Gaming

Most GOG games ship entirely free of protection, it's kind of their thing. As for steam, getting around the online checks is trivial.

The issue is ownership of the goods you bought. If the barrier to ownership is slight, I don't have a big issue with it. Denuvo is a serious barrier and has serious impacts on performance.

The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course).

There were three points in the post you're replying to. Not all Steam games have DRM; I'm going to assume we're talking only about games using the their DRM:

1. DRM server shutting off -> Steam has been around for a long time, longer than Denuvo. Steam makes a lot more money than Denuvo. Steam is not as publicly hated as Denuvo. Because of these things, I don't think Steam will be shutting down any time soon; Denuvo shutting down is a much larger concern, especially due to public perception. Here's a decent answer to the question anyways: https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/255424/what-will-happen-to-my-owned-games-if-steam-were-to-close .

TL;DR 1: It's not as much of a concern for Steam as it is for Denuvo.

2. Game company shuts off and is unable to pay DRM subscription -> This depends on the license agreement between the DRM provider and the company. The comment you're replying to implies that Denuvo has a subscription fee for its use in a product, and I'm going to proceed under this assumption. I doubt Steam requires any form of subscription fee to keep the DRM working - I would expect that, as they are a storefront, they pay for that via a percentage of game sales. Denuvo isn't a storefront, so I would expect if they have a subscription fee then this would be a Denuvo concern that doesn't apply to Steam.

TL;DR 2: Steam is a storefront, and it's expected that their sales percentage would cover DRM costs for the game. This is a concern for Denuvo, but not really one for Steam.

3. Internet going off -> Steam has a well-known offline feature that works reasonably well. Companies that use the Stream DRM system are using libraries intended to work with this feature - that's not to say they can't purposefully make it unplayable offline, but it's generally well-done. The problem is that it requires you to enable offline mode before your Internet goes out. This is something that's regularly complained about, so I don't think your "[...] I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam [...]" statement applies.

TL;DR 3: Steam DRM is regularly complained about in this regard.

I dislike Epic , so I'm not the person to give them a reasonable defense/discussion - you'll have to find someone else for that.

I see a lot of headlines about Denuvo but none about Steam.

Steam is a platform used to sell games and DRM is optional. Denuvo itself is a specific type of DRM that people have experienced issues with the most whether it is interruptions to offline play or 5 activation limits. It's why the specific DRM is being focused on that has been the most draconian of the other DRM that exists, since it has been the most frequently disruptive over less overbearing DRM.

Steam has the stance that it will "release" a version where you just get valid license from the game you purchased and downloaded before they shutoff service should it belly up in the end. Epic does not really have the same thing announced anywhere, but I'd assume similar thing.(Note, Epic has more net worth than Valve, they can afford to shut EGS and still provide EOS/license check almost indefinitely even if they stopped selling games on EGS as a platform.) And it's why steam has that 3rd party DRM tag/block on games.(I wish EGS has this tag or information as well)

Denuvo is quite different however cause:

• it's harder to patch out, and the platform do not have access to those part.
• it adds additional game breaking point( say if you bought a game that has it and also "always online" you need game company, Denuvo, storefront platform and your internet up to play that game.)

I think steam and epic would have bot that buy and patch out the game's DRM like day 1 after release, they don't care cause majority of their user won't bother downloading shady program from a shady website. The publishers however care and thus we have this issue of them "trusting" Denuvo to shield them from piracy during launch window.

I still vote with wallet and generally only buy single player game after they removed Denuvo or just buy those on PSN, cause I trust platform to last longer than Denuvo.