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Why even bother implementing DRM if it gets cracked anyways? People who cannot afford the game won't buy it even if DRM was perfect. This is also supported by the EU study that was here on HN recently.


Most of the money made by an AAA game is made in the first week or two of sales; DRM that takes a week or two to crack is “good enough” from the POV of the publisher.


Good point. I think there might be a win-win solution: If DRM degrades the experience so much, they should release a patch e.g. after two weeks (maybe a month?) from release which removes the DRM.


Many publishers do exactly this, although usually the timescales are a bit longer & it’s not announced as any kind of formal promise.


To add to the other comments, 3rd-party DRM providers such as Denuvo are very careful to avoid claiming totally invulnerability to cracks; the cutting edge is all about covering the initial post release that will represent 99% of the volume of the sales curve.

Now whether this actually helps sales is still out for debate -- some data points to piracy ultimately increasing lifetime sales of a product (see: Microsoft Windows)




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