inZOI: Gamers praise KRAFTON for removing anti-piracy tool Denuvo

A few days before the release of inZOI on March 28, director Hyungjun 'Kjun' Kim announced that Denuvo would be removed from the early access build. This decision was made on the official inZOI Discord after the community voiced negative feedback regarding the anti-tamper technology.

Denuvo is an anti-cheat and anti-tamper technology designed to prevent game piracy. Denuvo runs in the background while you're playing. This has contributed to negative opinions within the gaming community. Critics argue that Denuvo can lead to high CPU usage and excessive write operations on storage devices. This excessive writing may significantly reduce the lifespan of solid-state drives (SSDs).

Denuvo has been implemented in various games. Persona 3 Reload, Resident Evil 4 (Remake), and older titles like FIFA 15 are some examples. Other games, such as Hitman 2 and now inZOI, have opted to remove this technology.

Everything began when a player of inZOI discovered that the game was using Denuvo and shared this information on Reddit. This post sparked a heated discussion on social media.

The negative effects of Denuvo and its potential impact on the game's performance scared inZOI's players. Despite the lack of confirmation at that time about whether inZOI actually utilized Denuvo, people began to criticize the game extensively.

After the extensive feedback, the producer and director of inZOI addressed the problem. On March 26, Kjun announced the removal of Denuvo from the early access. "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," he wrote.

The director also apologized for not informing the player base about the implementation of Denuvo during the demo period. They acknowledged that this decision could make the game more vulnerable to piracy; however, they view it as a way to make inZOI more "freely configurable."

This means that inZOI will continue to open doors for imagination and creativity, allowing for the creation of "new experiences" that will ultimately lead to "innovative and long-lasting enjoyment for the community."

inZOI presents itself as a game allowing people to create their own realities and experiences. The director assured that this will continue to be the main goal. The first stage of official mod support will be implemented in May, as announced in the roadmap presentation. Kjun revealed plans to expand mod support to more areas of the game, allowing players to extend their customization options throughout.

"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," Kjun added. This places KRAFTON in a significant position within the community, where members feel heard and valued.

Players on both Reddit and Discord have been sharing positive feedback for the developers. One user remarked, "This really shows that they are prioritizing players, in my opinion!" Another Reddit user echoed this sentiment, saying, "This is exactly what I like to see from studios and developers: prioritizing player experience above all else."

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