'Sonic Mania' Gameplay News: Sega Issues Apology for Surprise DRM Use; Adds Game Patch for Offline Game Bug
After facing massive disappointment from PC players, Sega issued an apology for using digital rights management software on "Sonic Mania" without proper notice prior to the game's launch.
Meanwhile, they have also released a game patch to fix a bug that kept players from opening the game offline.
Earlier last week, Sega launched the PC version of "Sonic Mania" worldwide. However, the fans' excitement quickly turned into massive disappointment when they learned that installing "Sonic Mania" on their computers would also require the addition of Denuvo.
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Denuvo and same-type programs are used by game developers as anti-tampering measures to prevent hackers from cracking the game easily.
However, many players have found installing Denuvo or other DRM software to cause less efficient game stability. But what fueled the disappointment even more was the fact that PC players were not told beforehand that the game would come with a DRM.
In a recent statement posted on Steam, Sega tried to pacify disgruntled "Sonic Mania" PC players and explained: "Like you, we've noticed an error in the Steam store not mentioning the DRM for Sonic Mania. We're fixing that now."
As of this writing, the reviews section for "Sonic Mania" Steam page was filled with a thumbs down icon and "Not Recommended" ratings that mostly spoke about the players' disappointment over the DRM use.
One Steam reviewer said Sega lied "about the delay being for 'bug fixes,' not actually telling anybody that the game has Denuvo until they figured it out themselves, and trying to throw your developers under the bus for your decision to put DRM in the game."
The anger among players for the use of the DRM was worsened by a bug that prevented players from accessing the game offline. "Sonic Mania is intended to be played offline and we're investigating reports on that," Sega added.
To Sega's credit, they were able to issue a patch that seemed to fix the offline gaming bug the next day after the "Sonic Mania" PC release. However, some players reiterated that the DRM use was still a problem that needed to be resolved.
In the same statement, Sega added: "We're also investigating other issues ,
Meanwhile, Sega also promised that they have started to investigate other reported game issues "like controller support."
Sega added: "These are all PC-specific things that Christian (Whitehead) and the team have been working on these last few weeks."
