With the release of InZOI’s Early Access Build less than two days away, a Steam forum post drew up concerns regarding the usage of an Anti-Tamper program in the build.
Moderator of the Denuvo Games group lukaself expressed concerns on March 24th, indicating that the build was using Denuvo Anti-Tamper without disclosure on the Steam page, noting that not disclosing it violated regulations in multiple countries regarding the disclosure of Denuvo and similar technologies. The moderator discovered this as the build attempted to connect to an IP associated with Denuvo.
The usage of Denuvo Anti-Tamper undisclosed, as it originally was not listed on InZOI’s Steam page, violates regulations like California’s AB-2426, which protects against false advertising to consumers in regards to digital products.
Shortly thereafter, on March 26th, the producer and director of InZOI Hyungjun “Kjun” Kim released an announcement on the official InZOI discord.
Hello, This is Kjun, Producer & Director of inZOI.
Recently, we’ve seen growing concern around the implementation of the Denuvo anti-tamper solution in inZOI. While we wanted to respond as quickly as possible, we also felt it was important to approach the issue with care—consulting with teams from around the world to make a thoughtful and informed decision. We sincerely apologize for the delay in providing this official response.
To address the most important point: We have decided to remove Denuvo from the Early Access build of inZOI.
We initially chose to implement Denuvo as a way to protect the game from illegal distribution. At the time, we believed this would help ensure fairness for players who had properly purchased the game. However, after taking a closer look at community feedback, we quickly realized that this approach did not align with what our players wanted. Our initial application of Denuvo on our main development build made it so that the inZOI: Creative Studio demo build, a branch from the main build, was also applied with the same anti-tamper. Unfortunately, we failed to properly inform our players of this application during the demo period, and we sincerely apologize for that oversight. We understand that removing Denuvo increases the risk of the game being cracked and illegally distributed after release. At the same time, we believe it opens up a valuable opportunity: it allows inZOI to become more freely configurable—unlocking new ways for players to shape new experiences for other players. We believe enabling this freedom from the very beginning will lead to innovative and long-lasting enjoyment for the community. As I mentioned during the Online Showcase, we are committed to making inZOI a highly moddable game. Our first stage of official mod support will launch in May, allowing players to use tools like Maya and Blender to create custom content. But this is only the beginning. Over time, we plan to expand mod support across more areas of the game, so you can customize and enhance your experience in many different ways. With the removal of Denuvo, we hope to foster an even more open environment for modders to create and share unique experiences for other players. (More information on modding will be shared in a separate post.) Throughout this process, we’ve come to understand that Denuvo could negatively impact the player experience far more than we originally anticipated. As a development team committed to putting players first, the decision to remove the anti-tamper solution became a clear one. We will continue to prioritize your feedback and make well-informed decisions throughout our Early Access development. We want to sincerely apologize for not aligning more closely with player expectations on this sensitive issue. We regret the concern and confusion this has caused within the community, and we’re committed to rebuilding your trust as we move forward in developing the best possible experience. Thank you so much for your continued love and support. Please keep sharing your feedback, as it truly helps us make inZOI better for everyone.
Sincerely, Kjun
What do you think of the usage of Denuvo Anti-Tamper and other anti-cheat programs in video games?
Check out when InZOI’s Early Access Build releases in your area!
Software developers have every right to implement anti-piracy measures.
Okay, so, would any of the down-voters perhaps care to enlighten us on why they deem it NOT okay for developers to try and protect their commercial software against theft or unauthorized distribution?
It hinders the player experience with performance issues. In the past it’s even made games completely unplayable on certain devices. It doesn’t even entirely prevent unauthorized distribution, often getting bypassed within weeks.
Not to mention the fact that they’re already using Steam, which is itself DRM.
You may argue “not including Denuvo will impact sales! those first few weeks are important!”, but if they were going to break the law to play the game, they probably had no intention/ability to buy the game to begin with. Especially because Steam’s features (Social features, easy access to guides, overlay, automatic updates, etc.) provide plenty of incentive to buy the game.
So Denuvo downgrades the consumer experience, all for the sake of blocking a demographic that wasn’t going to buy the game anyways. It just seems kind of pointless and I’m very glad they decided to listen to criticisms and remove it even though merely adding mention of it to the store post would’ve sufficed.