PC version of Mania delayed till August 29th... #FuckDenuvo

[Korke]

2 weeks for implementing the DRM
1 week for crack

So, it took longer to implement (causing all the salt from the people who bought the pre-order) than it took to crack, lmao

[shdowhunt60]

I wonder if it was worth throwing their customers good will to the pisser, as well as their money.

GG SEGA. Maybe you'll learn your lesson.

[SSF1991]

It hasn't even been a month ago since the game wasn't leaked yet, the PC version wasn't delayed, and there was next to no indicator of DRM.

...What the hell happened?

[Cyalume]

Located crack. Appears to be a small patch file that removes Denuvo for people who already own the game, as opposed to distributing the entire game itself (The "crack" for SADX back in the day was the entire game stripped of DRM/anti-piracy measures/disc-check or whatever, IIRC).

SEGA has kinda earned themselves the widespread distribution of said crack. Won't feel sorry for them.

[Sean]

There are a few exploits out there to circumvent Denuvo that are both illegal and (relatively) legal. Obviously there is the illegal method which released yesterday and enables the game to be fully pirated as of the first patch. Then, there was a simple hex edit of the 1.0 (day one) version's .exe file that allowed you to play offline but still required the game to be played through Steam. There was also a .dll file out there for this same version that accomplished the same thing, and this is what I used myself. Both the .exe and .dll modifications are now obsolete due to Sega patching the game to allow the game to be played in offline mode.

However, what made these modifications valuable is that, at least for the .dll file that I used, they bypassed the phoning home process for Denuvo entirely, meaning as long as you never updated beyond 1.0 you would never have to re-authenticate the game after playing it online once and generating a hardware-specific ticket for the first time. After Sega patched the game on day 2, Denuvo now remains active even if you play in offline mode, which means you have to sign online every once in a while to re-authenticate.

If you want to stay clean and not download the pirated version, then you would have to find a way to revert your game files to 1.0 and subsequently locate the modified .dll or perform the hex edit on the game's .exe... then you pretty much have to disable auto-update and avoid ever playing online in order to bypass Denuvo. I... honestly can't say if even going through all this trouble is worth it, since I'm not sure if doing all of this would generate a usable ticket for 1.0 anymore.

tl;dr avoid the PC version and support the devs by buying it on consoles I guess?? The biggest downside of the PC version which can't be avoided no matter what is that, even if you pirate the game, it doesn't remove Denuvo from the files, rather just fakes the authentication process, so in the scenario that Denuvo does impact performance like some have claimed, then pirates have it no better than legitimate players in that regard. Though I haven't encountered any evidence that proves Denuvo is responsible for affecting performance in Mania; for all I know it could just be wonky optimization after all

[BlueFlare]

Played Mania earlier today, Offline Mode, everything worked fine. Now tried starting it, Steam went to Online Mode and Mania started updating something. I went Offline and tried to launch Mania: "Steam is currently in Offline Mode, for the first launch go in Online Mode..." Sorry, but this definitely isn't my first launch. Good job, Sega, you bricks! 

[Graystripe2000]

Well, it's your first launch since updating. 

[Bobnik]

17 minutes ago, BlueFlare said:

Played Mania earlier today, Offline Mode, everything worked fine. Now tried starting it, Steam went to Online Mode and Mania started updating something. I went Offline and tried to launch Mania: "Steam is currently in Offline Mode, for the first launch go in Online Mode..." Sorry, but this definitely isn't my first launch. Good job, Sega, you bricks! 

That ain't even SEGA's fault, it's for every game on Steam when it gets updated. Come on, I understand you're pissed because SEGA Europe implemented Denuvo, but blaming the company for stuff they never did is really dumb imo.

[bmn]

So according to SteamSpy, Steam ownership has risen by a little under 29,000 since release day. At least 6,500 people have refunded the game. Since Steam reportedly takes 30% of sales, that's about $400,000 of revenue to Sega since release.

Sega likely paid either ~$12,000 or ~$60,000 to licence Denuvo for Mania. Denuvo themselves suggest a 15% improvement in sales figures during the initial sales window - applied to Mania, this would be about $50,000 . Realistically, however, this number would probably be much lower, given that Mania is attractively-priced and very well-received, and that the backlash has been particularly strong in this case and has probably harmed launch window sales more than usual.

So, optimistically, Sega's profited by about $38,000 (likely less than 5% of total revenue) for using Denovo, and realistically nowhere near that. They may not even profit at all longer-term, given the loss of goodwill. Was it worth the damage to your reputation, review metrics and long-term sales, and alienating both your customers and your own developers?

 

Personally, I was one of those hoping for a quick crack release (though, for a current version of Denuvo on a custom game engine, a week is still very good from what I know). Not because I want Mania to be pirated - on the contrary, it's a great example of a game that should be actively supported - but because Sega of Europe hasn't done anyone justice in how they've gone about this, and they absolutely need to be pushed as much as possible to actively remove Denuvo from the game now that it's not of use to them. Judging by Sega's record with Denuvo-integrated games, years from now Mania will be stuttering as it phones home after every level, telling people they can't play on the plane because they didn't realise there'd been a patch since they last "activated" it, possibly breaking entirely if Denuvo itself ever goes under and the activation servers disappear.

I have no real issue with the decision to use it in the first place, but Denuvo has a very clear use case, and that period is over; even to Sega, it's now more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, there's been overreaction, but honestly they invited that overreaction by how hamfistedly and underhandedly they've handled what should have been a triumph of a PC release.

[BlueFlare]

45 minutes ago, Operationgamer17 said:

Well, it's your first launch since updating. 

Since updating what exactly? I've played every day since launch and the game updated once when they fixed the online-only restriction. Can I see the update details somewhere on Steam?

 

45 minutes ago, Bobnik said:

That ain't even SEGA's fault, it's for every game on Steam when it gets updated. Come on, I understand you're pissed because SEGA Europe implemented Denuvo, but blaming the company for stuff they never did is really dumb imo.

I'm not pissed. But thanks for letting me know and I now understand the whole situation better, sorry me being anxious.

[Tracker_TD]

9 minutes ago, BlueFlare said:

Since updating what exactly? I've played every day since launch and the game updated once when they fixed the online-only restriction. Can I see the update details somewhere on Steam?

There's a new patch from earlier today:

Also worth mentioning; this patch breaks current mod support. It's likely not intentional, a lot of games have patches that accidentally bust mods; folks just didn't expect Mania to get one so soon. AFAIK a solution is being worked on. 

[BlueFlare]

@Tracker_TD, cheers for that!

[Cyalume]

More good news:  The new patch has now reportedly also been cracked. It took 7 hours from what I've heard. Don't know where the actual patch file is atm.

[shdowhunt60]

Something tells me that they aren't going to try to change their DRM implementation. I'm sure they see it as more effort than it's worth, if it was even worth any in the first place.

[Sean]

The major bug I really want fixed in the PC version is Tails in Flying Battery. He can't run through vertical cylinders for whatever reason