Steam users and the larger PC gaming community are lashing out at Capcom over a streak of sneaky DRM updates as the Japanese gaming giant continues to flirt with controversy following its divisive statements last year about video game pricing and the nature of video game mods.
Capcom was caught with its hands in the cookie jar earlier this month after users reported that it had added Enigma DRM protection to older titles, including Resident Evil Revelations 2.
Digital rights management software like Enigma is generally frowned upon in gaming. The most popular DRM software, Denuvo, is notorious for causing performance issues on PC. However, the software company insists that such allegations are untrue.
Denuvo is also an expensive tool, used to protect games from hacking, cheating, and piracy. Most of the time, developers only pay for Denuvo for a limited time period following the game’s launch and afterwards, the DRM is removed from the game. Capcom, in its bid to offer continued protection to its older titles albeit at a lower cost, decided to continue using DRM software, switching out Denuvo with Enigma.
Now, Capcom is facing the collective wrath of the internet as they take out their frustrations the only way they can: by posting negative reviews.
Resident Evil Revelations and Resident Evil Revelations 2, in particular, have seen their “Recent Reviews” on Steam go down the drain to “Overwhelmingly Negative” and “Mixed”, respectively. A more recent title, Monster Hunter Rise, was on its way to becoming a late bloomer on PC, especially on Steam Deck, only to become unplayable because of the DRM updates. As a result, its “Recent Reviews” on Steam are “Mostly Negative” as the uproar gets louder.
It’s believed that Capcom’s decision to start applying new (and cheaper) DRM to older games is the direct consequence of a Street Fighter 6 tournament showing off a naked Chun-Li to the world in November 2023.
Given Capcom’s statement last year that “all mods are defined as cheats”, its DRM crusade on Steam is unlikely to stop anytime soon.
It remains to be seen if this negativity will spill over to Dragon’s Dogma 2 and affect its sales on March 22.
