"Sonic Mania" is the latest video game to make use of the controversial digital rights management (DRM) service Denuvo, and fans aren't thrilled.
Although developer SEGA has since apologized, it was reported earlier that "Sonic Mania" was shipped for PC with Denuvo as its DRM, requiring players to be online so they can run the game.
This was an unwelcome development as "Sonic Mania" was released as an offline game. Denuvo has also been reported to be easy to crack and difficult to remove from a PC, even after the game requiring it is uninstalled. This means the DRM service isn't exactly safe, after all.
SEGA public relations and social media manager Aaron Webber had told fans to "make their voices heard." The company acknowledged the game's problems in a blog post on Steam on Aug. 29.
On Aug. 31, SEGA then posted that the issue had been fixed, telling fans that DRM wasn't the game's issue, but some other bug.
"We'd like to thank the community for their honest feedback with regards to 'Sonic Mania' on PC. We've found the problem within the game code that was stopping people playing offline and it's been corrected," the developer said in a Facebook post.
The fans remain unhappy, voicing their protests online on the very blog post that SEGA wrote.
"Not a fan of an unknown entity logging my activity every now and again without my consent really either. This stuff should be made public before we even get to purchase it," one user wrote.
Another unsatisfied player said, "I was planning to buy this game when I get paid this weekend, but with the inclusion of Denuvo DRM, I'll just wait for a cracked copy."
This doesn't bode well for both SEGA and its game, the first "Sonic" game to be released in nearly a decade. The game also received unanimous praise from critics — until the DRM problem, that is.
"Sonic Mania" was released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on Aug. 15. The PC version was released on Aug. 29.
