Emulation is one of the biggest reasons why anyone would buy a Nintendo Switch. While piracy has probably boosted the sales of the handheld console, Nintendo isn’t too thrilled with the idea that there are people out there playing Tears of the Kingdom on a Steam Deck, which explains why the company has now added anti-piracy software to its Developer Portal.
Exactly one year ago, cybersecurity company Irdeto announced that it would be partnering with Nintendo to bring its Anti-Tamper Digital Rights Management (DRM) software Denuvo to the Switch. Cue exasperated groaning from everyone in the gaming community.
The middleware that has been mainly used on PC games has become popular among developers because of its ability to prevent warez groups from cracking games immediately after launch, a period during which most sales of a game are recorded.
It has also become unpopular among players for historically being utter trash that causes performance issues and locks paying customers out of their games, while still being cracked all the time by pirates, thus defeating its entire purpose for existing.
Electronic Arts was the first developer to make use of the DRM in FIFA 15, and though the game was eventually cracked by Chinese pirate group 3DM, it took significantly longer than usual. However, over time, crackers became more proficient in bypassing Denuvo’s protection, with games such as Middle-earth: Shadow of War and FIFA 18 being cracked on their release dates.
Since its launch, Denuvo has been criticized heavily by gamers due to its impact on gaming performance and constant connection requirement. Similarly often reported are cases where those who legitimately purchased their games were unable to play due to bugs in Denuvo software.
Though the company has strongly denied these allegations, several gamers and hardware testers, including Overlord Gaming, have proven how Denuvo affects performance (particularly frame rates) on games such as Dishonored 2 and Lords of the Fallen. In fact, the director of Tekken 7 blamed Denuvo’s DRM for performance issues on the PC version of the game.
Considering how beefy PCs are compared to the Nintendo Switch, many gamers are anticipating a massive drop in performance on Switch titles. The Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection will likely be used by third-party developers more than Nintendo itself, as the tool’s main use is to block play via emulators such as Yuzu, a fact Irdeto’s CEO Doug Lowther implied.
As gamers, we know first-hand how piracy negatively affects the gaming industry. We’re thrilled to be part of the Nintendo Developers Portal, so that we can provide the latest technologies to help fight this issue for Nintendo Switch players and developers. We witness an increasing need to protect against emulation on PC from game launch, our solution is a must have for publishers to monetize the games fairly on this platform and also not impact PC game sales.
The statement feels incredibly disingenuous in the face of the well documented issues the software causes, all the while preventing exactly zero games it is equipped with from eventually getting pirated. Meanwhile, some developers have famously uploaded their games to torrent sites themselves in order to allow less well-off gamers to experience their creations for free.
We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out, but it definitely spells no good.
