Spoiler-free Sonic Mania discussion thread

If my email helped to influence a Destructoid writer to make this article, I will not feel remotely bad about it hurting sales because this DRM is completely unacceptable. Consumers should never have to deal with this type of DRM under any circumstance, so actions need to be done to prevent anything like this happening EVER again. Adding exposure to a situation should not hurt a game like Sonic Mania, but it probably will now because Sega decided to force this DRM into their most anticipated game of the year.

When you abandon objective or relative morality in favor of moral nihilism, you find out that progress is far more likely to be made in society when people are more concerned about functionality and progress. I do not want to derail this thread further about anything related to morality theories, so feel to message me if you want to discuss that subject further.

I'm not as upset as a lot of people because I can still able to play this game at full speed when my internet works. Some people who pre-ordered the game have experienced performance issues that might be related to the DRM. This includes framerate issues or even worse, not being able to play the game. Some consumers have been angry over these circumstances that they tried to get a refund but can't because they pre-ordered the game over two weeks ago. That's just straight up bad business and bad business decisions can result in serious longterm consequences.

And former Destructoid employee Jim Sterling made a video about it. This decision might just be about to blow up in Sega's face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD1JEHscdRA

 

Yep, I see what your saying, and I respect your take on it.

I guess we just have different views on how people should handle this. And yes it is a rabbit hole that doesn't really need to be discussed any further.

As long as there is piracy and a lack of respect for developers & musicians hard work then I guess we will always see some form of DRM.

 

Well they need to figure out a way to implement measures that punish the pirates, not the people who bought the game legally. Find a way to do that and implement it, not this kinda nonsense.

 

I had this same exact D-Pad issue with my Logitech F310. It was busy pressing up and down and mistaking them, while also only letting Sonic move left and right slowly. I was so desperate to play, I was doing the drop dash until I couldn't go any further.

I had to go to the controller support and uncheck everything, then recheck what was there before. It thinks my controller is an Xbox 360 Controller. Once I did that, I completely exited Steam, opened it and Mania back up. Worked like a charm and I hope it still does as I'm only on the third Zone.

 

Copy-protection to immunize initial launch sales (the most important sales period) against casual piracy is one thing. That may always be necessary, because even publishers recognize you can't stop piracy forever, but you can hold it back long enough to get the sales you want.

Installing literal malware on all of our computers, on the other hand, is not what DRM should ever do. And that's what Denuvo is. It's a nasty little bug that's not evening doing what's advertised: Anti-tampering. People are not only modding away at Mania unrestrained, somebody figured out how to hack off Denuvo's fail safe check day-one. Its inclusion is pointless and loaded with a barrel of irony.

 

30Mb patch released. Now playable offline

 

I just think the worst part is that it's like....an issue that doesn't affect me directly in terms of what Denuvo is (based on my educated research which I spent a lot of time on), but for other people it's a HUGE issue and so I don't really sit on the fence here, I'm pretty adamant about wanting this shit gone.

That being said, there is no business model that will inherently prevent piracy, the same way you can't stop people from stealing things IRL, it's a similar scenario. I think the idea of piracy protection is noble but I feel like we need stronger methods that do NOT interfere with user-end experience, and I REALLY wish SEGA understood this. I wish they understood so much, I wish they understood that the PEOPLE THAT MADE THIS GAME, THIS GAME'S LIFEBLOOD, VEHEMENTLY OPPOSE DRM because of their origins and roots! DRM's lack of presence or usage was in many ways what ALLOWED this game to be birthed, alongside passion for this series. Sure ROMs had copy protection sometimes but it was basic, easy to crack, and well....emulators!

I'm steamed at the fact that users get burned, but I am doubly proverbially red in the face because of how downright INSULTING this inclusion is to Taxman, Stealth, and PagodaWest. This is the biggest slap in the face they could've gotten as far as the PC release was concerned. A buggy release be fucking damned, this alternative is so much worse. This tells me a lot, it tells me that SEGA isn't taking them as seriously as I'd like, it's telling me SEGA doesn't give a damn shit about their hard work, and it's telling me that they don't care about the origins and soul of where this game came from. If SEGA wants me to change my mind, they're gonna have to revoke the DRM.

