?

Ubisoft making themselves an even more loveable company...

Reviewers should subtract points from the rating of every new Ubisoft game, for the real potential of something like this happening after the review.
- Reviewers take bribes.
  
  Review versions of games are kinda like bribes.
  If you're the only reviewer that doesn't get one then you won't have a review up for when people read them most, right on release day. So game companies can threaten to exclude you if you write something they don't like.
  Imo they should be an everyone or no one deal, probably even by law.

On another note this will make for an easy comparison of Denuvo ridden game vs Denuvo removed. The Day 1 Patch bringing some Fixes and Performance gains would muddy the results a bit but I think it's still a good idea to have a test like that. If the rumors/speculation about Denuvos performance impact are true I doubt even a Day 1 Patch would manage to balance out the performance difference.

Well, they've accidentally made a really easy workaround, then. Just download the day one depot and you can play without Denuvo.
- True, but will also prevent you from getting any other updates or bug fixes. This is such a scummy action for Ubi to do, I wouldn't it put it past em to pair this with some sort of game bricking.... "glitch" that needs a patch.
  
  They did exactly that In another assassins creed game

It's simple. Stop buying crap products!
- That's the thing though - they deliberately made the product crappier after people already bought it.
  Think this applies if Denuvo is included from the beginning, but it wasn't here
  
  Lesson is to make steps being even more patient and play backlogs and opt for older titles that are cheaper. Doesn't even have to be super old. Could be just within a year. Very few games these days that are an absolute much play the moment it drops. Haven't actually come across any of that caliber past decade, but maybe I'm too patient.
  
  Only dummies buy games before they're available to the public. I thought this has been known since Watch Dogs (another Ubisoft game lmao).
  
  Yeah but it's an assassin's screed game it was crap before denuvo.

Hope people demand refunds over it.
- Half the people don't know what denuvo is.

Well I know what game I'm not buying. This should just fuel the pirate ships I'd think.

ELI5?
- Denuvo is a very complex anti piracy system for games that is pretty controversial. There's a lot of evidence that it affects performance and it forces games that wouldn't otherwise need Internet to be activated online regularly.
  It's the kind of thing that a reviewer would mention and that some people would use in their buying decisions. Sneaking it in after launch is going to make some people pretty mad and I'd feel used as a reviewer.
- Denuvo is like having to call your helicopter mom every other minute to make sure you still have the right to play.
  If the call fails, or she doesn't pickup, or if you can't call for any reason (maybe your in the woods and have no service) you're instantly teleported into a dark room and all your toys are gone because everyone assumes you're a criminal now.
  
  All great explanations, thanks everyone! But this is my favorite so far, thanks!
- Denuvo is always online DRM software, that usually results in performance issues (reduced frame rate, increased latency, stuttering, etc.).
  In this case it appears Ubisoft ~~avoided~~ tried to skirt the potential bad press from performance issues by delaying the inclusion of denuvo until after people had bought the game/early reviews came out.
  
  Are there any publishers that aren't actively trying to sabotage their own userbase? Activision? Ubisoft? Blizzard? EA? Even Valve now going to town on shitty microtransactions and deleting CS:GO?
- I guess they did it since Denuvo is generally known to cause performance issues in games.
  So, reviewers gave scores on the denuvo-less game, which would have better performance, thus better scores, then they patched denuvo into it, so that they will get their drm and any performance drops will not play a role in any low scores.
  But I can't understand why reviewers can't update their review... maybe it's expensive for major reviewers?
  
  I'm sure some will, the result will still be as intended though: a higher Metacritic score
- Denuvo bad.
  In the (vain) quest to make people stop pirating, it goes so far (admittedly also comes the closest to "working") that it starts causing significant side effects. It's also apparently always online, which is a historical pet peeve for a lot of people: it doesn't add any value to the game, but it does add a buttload of possible extra ways for the game to crash or become unavailable. With no benefit to you, the player, and not much you can do about it, other than playing the games of someone who's not quite as much of a dick.

It was the same with lies of P.. I think it's becoming a trend and someone needs to stop it, it's false advertising. None of the reviews are credible, they're not reviewing the same game
- Ah shit... Removed it from my wishlist. At least I didn't already buy it.
- I think Valve has the power to end this nonsense...
- Nah, they don't need to stop this at all. This basically lets people pirate games all they want so long as the devs don't intentionally throw in a game breaking bug on the review version.

