There’s also multiplayer as anti piracy. It is impracticable to spoof unseen, complex server code forever.
Environment Integrity is the most flexible. That means you can’t pirate because you can’t sideload code that doesn’t belong to you, and that a remote license check cannot be spoofed. The environment also has to provide enough incremental value in updates that most people will keep auto-update on. Although, of course, Apple could force updates.
To me, the problem is how to avoid this conversation altogether. The kind of person who has the personality defect that makes him post rants about DRM doesn’t listen long enough to figure out “validity” in games.
Like imagine when people invoke that word, “valid.” This is what DRM is about to audiences, not technology. Video games are aesthetic experiences, you don’t have to play them to survive, to me it is valid to consider anything related to the game, like its DRM or the development team or whatever, as fair game for “valid.” But.
If you don’t think Denuvo is valid, you don’t think “AAA single player games on PC” is valid. And maybe that’s okay, maybe you can only go to iOS or the Switch or PS5 (Environment Integrity DRM) for AAA single player. There are no indie developers on consoles, so suddenly, you are also saying, “the only place for single player that costs money to make for self published is iOS.”
This is why I personally find the crusade against Denuvo so ironic: the people who could take the biggest creative risks and reap the most reward, including the right to keep making whatever it is they want, benefit the most from Denuvo.