Crytek has become the latest to drop support for Denuvo anti-tamper DRM, stripping it out of the VR exclusive mountain climbing simulator The Climb.

The German developer is following in the footsteps of id Software with DOOM, Playdead with Inside, and Flying Wild Hog with Shadow Warrior 2, in ditching the controversial DRM entirely. The Climb has been available to buy for a few months now from the Oculus Store, but the recent update which added Oculus Touch support also erased Denuvo.

Denuvo anti-tamper DRM has been met with increasing ire from the PC gaming community for allegedly hampering performance and requires a connection to third party servers whenever you want to boot up a game.

Alongside this a further rumour has emerged that Crytek employees in Bulgaria have been paid for the last three months. This isn’t the first time Crytek has found itself in financial trouble either. Back in 2014 it was unable to pay staff wages at UK studio Free Radical Design. As a result it decided to close down the studio and sell the license to the Homefront franchise to publisher Deep Silver.

Now, licensing Denuvo is an expensive process, and if these reports are true then finances are likely to have a huge factor in Crytek removing the anti-piracy software. This could suggest that the financial hit of licensing Denuvo is seen as a greater expenditure than the damage from potential lost sales to piracy.

Another bites the dust then, are we seeing a turning point in developers’ attitudes to DRM?