The Denuvo DRM Thread

[Raghar]

And they removed Denuvo From Homeworld 3. I still don't want to touch that with a pole.

 

[Arthandas]

What's the deal with Atlus and denuvo? How can they afford to put this shit in literally every single game and keep it indefinitely while even the AAA publishers remove it after a year or two? From my understanding, denuvo is a monthly subscription, do they really pay monthly to protect old shit like P3P, P4U or Nocturne?

 

[flyingjohn]

What's the deal with Atlus and denuvo? How can they afford to put this shit in literally every single game and keep it indefinitely while even the AAA publishers remove it after a year or two? From my understanding, denuvo is a monthly subscription, do they really pay monthly to protect old shit like P3P, P4U or Nocturne?

You can buy a subscription or do a one-time for life payment. Atlus probably pays out of its pockets instead of the publisher just to spite pirates.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

the stupid thing is who in their right mind would pay for an inferior version of a game. The DRM is bloated. DRM only impacts legitimate customers not pirates. Why the fuck would you ever use it?! Its like a placebo - for pirates we can just wait you out we're not going to pay the ransom, and the majority of people do wouldn't have the first fucking clue how to pirate a game anyway. Denuvo only works for the first week of sales according to their own stats and only accounts for 20% of retained revenue, which means that keeping it in the game a week after release is just being a dick and those people that bought the game rather than pirated it are pathetic losers who would buy the game anyway there's no proof that those people had the mental capacity needed to know how to pirate games safely. This rock keeps tigers away.

ChatGPT also thinks that the figures aren't honest, its telling me that despite this being disclosed the number cannot be verified.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

that awkward moment when even a dumbfuck manipulated ai has more common sense than rich people.

 

[racofer]

who in their right mind would pay for an inferior version of a game.

Quite a few people here, apparently.

 

[Elttharion]

What's the deal with Atlus and denuvo? How can they afford to put this shit in literally every single game and keep it indefinitely while even the AAA publishers remove it after a year or two? From my understanding, denuvo is a monthly subscription, do they really pay monthly to protect old shit like P3P, P4U or Nocturne?

Sega does this for all their games, IIRC Yakuza 7 still has Denuvo on Steam even after they released a DRM-free version on GOG.

 

[Modron]

Sega does this for all their games, IIRC Yakuza 7 still has Denuvo on Steam even after they released a DRM-free version on GOG.

Capcom removed denuvo and put in their own DRM then went further and added the drm to several games that were already quite a few years old, things can always be worse. This was their anti modding kneejerk reaction after being embarrassed by some tournament host forgetting to turn off his Chun-Li nude mods for Street Fighter 6.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

DRM only impacts legitimate customers not pirates. Why the fuck would you ever use it?! Its like a placebo - for pirates we can just wait you out we're not going to pay the ransom, and the majority of people do wouldn't have the first fucking clue how to pirate a game anyway.

Honestly this is not true anymore probably these days. There are a lot of countries now where buying game is possible but piracy as a culture is embedded heavily (and the fact that most games have dogshit regional pricing) that they will just pirate your game but will otherwise begrudgingly buy them.

Most of SEA, Eastern Europe, South America are probably this. It's legacy of basically decades of video games only being accesiable through piracy for most people.

And despite it's unpopularity, so long a game is decent enough, people won't bitch much about performance and will still buy it. Not everybody have to play in 4k ultra high all the time and for people with adequate PC playing normally in medium or so FPS dip here and there is probably fine.

 

[Arthandas]

What's the deal with Atlus and denuvo? How can they afford to put this shit in literally every single game and keep it indefinitely while even the AAA publishers remove it after a year or two? From my understanding, denuvo is a monthly subscription, do they really pay monthly to protect old shit like P3P, P4U or Nocturne?

Sega does this for all their games, IIRC Yakuza 7 still has Denuvo on Steam even after they released a DRM-free version on GOG.

No, they don't. Almost all Yakuzas are denuvo free, and they removed denuvo from some games after some time.