 

Despite my praise with the game I posted a while back, I will set the record straight that I'm in agreement with everyone who has already said it: delaying the PC version to secretly stick DRM on it was a absolutely shitty move. I knew the theories given about a game like this needing "optimization" for PC were absolutely flimsy and this news vindicates my suspicions as far as I'm concerned. As I said, it was either incompetence on the developers' behalf (which I myself not only shot down, but Taxman himself said his team had nothing to do with the decision) or incompetence by Sega; and lo and behold, it was meddling by the latter.

Speaking as someone who opened a Steam account specifically for Mania and pre-purchased the game months ago because the PC version was the only available option I could get the game / support the developers...to me, this whole charade comes off as a personal slap in the face. As unfair as it may be for other honest developers who don't engage in this tactics, the way this was handled makes me not want to ever get a game on Steam/PC again because this was an absolutely horrendous first impression.

It's a big shame too because outside of the DRM aspect....the actual game itself is fantastic, as I've already said. I've never been this enthusiastic about an official Sonic game in years. So while I'm still happy to have bought for and paid the game at all as a means of supporting Taxman and his crew, I'm genuinely disgusted with whoever at Sega was responsible for doing this (as well as not giving it a retail release, but that's another topic) and I seriously hope they get repercussions for this move.

 

A general word of advice is that Steam is the last resort, not the go-to. I don't know if a lot of people have made this clear to you and I am very sorry about your experience, but always check GOG (Good old games) before anything else. GOG has a lot of new and old releases available DRM-free and fully bootable without an additional client, and they are STRICT about this rule. DRM is strictly forbidden on their site and distribution. If you want to continue with PC stuff and I recommend you do even for old gems or new indies, I'd recommend going to GOG if possible =). I'm sorry you got frazzled and swindled by disrespectful corporate stupidity. We all stand in solidarity in opposition, whether or not the DRM prevents us from playing or not.

On that note, I wouldn't be shocked if there was a GOG Sonic Mania release in the future.

 

Agreed with the poster on GOG, I always get GOG if I can, although that's not a case with Mania

 

Believe me, if I had a PS4, Switch, or Xbox One; I wouldn't even be in this mess. I rarely if ever play games on my laptop, and the ones I do have are usually just Sonic romhacks / fangames. But I didn't have any of the console options and Mania isn't on GOG as of this moment.....c'est la vie.

All that said, thanks for your advice on GOG, and for being understanding.

 

No problem! Trust me, GOG is an amazing place that has been untapped by stupidity and has a lot of the best games on PC. I know I sound a bit like a shill but it really is fantastic, and I hope you check it out if you ever feel like dipping back in, it's more than worth it I assure you. A lot of the good indie things that never touch consoles show up there (& on Steam without DRM but Steam in itself is a bit of a shaky service so I tend to recommend GOG first). If you've ever been tempted to try Freedom Planet for instance, it's on there as well! But yeah, I totally understand the notion of swindling and being duped. There was no warning DRM would be on this product which isn't just negligent, it's also malicious and misleading. Whether it was a genuine mistake or not, SEGA's not some indie dev, they're a large professional company and they shouldn't be making these mistakes. Mind you I think the game is fucking phenomenal as well, and DRM aside the PC port is the best version right now due in part to the Super button and the bugfixes that are present. If they ever remove the DRM (Which I do foresee happening soon, tbh) it will be the definitive version, likely.

It's just a trove of good stuff and it will definitely wean you over methinks. If SEGA brought their PC or at least their Sonic library to GOG, I would be ecstatic.

 

A word to the wise: Before buying games on GOG, particularly if the game is a few months to a few years old, make sure GOG actually has the best, most up-to-date version of the game. A lot of studios have an unfortunate habit of tossing up initial release of the game on launch day (or whatever version is most current when it launches on GOG) and then forgetting about it, leaving it in the dust with regards to DLC, bugfixes, and feature updates while the Steam and/or Origin versions are kept up-to-date just fine.

