‘Doom: The Dark Ages’ DRM Is Locking Out Linux Users Who Bought the Game
As gaming on Linux becomes more popular, Denuvo’s “activations” limit will become a bigger problem.
Just another reason to wait long after release to buy a game. Denuvo charges games companies to administer the DRM infrastructure and most developers will strip it out of their games after it's been out for a while.
Buying games on launch is one of the most anti-customer experiences you can get. And that's saying something in our wonderful capitalist economy
Buying a game post-launch:
No brainer, imo.
You forgot a bonus point:
Cons:
Remember when games used to, at least sometimes... do actual internal beta testing to iron out performance bugs and such?
Now we are all alpha and beta testers, all the time.
Sometimes even AAA and 'AAAA' games release, and then unrelease before the alpha or beta is even done!
Yeah, patient gaming for me, haven't preordered or gone into an early access game in almost a decade now...
Pirating single player games is unfortunately the way to go, considering you BUY a single player game and STILL get fucked on it.
Patient gamers represent! The older I get, the less I care about FOMO. The less I care about FOMO, the happier I am. It's a beautiful cycle.
/me goes back to playing snes games on an emulator
They also typically go on really good sales right around the time denuvo gets removed.
Refund and wait for a crack. Fuck Denuvo and fuck Bethesda for using them
It's not really Bethesda anymore though is it? Either ID software or Microsoft, no?
I completely forgot Microsoft bought Bethesda lol explains a lot
You get what you pay for. You buy denuvo, you get denuvo.
Earlier this year, I got a game I liked on steam. Pretty much 3d Rimworld. After playing for 20 hours over a few weeks, I sporadically started getting errors about me having "no hardware activations" left for the game, and how I should wait 24 hours. I have never installed it on any other machine.
It is so very silly that a pirated copy would be the more seamless experience.
I remember when their DRM was just telling you that you'd go to HELL if you pirated it.
🥺 pwease money?
All this drm nonsense ever does is punishes the paying customers and maybe delays cracked version by a few days, but fucking pencil pushers still put it into everything.
maybe delays cracked version by a few days
Denuvo has not been cracked since 2023. The only pirated copies of Doom Eternal were using a leaked denuvo-free build until Bethesda removed denuvo entirely 3 years after release, and unfortunately they didn't leak a denuvo-free build this time, so you are probably going to have to wait a couple of years or so.
This is why native support still matters. Anything not supported can pull the rug out from under you at any time.
Except for when glibc updates and breaks games with native support (but not the ones running through a compatibility layer). Although that definitely happens way less than devs purposefully pushing changes that break on Linux.
Yeah, games through Proton are a bit like containerized apps, you get everything you need to run them in the Proton package.
Linux has never been good at running old binaries. It's always assumed that you are running software compiled for the current version if your distribution, and programs that are not available can be compiled from source (because you obviously use only open source software). For everything else you need to use compatibility layers that provide necessary environment.
I'm not following your argument. You're perfectly capable of having the rug pulled out from under you with a native Linux build too.
you aren't buying doom because it has denuvo. im not buying doom because i am boycotting microsoft products. we are probably a little similar
Also it's $80 fucking dollars for the base edition. Everyone complaining about Nintendo game pricing but Doom gets a pass apparently.
I'm more and more convinced that Doom 2016 was the peak. Eternal had that one song that kicked ass but that was mostly it.
Doom 2 was the peak. 2016 was a strong reimagining of Doom 3, but it was already trying to be something Doom wasn't.
I disagree. Doom 3 was trying to be constant darkness and horror. Never forget the lack of duct tape. Doom 2016 was a strong sequel to 2 with its wide open spaces and fast-paced action.
I don't want to feel like I'm being hunted by scary monsters. I want to be the monster.
anti-consumer feature is anti-consumer. more news at 11
I never buy/install games with Denuvo. Guess it will be a while before I'm playing this.
Thanks to this news, there will be a version without Denuvo quite quickly. 🏴☠️
While it has Denuvo it can get fucked, they'll remove it in a few years, I'm a very patient gamer with a family group that has 1.5k games in library.
Same, I'm happy to wait for Denuvo to be removed, for the game patches to come out, and Nvidia to fucking fix their god damn drivers. Plus side, I'll pay a reasonable price for the game when I buy it.