 

[Elttharion]

What's the deal with Atlus and denuvo? How can they afford to put this shit in literally every single game and keep it indefinitely while even the AAA publishers remove it after a year or two? From my understanding, denuvo is a monthly subscription, do they really pay monthly to protect old shit like P3P, P4U or Nocturne?

Sega does this for all their games, IIRC Yakuza 7 still has Denuvo on Steam even after they released a DRM-free version on GOG.

No, they don't. Almost all Yakuzas are denuvo free, and they removed denuvo from some games after some time.

The old ones are denuvo free ye but every Yakuza released since Yakuza 7 still has denuvo. IIRC the last time Sega removed denuvo from one of their games was in 2019.

 

[cvv]

There are a lot of countries now where buying game is possible but piracy as a culture is embedded heavily

Having grown up in a country like this I can confirm. Nobody I knew in my high school would dream of buying a game. What a ridiculous waste of money that would be.

Except when the piracy protection was so ingenious it took some time to crack it. I remember me and a couple of my highschool friends bought a legal copy of Settlers 3. We were huge Settlers fans, waiting for the next instalment eagerly. When it came out, we obtained it on the high seas as per usual and soon found out the pirated game is intentionally borked - blacksmiths were making pigs intead of swords. So we got mad and actually bought a legal copy.

This history and experience makes me very suspicious to claims like
- "piracy is only a service problem" - yeah, in the US and Yurop; everywhere else, not quite so
- "good game doesn't need protection, it's gonna sell oodles anyway" - sure, a good game sells a million copies unprotected but could sell twice as much (or more) protected, especially in Russia, China and South America
- "pirates don't buy games anyway" oooooh they do, they absolutely do if they're fans and they don't have any other choice

 

[cvv]

DRM only impacts legitimate customers not pirates

That's not true anymore either. With Empress either finally snapping and running naked into the woods, never to be heard about again, or having been paid of by Denuvo, there's nobody who can crack Denuvo nowadays.

As for the performance claims surrounding Denuvo, honestly people will believe what they wanna believe. I tried to get to the bottom of this and concluded most of the claims are BS. Like people claiming cracked Denuvo games perform way better than uncracked, not realizing Empress wasn't actually removing or disabling Denuvo, just rerouting it, so it was still running as normal but with false negative results. And bunch of other BS claims like that. According to Empress it does utilize the CPU to some small degree and if we were still gaming on Pentiums we would be screwed but we aren't.

So in the last few years it's actually precisely the opposite - Denuvo impacts pirates quite badly, while legitimate consoomers are oblivious to any impact.

 

[Arthandas]

IIRC the last time Sega removed denuvo from one of their games was in 2019.

They removed Denuvo last year from Total War Saga.

people claiming cracked Denuvo games perform way better than uncracked, not realizing Empress wasn't actually removing or disabling Denuvo

People also compared games after denuvo was officially removed from them, and they performed better. There's a reason why denuvo games have 300-400MB exes.

 

[JC'sBarber]

Playing games with Denuvo in them is analogous to being cuckolded.

 

[cvv]

people claiming cracked Denuvo games perform way better than uncracked, not realizing Empress wasn't actually removing or disabling Denuvo

People also compared games after denuvo was officially removed from them

Is there any credible, objective analysis of this? Something Digital Foundry or some such did? I'd actually love to read up on this. Because most of what I have found was of the "trust me bro" kind.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

people claiming cracked Denuvo games perform way better than uncracked, not realizing Empress wasn't actually removing or disabling Denuvo

People also compared games after denuvo was officially removed from them

Is there any credible, objective analysis of this? Something Digital Foundry or some such did? I'd actually love to read up on this. Because most of what I have found was of the "trust me bro" kind.

There have been some test even in PC Gamer or something. I mean not Digital Foundry level.

Denuvo definitely impacts performances. It will make a game that would otherwise run fine in the most powerful rig to sometimes sutters and had fps drop.

