Fans Aren’t Happy About that DRM, Apparently
If you’re unhappy with some aspect of a game that’s been released on Steam, there’s a way for your voice to be heard. Simply buy said game and downvote it. Sometimes, a whole mess of users will do this at once, in order to protest a (real or perceived) problem with a game. Sonic Mania is the latest game to get review-bombed, so to speak, over the inclusion of Denuvo.
Essentially, Denuvo makes it so a given game is online-only. For a retro-focused title like Sonic Mania, this is something of a controversial decision. Fans were quick to voice their discontent about this choice, bombarding Mania’s Steam page with a flurry of negative reviews. Although, even after this guerrilla tactic was implemented, the game is still (as of this article) sitting at 72% positive. It seems that most people are okay with this issue, though you wouldn’t know it from scrolling through the first few pages of reviews.
Whether or not you agree with their tactics, they get results. After this review-bombing commenced, Sega was quick to respond with an official statement:
“Like you, we’ve noticed an error in the Steam store not mentioning the DRM for Sonic Mania.
We’re fixing that now.
Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we’re investigating reports on that.
We’re also investigating other issues like controller support, these are all PC specific things that Christian and the team have been working on these last few weeks
Please bear with us while we collate and investigate problems that are being brought to our attention.”
Still, even after an attempted course correction, the presence of Denuvo is a serious flaw for a lot of dedicated PC gamers. It’s not unusual for people to totally boycott a game if the software is included. We’ll see whether or not this makes a measurable impact on Mania’s PC sales in the coming weeks.