““I think it’s super hard for a gamer,” Ullmann tells Rock Paper Shotgun. “I’m a gamer myself, and therefore I know what I’m talking about. I think it’s super hard to see, as a gamer, what is the immediate benefit for me that a certain game developer, game publisher, is using our anti-piracy services.” This gap, coupled with the fact that Denuvo “simply works” and “pirates cannot play games” which use it, as Ullmann puts it, are two main contributors to its negative reputation, he argues.”
Let’s not forget about being always-online or not being able to test different wine/Proton setups for fear of activating the DRM. Or even trying simply to run the game in some situations…
unless you buy a game that later adds denuvo, of course
Thankfully it doesn’t happen very often and if a game is out for a long while it’s a safe bet it very likely won’t be added. If they do though that curator still helps because it makes it more visible on the store page, so you can give a negative review, block its updates, and downgrade to a previous version without it (whether that’s officially through Steam’s downgrade tools, or downloading it elsewhere depends on the circumstance). Or remove it from your account if you don’t care about it anymore.
Adding denuvo later wouldn’t do any good, if a game launches without it it’s going to get cracked instantly
Exactly, adding it later just means people can use the earlier versions. Some wiseasses may argue about missing content but that’s a stupid argument since cracked games don’t get updates to them either unless new cracks are published, and that doesn’t happen as often as actual updates are published.