Applying all kinds of weird DRM to a free game of all things just seems excessive. There have been cases when a Denuvo-free program used with a demo has been applied to the full game, when the full version has Denuvo because of piracy concerns, but it really does come as a double-edged sword. Essentially, presenting that ahead of the full game gives a potential head start to the cracking process, and possibly just another extended version of the demo program being used for the full game.
Still, with a free game, what is someone going to do, pirate a free game? Apparently that can happen now. As I’ve said before, DRM is just the result of distrust between publisher and customer. It always comes down to a war of attrition, where a more complex defense is put up and eventually broken down, so far an endless cycle. Publishers, while wanting to protect their investments, always have the chance to mess things up and make it worse for everyone but the pirates, as has happened before.
Personally, I haven’t looked much into the exact science of how Denuvo functions, because at the moment I don’t exactly have disposable hardware if something goes catastrophically wrong, though with most regards the chances of that happening might be fairly low. Chances are, I’ve unknowingly run programs with it at some point in time, possibly also demos, but I’d rather not push my luck with that. However, my main issue is the relationship of publisher and customer, and I’d rather not support a broken relationship, even while having a Steam account. I’m full of contradictions, but I don’t want to take things even further that way. That means the alternative becomes getting console versions of games if the publisher is unwilling to budge on the issue. That’s not helpful to the PC market, which I consider my main system now due to the massive variety and availability, but I continue to drift from major to minor to indie publishers.
With mobile games making up a gigantic portion of the current games market, and with whatever the hell they’re attempting to pass as a game these days in some cases, I’d prefer to stick with consoles and PC, even though I have yet another contradiction of messing with mobile stuff fairly often compared. On that side, though, I tend to not spend on mobile, and what I have spent is just free accumulated credit. In any case, making any part of the PC platform more restricted isn’t helping. At least there’s plenty of storefronts for it, most of them legitimate.