 

Yes, I forgot to mention this as well. This is important too! Usually indie games update on GOG just fine though, but they're certifiably niche titles to begin with in that sense.

Never hurts to check!

 

I just remembered that during my playthrough of Mania yesterday, there was at least four, five occurrences when the game without warning forced out of its full screen mode and the window was minimized for seemingly no reason. Guess I know what was the culprit of that now.

 

Copy-protection isn't always easy to crack, which is the idea. It is a unique solution per game, and gives pirates a few more puzzles to work through than general-purpose DRM solutions that are no longer "safe" once they're understood.

On the other hand, copy-protection per-game is subtle and non-existent to a legitimate owner of the game, while tricking pirates who think they have a successful dump- until users of their rips trip up the copy-protection in certain sections of a game. (Pirated copies of Earthbound made the final boss impossible to beat, and it'd erase your save file.)

If it's clever enough, launch sales stay strong, and preservation advocates still get what they want eventually. It took a long time for pirates to get Pokemon Black working correctly on flash cards, for instance. Early Sonic Adventure 2 rips on the Dreamcast were busted, and when Ooga Booga was cracked, most maps still crashed. There are examples of some developers getting extremely clever with their copy-protection, too. (Such as the Spyro 3 team. Seriously a good read.)

I have no idea how a developer would go about this on PC instead of consoles, but I would be much happier with some solution per-game than these general purpose hunks of DRM. One of the tenants of Information Security is that security is a process, not a goal, so by policy, solutions like Denuvo should have been ditched once the new Doom was cracked earlier this year. This makes SEGA's use of it here, halfway into 2017, all the more baffling. Denuvo is an outdated placebo and needs to go.

Seconding GoG. Whenever I buy something on Steam, I want to double-dip and get a GoG copy too, if it's available. Freedom Planet was my very first purchase there, and my library has grown nicely over the past three years since then. I especially prefer GoG for old games because sometimes, the GoG version is more up to date, or is packaged with a less dated version of DOSBox. (I prefer using PRBoom to load the Doom wads I bought at GoG, though. ) It's been such a nice way to rebuy PC classics I grew up playing but no longer have physical copies of.

Also seconding that it's important to read up on individual games. Not all publishers take good care of maintaining their releases equally across Steam and GoG. Updates take longer to appear on GoG as well because of their Q&A process, whereas Steam lets developers push whatever update they want. The benefits of double-dipping come in handy there. :specialed:

 

Love the game. It's fucking awesome. I have some minor issues with it that I think prevent it from beating Sonic 3K but I've had an absolute blast so far. The most concerning thing to me isn't the DRM (which has since been mitigated with the latest patch) but what it does to my machine upon start-up. My laptop fan goes in to overdrive, to the point that I'm actually worried my machine might be overheating. No other game does this. Just Mania. Not even the demo of the new Doom and that game's a monster.

I'd love to say more on the game but this is the spoiler-free thread - so off to the other thread I go. One last thing though that isn't a spoiler - going in blind and knowing almost zero about things like the zone choices and so on increased my enjoyment exponentially. I was so excited at the end of every stage because I didn't know what was coming. The game also has so many "Fuck yeah" moments it's unbelievable. As I said I don't think it beats Sonic 3K but it's definitely up there with the classics.

 

They said before that's part of the problem with Denuvo, the abusive use of CPU. I don't have such a problem, though, it heats up a bit too much for this game but not as much as most recent games.

I had this problem once too, but it may be because I placed my jump button on letter Z and windows key is just under it (yeah, keyboard is my gamepad). :v:

 

Y'know, for an engine that's suppose to run on something as old as the Dreamcast, the DRM isn't doing it wonders.

 

Re: GoG

GoG rejects games for no reason from their store, other than the person doing the curation does not like them. Further, you do not have to include DRM on steam, there are plenty of DRM-free games on Steam: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games