Denuvo DRM and the future of PC games

Cracking PC video games over the past year or two has proven to be very time consuming and even futile in some instances. Games such as Battlefield Hardline, Batman Arkham Knight, Dragon Age Inquisition, Just Cause 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid V the Phantom Pain, Mad Max and even the more recently released Far Cry Primal have all utilized the Denuvo DRM. Its hard to imagine that years ago all you had to do was download a PC game, install some patches if needed, apply the crack files and you were good to go. On the other hand, games such as, Call of Duty Black Ops 3, The Witcher 3, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation, Far Cry 4, Dying Light (as well as its expansion Dying Light the Following), Fallout 4 and Street Fighter V haven't utilized the Denuvo DRM protection scheme. Unfortunately, major titles that don't implement said protection scheme are few and far between.

Having said that, what is the future of PC gaming? You either take the chance and wait and wait when and if a PC version of a game gets cracked or you buy the legit copy. Even if you do buy the legit PC version you have two major issues to deal with. The first issue is that even if you uninstall a game there will still be residual leftover from the Denuvo DRM (which can be a bit cumbersome to remove). Also, the Denuvo DRM greatly impacts the performance of a PC video game (Batman Arkham Knight being a great example). The 2nd issue is that once you buy a PC game you usually aren't allowed to return it. If you spend your hard earned money on a glitchy and buggy game then you are stuck with a non-working product. You also lose your money in the process.

I'm not one to condone or encourage piracy in any way shape or form. However, the one major upside to downloading a PC game is that it gives gamers a chance to give the game a test drive so to speak. If I download a PC game and it works really well on my PC then I will happily remove it and buy a legit copy. On the other hand, if I download a video game and it has lots of issues, glitches and bugs then I won't have to worry about losing my money as a result of buying a non-working product.
Do you think that more and more AAA PC games are going to utilize the DRM protection scheme? Perhaps cracking PC games has come to an inevitable end (minus indie games, smaller budget titles and some AAA releases). I'm all for supporting a video game developer that respects its consumer base, releases a fully working product and that doesn't have a shady business model. The last thing that I want to do is to buy a PC version of a game knowing that the Denuvo protection method is going to impact its performance and even after uninstalling the game Denuvo will still leave behind residual junk that will also impact my PC in one way or another. Also, like I said before, nobody wants to buy a glitchy and buggy game. Has console gaming become the go to for PC gamers or is there still hope for PC games out there? What do you think? Please share your opinions and thoughts. Thanks!