That being said it's not to a level that would be considered unplayable unless the base game itself is also garbagely optimized.

 

[cvv]

Denuvo definitely impacts performances. It will make a game that would otherwise run fine in the most powerful rig to sometimes sutters and had fps drop.

I've found drastic examples like that - AC Origins or one of the RE games - but in all of them the devs combined Denuvo with their own DRM, resulting in a literal shit show.

I mean the first Denuvo implementation was in the first Lords of the Fallen which I've bought and enjoyed without any performance problems. And that was 10 years ago, with a 13 yo CPU.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

According to Empress it does utilize the CPU to some small degree

Well between running the OS, the Game, What ever kernel level cheat prevention engine and finally the DRM itself... There's bound to be an impact, games are bloated. You can throw as much hardware at the problem but you're saying people in poorer countries can barely afford to buy games, you never mentioned the hardware. You'd think new releases would be inaccessible to those markets because buying the game is expensive, the hardware would be a years wage. That to me is unreasonable. You're expecting them to pay for a title that is already overpriced, then have the hardware to factor in your bloated ass DRM and other bloated middleware only to end up with a mediocre as fuck game that wasn't worth it. To me, that speaks to an industry that has utterly lost the plot, people have to stop supporting this and coming up with excuses. I mean we never tolerated back in the day so why tolerate it now, PCs were expensive in the 90s but we had the advantage that every customer mattered and treating them with the respect owed to them meant success.

DRM can have its place but only if the developer works with their customers to determine when its suitable to move on from DRM - its that lack of moving on from DRM that is unethical. Make your new release money sure! but once you've made that money there's absolutely no reason to keep it.

 

[cvv]

your bloated ass DRM

Again, you're assuming. Nobody knows how "bloated" Denuvo is, except the Denuvo people and they're not telling. The hit may very well be 20 FPS, it can also mean running a Notepad in the background while you're playing. Or anything in between.

As I said, the first Denuvo came in the 2014 LotF, people were playing that shit on 10+ yo hardware with no noticeable slowdowns. But again, people will believe what they want or need to believe.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

What's the deal with Atlus and denuvo? How can they afford to put this shit in literally every single game and keep it indefinitely while even the AAA publishers remove it after a year or two? From my understanding, denuvo is a monthly subscription, do they really pay monthly to protect old shit like P3P, P4U or Nocturne?

You can buy a subscription or do a one-time for life payment. Atlus probably pays out of its pockets instead of the publisher just to spite pirates.

Atlus is particularly butthurt about piracy and emulation. Almost like Nintendo. I made a fast estimation of the situaltion from wikipedia, I found a total of 254 "unique" Atlus games (I am discarding mobile shit and I am counting releases of the same game on different systems as a single game).