I… but… that… that isn’t how this works…
You’re putting the cat outside after it already ate the canary.

Wouldn't buy from there crap launcher anyway.
- Last I checked, you had to download and launch from Uplay even if you buy game from other stores. I haven't buyed any of their games after they pull a stunt on Brotherhood anyway.
  
  Man I uninstalled Steep from my PC yesterday. I had to download an update to their shitty launcher and then login just to remove a game from my PC. I also have ghost recon on Epic games which requires you to use the launcher to launch another launcher to launch the game.
  Buying the games is genuinely a worse experience than pirating them. Fuck Ubisoft but also EA and other publishers that do this bullshit.
  
  Yes very true Ubisoft games take much longer to launch than others. I believe because of this. And by longer I mean like an easy minute longer.

Early adopters pay more for less anyway and they will remove Denuvo after a few months, because it's a subscription service. Never understood the hurry of the crack groups.
- Never understood the hurry of the crack groups.
  You serious?
  Obviously the sooner they crack it the sooner they can sell to impatient pirates. The market is only going to decrease over time, and if you're beaten to the punch you lose out on loads of customers.
  
  Lol pirates by definition don't pay for software, there's no profit in developing cracks beyond cred.
  
  Paying for a pirated game? If I wanted to pay for it, I wouldn't be looking into pirating it in the first place.
  I also would not pirate anything at all because it's illegal and I'm only speaking hypothetically.
  
  Lol, no, pirates dont pay for anything. The cracking community is almost entirely clout based, its just for the bragging rights of being the smartest programmer out there.
  Empress is an anomaly, and I dont actually think shes ever been paid her obnoxious "fee." And even she is only claiming a fee for the clout, as a way to say "no one else can do what I do so its pay up or fuck off"

Yeah I will never not dislike Ubisoft games on principle

Fuck Ubisoft

Hardly anyone is streaming it. It's the same cringy dialogue with the same boring game as its predecessors. I haven't seen anything in any of the streams that would change my mind.
- That ahould be a DLC.

It’s Ubisoft, who would be surprised? Pirates get a better experience than paying customers and it’s been that way for over a decade

Ubisoft is pretty much the most evil gaming company so this is not surprising at all.
- EA, Konami and Blizzard give good competition, I wouldn’t be so sure.
  
  OOTL, Konami?

So even if they had sold it on Steam, this was likely not going to work on Steam Deck? Doesn't this denuvo kind of stuff cause issues?
- Denuvo doesn't prevent games working on Steam Deck, but depending on how it's implemented it can cause other problems like preventing a game from launching if it hasn't been able to connect online in a while, or weird performance issues. It varies from game to game.
- Denuvo works perfectly fine on the Steam Deck/Linux. IDK why people keep repeating this.
  
  Good to know. I haven't run into any issues, but I dunno if any games I've played had it. I had considered getting Mirage for Steam Deck, but I really don't want to own it on ubisofts app.
- This misconception with DRM making it unplayable on steam deck I think stems from 3rd party anti-cheat software flagging Linux players. Denuvo "works" fine on steam deck and Linux as a whole, same goes for anti-cheats. Developers always have the option to tune the anti-cheats to allow Linux players, but only some of them do.

And people wonder why pirates still exist

What is the point of that, do they have a contract with denuvo stating that they must apply it or are they just stupid or something?

Somebody ELI5 this for me
- I'm not following closely and haven't gamed on PC in a while but:
  Denovo is a technology that is supposed to prevent copying games (DRM). Not sure what it's current state is or might be mixing it up with other DRM, but DRM is known for causing headaches for paying customers. Using excessive system resources, refusal to launch for legitimate paying customers, spyware/excessive data collected and sent to a corporation, etc. In some games, volunteers will patch bugs out of a game, and this will cause the game to think it's cracked and refuse to launch.
  Some DRM is "phone home" and can't be played offline, so people in remote areas can't play. And sometimes the company doesn't want to keep servers online when the game has been out for 10 years, so people that purchased the game can no longer play.
  In this case, the company let reviewers rate the game and got the initial scores and sales, then pushed the unpopular DRM update. It's scummy. If you're using it, then use it. Don't bait and switch.

We're still playing Tower Climbing simulators?
- Which, the older, the modern, or the far ones?