Fuck Microsoft. They enshittify everything and they support a genocide by helping to select targets to murder. No game is worth supporting this.
Urge to pirate, rising…
I've downloaded software that I had paid for, simply because of the bullshit involved with DRM, licence unlocking, etc.
If the user experience of a paid software or service is inferior to a pirated version, then the developers are doing something wrong.
Necessity*
Or you could always just not play the game? Is that not an option?
But I'm already doing that. I want to do my part to dissuade bad software practices.
Who am I kidding I'm just going to keep working through the Cacowards forever.
Denuvo identifies a user opening a game with multiple versions of Proton as multiple machines. It thinks that's piracy and locks the user out of the game
Seems like it should be an easy patch, right? Assuming they have any desire to (I think it "runs" on Steam Deck, so that might be enough incentive)
Denuvo's whole schtick is that your unique system environment gets used as a part of the "unlocking key" of sorts, so it would definitely not be simple. For example windows users face the same issue with denuvo whenever windows updates, although obviously that doesn't happen often enough to be an actual issue.
Aside from screwing Linux users, they're also screwing AMD users with forced ray-tracing + broken FSR, and I'd imagine there's also a lot of overlap there.
I have FSR working (Win10+ AMD 7900XTX), but it's obvious that they have screwed the pooch in optimization.
I just finished Doom: Eternal yesterday before the Dark Ages came out and it ran fully maxed out at 1440p @ 240 FPS without upscaling and was gorgeous.
Dark Ages looks pretty much the same as Eternal, but runs at 120-144 FPS.
That's still absolutely playable but how did it lose 50% performance in an IDTech game?
Even amd users are suffering like Linux users Microsoft got no chill 💀
Looks like sailing is back on the menu, boys!
Only way for this to change is to vote with your (virtual) feet and wallet and "cancel" games that have DRM, in my opinion.
Good luck, there is DRM on almost every peace of software you buy. Most of it you never notice but it is there. I am guessing Id Bethesda Microsoft went a little too hard on their DRM and didn't learn from EAs blunder. We will probably have another Spore situation here and its becomes going to become the number one pirated game of 2025. Or maybe not, the last Doom game wasn't that great and I am assuming this one is trash too.
With EA and Spore - SecuROM was a straight up root kit. Basically malware. Pretty sure on the Sims 2 forums there were people who had their computers bricked. (Sims 2 was already messy enough to reinstall sometimes, EA did lots of weirdness with the registry.)
Sony did something similar with music CD’s. Their elaborate scheme to prevent you from ripping your CD’s more than three times or whatever created a vulnerability that was actively exploited by malware developers.
That probably explains all of the crashes reported by windows users too. ID Software what happened? You were supposed to be the chosen one.
Owned by zenimax, owned by microsoft. Same owners of activision blizzard. Shafted Mick Gordon. So this is kinda 100% as expected.
Tim Willits
Gonna be honest, if Dark Ages represents the future of Doom: Doom died with Eternal. I've played probably 75% of the game and it's enough to turn me off of every future title.
Edit: Bizarre fucking takes in this thread. How many of you that liked DA played on controller?
Final edit: liking Dark Ages and disliking Eternal is like preferring lunchables to a NYC slice.
doom past doom 2 never felt like doom anyhow.
Ultimate Doom which was doom2 with harder levels was great fun as well, but yeah, doom2.exe was peak.
Hard disagree. Doom Eternal was a rhythm game disguised as an FPS and I hated it. It's crazy to me how widely acclaimed it was even over Doom 2016, which I thought was amazing. I'm glad they shifted back towards a more grounded FPS style that doesn't force you to juggle your entire weapon arsenal nonstop the entire game.
I really enjoyed 2016, couldn't get into Eternal though. I'm definitely going to hold off on this new one until it's been out longer and goes on sale, unless it gets standing ovations. Then, if I don't like it I haven't lost much.
Is Dark Ages really more grounded? What the hell does that mean here?
I had issues with Eternal demanding I use the weapons the way the devs intended, but when I saw parrying was a central part in Dark Ages, it was an easy decision to wait. Icon of Sin was peak because it was chaos management. I managed the Marauders, but just couldn't be assed to beat the Dark Lord.
Good thing the indie scene is making their own Doom likes.