list

[1] "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei"
[2] "The Karate Kid"
[3] "Erika to Satoru no Yume Bōken"
[4] "King of Kings"
[5] "Friday the 13th"
[6] "Dungeon Explorer"
[7] "Kwirk"
[8] "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II"
[9] "Battle Fleet"
[10] "Cosmo Tank"
[11] "Jantei Monogatari"
[12] "Puzzle Boys"
[13] "Pocket Stadium"
[14] "Spud's Adventure"
[15] "Amazing Tater"
[16] "Rockin' Kats"
[17] "Quiz Marugoto The World"
[18] "Somer Assault"
[19] "Wacky Races"
[20] "Jantei Monogatari 2: Uchuu Tantei Deiban"
[21] "Quiz Marugoto The World II"
[22] "BlaZeon"
[23] "Armored Police Metal Jack"
[24] "Shin Megami Tensei"
[25] "Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible"
[26] "Run Saber"
[27] "GP-1"
[28] "Super Widget"
[29] "Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible II"
[30] "Oh My God!"
[31] "Power Instinct"
[32] "Majin Tensei"
[33] "Kabuki Rocks"
[34] "Shin Megami Tensei II"
[35] "Jantei Monogatari 3: Saver Angel"
[36] "Shin Megami Tensei if..."
[37] "GP-1: Part II"
[38] "Hebereke no Popoon"
[39] "Naname De Magic!"
[40] "Power Instinct 2"
[41] "Print Club"
[42] "Majin Tensei II: Spiral Nemesis"
[43] "Megami Tensei Gaiden: Another Bible"
[44] "Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible III"
[45] "Last Bible Special"
[46] "Kyūyaku Megami Tensei"
[47] "Kat's Run: Zen-Nippon K Car Senshuken"
[48] "Jack Bros."
[49] "Gouketsuji Ichizoku 2: Chotto Dake Saikyou Densetsu"
[50] "High Velocity: Mountain Racing Challenge"
[51] "Gunbird"
[52] "Tetsudō O '96: Ikuze Okuban Chōja"
[53] "Seijuu Maden: Beasts & Blades"
[54] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner"
[55] "DonPachi"
[56] "Gogetsuji Legends"
[57] "Pro Kishi Jinsei Simulation: Shōgi no Hanamichi"
[58] "My Best Friends: St. Andrew Jogakuen Hen"
[59] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner - Akuma Zensho"
[60] "Strikers 1945"
[61] "Revelations: Persona"
[62] "DigiCro: Digital Number Crossword"
[63] "Purikura Daisakusen"
[64] "Sengoku Blade"
[65] "Heaven's Gate"
[66] "Galeoz"
[67] "Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride"
[68] "Cannon Dancer"
[69] "DoDonPachi"
[70] "Peak Performance"
[71] "Giten Megami Tensei: Tokyo Mokushiroku"
[72] "Touge: King the Spirits 2"
[73] "Groove on Fight"
[74] "Minakata Hakudō Tōjō"
[75] "Nanpō Hakudō Tōjō"
[76] "Tetsudō O 2"
[77] "Car & Driver Presents: Grand Tour Racing '98"
[78] "Purikura Pocket"
[79] "Ronde"
[80] "Purikura Pocket 2"
[81] "Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers"
[82] "Princess Crown"
[83] "Snowboard Kids"
[84] "DoDonPachi Campaign Version"
[85] "Snow Break"
[86] "Final Round"
[87] "Kartia: The Word of Fate"
[88] "Hellnight"
[89] "Sol Divide"
[90] "Trap Gunner"
[91] "Touge Max 2"
[92] "Advan Racing"
[93] "Thousand Arms"
[94] "Purikura Pocket 3"
[95] "ESP Ra.De."
[96] "Snowboard Kids Plus"
[97] "Snowboard Kids 2"
[98] "Hamster Paradise"
[99] "Revelations: The Demon Slayer"
[100] "Persona 2: Innocent Sin"
[101] "GuruGuru Garakutaz"
[102] "Pokeler"
[103] "Maken X"
[104] "Growlanser"
[105] "Guwange"
[106] "Touge Max G"
[107] "Hamster Paradise 2"
[108] "Meka Pokeler"
[109] "Sno Pokeler"
[110] "Pokeler DX Black"
[111] "Pokeler DX Pink"
[112] "Primal Image"
[113] "Persona 2: Eternal Punishment"
[114] "Tanimura Hitoshi no Don Quixote ga Iku"
[115] "deSPIRIA"
[116] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - Aka no Sho"
[117] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - Kuro no Sho"
[118] "Guruguru Town Hanamaru-kun"
[119] "Hello Kitty no Oshaberi Town"
[120] "Happy! Happy!! Boarders"
[121] "Hamster Paradise 3"
[122] "Eithea"
[123] "Super Dodge Ball Advance"
[124] "Maken Shao: Demon Sword"
[125] "Growlanser II: The Sense of Justice"
[126] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - Shiro no Sho"
[127] "Shin Megami Tensei Trading Card: Card Summoner"
[128] "Hamster Paradise 4"
[129] "Hello Kitty no Oshaberi ABC"
[130] "Road Rage 3"
[131] "Kuma no Pooh-san: Mori no Nakamato 123"
[132] "Mickey to Nakamatachi: Kazuasobi Iro Iro"
[133] "Disney's Winnie the Pooh: Preschool"
[134] "Growlanser III: The Dual Darkness"
[135] "Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth"
[136] "EX Okuman Chōja Game"
[137] "Learn with Winnie the Pooh"
[138] "My Disney Kitchen"
[139] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children"
[140] "Hamster Paradise Advanchu"
[141] "Kids Station: Plarail Tetsudō Monoshiri Hyakka"
[142] "DemiKids: Dark Version"
[143] "DemiKids: Light Version"
[144] "Kids Station: Ugoku Tomika Zukan"
[145] "Shin Megami Tensei: Nine"
[146] "Nijiiro Dodge Ball"
[147] "Touge R"
[148] "Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne"
[149] "2003-Toshi Kaimaku: Ganbare Kyūkaiō"
