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!

Street Fighter V Frustrations and Rant.

Capcom totally dropped the ball with Street Fighter V. The game looks really good. The fighting is still solid. V-Trigger V-Skill and Critical Arts are nice additions to the franchise. However, the game has been trimmed down considerably when compared to prior iterations in the series as well as other fighting games. There is no Arcade Mode which is absolutely absurd. Just about every fighting game has had an Arcade Mode, even previous Street Fighter releases. You can't fight against theCPU in Versus Mode. The Story Mode is extremely short. The Story Mode's cutscenes are merely static images rather than being actual cutscenes. There are only 16 characters in SF V when compared to Ultra Street Fighter IV's impressive roster of 44 fighters. On top of that, online connectivity has been a major issue for a lot of people. This is definitely not the type of fighting game that I expected from

Capcom especially when it comes to a prominent and much beloved fighting franchise such as Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat X is the ultimate fighting game experience. The game has an Arcade Mode, Challenge Towers, Training Mode, a lengthy Story Mode, the Krypt, Faction Wars, a functioning online system, a bigger roster of fighters and some free add-ons as well. It looks like Street Fighter V has a lot of ground to make up. Perhaps future DLC and updates can improve the game's current state. I don't plan on purchasing it until things change later down the road. Then again, I can always go back and play Mortal Kombat X, Guilty Gear Xrd Sign and Ultra Street Fighter IV. As much as I blame Capcom for putting an unfinished product on store shelves, I place the same amount of blame on those who purchased Street Fighter V to begin with. Gamers knew what they were getting when they decided to purchase Street Fighter V and that was an unfinished game at launch. Capcom ended up charging $60 for an early release title, plain and simple. What makes it worse is that there are some gamers out there that are OK with buying an unfinished product and at the end of the day they cry foul because they feel that they got ripped off by the developer as a result. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that developers have released unfinished products with examples such as, Star Wars Battlefront, Evolve and Forza 5. Resident Evil Revelations 2 released episodically as well as the upcoming Hitman game. As much as I love modern gaming I love the simplicity when it comes to old school games because the games were complete and fully working the day that you bought them. Even PS2, original Xbox, Gamecube & Wii Games worked from day one. Unfortunately, we are now in a gaming era where unfinished releases, episodic games, microtransactions, DRM, required online connectivity and massive updates are part of the norm. Its time to get out of that norm and stop buying unfinished video games.