If Doom Eternal is a rhythm game, what does that make Metal: Hellsinger aka "Doom but as a rhythm game"?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1061910/Metal_Hellsinger/
(really great game btw)
A rhythm game?
Who did you get that from? Doom Eternal is in no way a rhythm game, weapon swapping was no different from 2016 to DE. The only enemy that 'requires' it is the marauder and god forbid you need to switch between two weapons.
No, better to strip everything that made Doom good - down to the fucking double jump. Bad joke.
Doom died with Ethernal. Dark Ages is just more of that decline.
The idea that anyone likes doom 2016 without liking dark ages despite dark ages being more of a gameplay successor to 2016 - genuinely fucking baffling.
I believe it depends on the player’s personal playstyle. I’ve played Doom 3, Doom 2016, and Doom Eternal. Doom 3 is for fans of horror-focused FPS games, Doom 2016 offers action at a normal pace, and Doom Eternal feels like a high-speed dance.
I’ll try Dark Ages next year, but I think if they had added even more mechanics than the Eternal had, the game might be more like an RPG than an FPS.
What don't you like about it?
Every single encounter is braindead. There are like 8 true demons. There are 3-4 weapons (the others are worthless), and literally never a reason to use any of them but the impaler and the BFC (which is functionally completely different than the BFG).
I have not used my brain for any of the encounters. I throw my shield to deal with checks notes 80% of the encounter, spamming parry and impaler headshots to simply annihilate every boss or even remotely threatening enemy.
The game is fucking boring.
Edit: this isn't even discussing the fact that it seems like every encounter is dEfEaT eNeMiEs To BrEaK sHiElD. Very dumbed down sequel to 2016.
Seeing this pains me, especially considering Id Software's history with Linux. Prior to being bought by Bethesda, most of Id's games had official native Linux ports. Even Doom 3 had a native Linux port, it doesn't seem to work anymore but there are source ports like Dhewm3 available for it.
This is what happens when bean counters make the decisions. Linux is only 4% of market share so I am sure the cost of supporting Linux users was not worth it.
It wouldn't astonish me if this were a semi-deliberate act by microsoft. While they're trying very hard to expand to every platform, non-windows pcs seem to be the exception. Linux and OSX have the game gamepass support as your phone.
Man, they're taking the "dark ages" part seriously.
Didn't fall for it, even when they whisper sweet little lies in my ear, I just say to myself, I quit gaming. I'm done. If I can't own it, I ain't playing it. And now I just joined the class war. Because you know, there is no war but the class war.
I can't own it, I'm pirating it.
If I can’t own, I pwn.
If even not that, perhaps you can look into [wning
Meanwhile, DRM-free Doom (2016) is here, it also runs quite good >>> https://www.gog.com/en/game/doom_2016
with good music too
Well cool, now I know not to pick up the game yet.
Eh 70 dollars for 10 hours of repetitive gameplay is bad value anyway.
Don't tell competitive gamers that. LOL, CS, Overwatch, COD whatever is about a simple game loop for those who enjoy that loop.
No way, it’s only 10 hours? Eternal was longer than that, and so was 2016!
I finished DOOM (2016) in 8.8 hours. Granted I didn't stop for collectables and was on normal mode. I tried Eternal but got bored after 2 hours so that's what I'm basing it off.
My steam friends currently have about 17 hours (they bought it early) but they like collecting stuff and getting 100% achievements. I'm not sure how long the story is without 100%ing it but it shouldn't be too different from the other games.
Was this before or after this: https://lemmy.world/post/29593011
Because I'm curious why Valve would have gone to so much trouble to make the game run on Linux just to ruin that.
Well the game runs well if you just launch it with only one Proton configuration and keep playing on that. The issue is changing the Proton version is recognized as multiple installations by the DRM and it locks you out after a couple of tries.
This is what I didn't understand. Thank you for explaining.
After how id treated my man Mick Gordon, I'm torrenting cracked versions of their games here on out - pulling the patient gamer card.
Fuck the management at id. Just another corporate machine.
Why though?
Read the article?
Only pay money for open source because you can actually own it
Pause?
am gonna stick to Classic Doom(including doom 64) ,thanks.
even tho i didnt play doom 64 for a while.
+Doesn't steam have DRM already
Not that I would have bought it - not my type of game - but this game gets on my blacklist.