[150] "Hamster Paradise: Pure Heart"
[151] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - Puzzle de Call!"
[152] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children 2 - Honō no Sho"
[153] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children 2 - Kōri no Sho"
[154] "EX Jinsei Game II"
[155] "Busin 0: Wizardry Alternative Neo"
[156] "Double Dragon Advance"
[157] "Growlanser IV: Wayfarer of Time"
[158] "Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne Maniax"
[159] "Gunbird Special Edition"
[160] "River City Ransom EX"
[161] "Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga"
[162] "Battle B-Daman"
[163] "Kuryū Yōma Gakuenki"
[164] "Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity"
[165] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - Messiah Riser"
[166] "New Jinsei Game"
[167] "Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2"
[168] "Shinseiki Yūsha Taisen"
[169] "Growlanser IV: Wayfarer of the Time - Return"
[170] "Trauma Center: Under the Knife"
[171] "Battle B-Daman: Fire Spirits!"
[172] "Kunio-kun Nekketsu Collection"
[173] "Kunio-kun Nekketsu Collection 2"
[174] "Miracle! Panzō: Nanatsu no Hoshi no Uchū Kaizoku"
[175] "SBK: Snowboard Kids"
[176] "Kunio-kun Nekketsu Collection 3"
[177] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army"
[178] "Persona 3"
[179] "Jinsei Game DS"
[180] "Growlanser: Heritage of War"
[181] "Kuryū Yōma Gakuenki Recharge"
[182] "Trauma Center: Second Opinion"
[183] "Etrian Odyssey"
[184] "Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine"
[185] "Persona 3 FES"
[186] "Odin Sphere"
[187] "Growlanser VI: Precarious World"
[188] "Trauma Center: New Blood"
[189] "PokoPoko Tonkacchin"
[190] "Pandora Saga"
[191] "Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard"
[192] "Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2"
[193] "Persona 4"
[194] "Knights in the Nightmare"
[195] "Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Maniax Chronicle Edition"
[196] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon"
[197] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor"
[198] "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona"
[199] "Gokujō!! Mecha Mote Iinchō Kurumote Gāruzu Kontesuto!"
[200] "Gōketsuji Ichizoku Matsuri Senzo Kuyou"
[201] "Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey"
[202] "Persona 3 Portable"
[203] "Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City"
[204] "Tokyo Mono Hara Shi: Karasu no Mori Gakuen Kitan"
[205] "Trauma Team"
[206] "Inazuma Eleven Bakunetsu Soccer Battle"
[207] "Radiant Historia"
[208] "Catherine"
[209] "Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time"
[210] "Nora to Toki no Kōbō: Kiri no Mori no Majo"
[211] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2"
[212] "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked"
[213] "Inazuma Eleven GO Battle Stadium"
[214] "Sparkle Snapshots 3D"
[215] "Persona 4 Arena"
[216] "Persona 4 Golden"
[217] "Etrian Odyssey IV"
[218] "Shin Megami Tensei IV"
[219] "Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl"
[220] "Dragon's Crown"
[221] "Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure"
[222] "Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth"
[223] "Persona 4 Arena Ultimax"
[224] "Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight"
[225] "Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker"
[226] "Etrian Mystery Dungeon"
[227] "Persona 4: Dancing All Night"
[228] "Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE"
[229] "Odin Sphere Leifthrasir"
[230] "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse"
[231] "Etrian Odyssey V"
[232] "Persona 5"
[233] "Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology"
[234] "Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2"
[235] "Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux"
[236] "Dragon's Crown Pro"
[237] "Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight"
[238] "Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight"
[239] "Etrian Odyssey Nexus"
[240] "Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth"
[241] "Catherine: Full Body"
[242] "Persona 5 Royal"
[243] "13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim"
[244] "Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore"
[245] "Persona 5 Strikers"
[246] "Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster"
[247] "Shin Megami Tensei V"
[248] "Soul Hackers 2"
[249] "Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection"
[250] "Persona 5 Tactica"
[251] "Persona 3 Reload"
[252] "Unicorn Overlord"
[253] "Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance"
[254] "Metaphor: ReFantazio"

All of them are freely playable on PC but 7 (due to denuvo or systems not yet emulated):

"Persona 4: Dancing All Night" (PSV, PS4)
"Dragon's Crown Pro" (PSV, PS4)
"Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight" (PSV, PS4)
"Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight" (PSV, PS4)
"Soul Hackers 2" (denuvo)
"Persona 3 Reload" (denuvo)

 

[flyingjohn]

"Persona 4: Dancing All Night" (PSV, PS4)
"Dragon's Crown Pro" (PSV, PS4)
"Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight" (PSV, PS4)
"Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight" (PSV, PS4)

Vita3k sends his regards.

 

[Tacgnol]

Denuvo definitely impacts performances. It will make a game that would otherwise run fine in the most powerful rig to sometimes sutters and had fps drop.

I've found drastic examples like that - AC Origins or one of the RE games - but in all of them the devs combined Denuvo with their own DRM, resulting in a literal shit show.

I mean the first Denuvo implementation was in the first Lords of the Fallen which I've bought and enjoyed without any performance problems. And that was 10 years ago, with a 13 yo CPU.

I think usually the impact of Denuvo on a modern CPU is pretty negligible IF (and only if) the devs implement the checks in a way that they aren't called super frequently (IIRC Ubisoft was calling one of the DRM checks on every frame with AC Origins).

On older CPUs it definitely seems to have a more noticeable impact. In addition there are also cases where the devs implement the checks in the worst possible ways, Capcom and Ubisoft seem to be guilty of this with alarming frequency.

All of this said, regardless of whether the impact is negligible, it's still an impact and it's still bullshit that people that pay for a game should have an inferior experience because of an anti-piracy measure.

Denuvo could also do far more to prevent their customers from implementing the DRM in a subpar manner if they actually cared about their reputation with gamers. They could easily have a few devs who liaise with studios on a more frequent basis to ensure that the DRM is being implemented in an optimised manner, but this would require both a level of effort and integrity on their part, and they have neither.

 

[cvv]

regardless of whether the impact is negligible, it's still an impact

I mean sure but if it's like 2 FPS on average, it's WAY beyond the bubble of things I bother to be bothered about.

Someone in the Kingdom Come Steam forum mentioned Denuvo also prevents mods, which IS a real concern in my book. I can already hear people crying they can't mod in their favourite "save anywhere" mod and have to play the game as God intended.

 

[Tacgnol]

Someone in the Kingdom Come Steam forum mentioned Denuvo also prevents mods, which IS a real concern in my book. I can already hear people crying they can't mod in their favourite "save anywhere" mod and have to play the game as God intended.

Kinda, it prevents exe mods. It doesn't usually prevent messing with the game's data files.

The save anywhere thing is more likely to be the latter.