General News - Denuvo DRM on the Rise

Denuvo, the DRM infamous for affecting Dragon Age: Inquisition's gameplay, is apparently on the rise. More AAA titles are to ship with the DRM this year, and more RPG's may use it in the future.

If this is the first time you have heard of Denuvo, it is a company that produces anti-tampering technology designed to protect DRM solutions. Which, in turn, is supposed to protect games from unauthorised use. In fact, its anti-tampering software was so notoriously difficult to crack that a Chinese cracking group, 3DM, had nearly given up on cracking Just Cause 3. The operative word is “nearly”, though.

Far Cry Primal, in particular, will contain a version of the software that “may remain even after the product is uninstalled from your computer”, as revealed in the game’s end-user license agreement. How this will affect the game’s performance or even your PC’s performance is not yet known.

Denuvo had been plagued by persistent rumours on how its software could shorten the life span of solid state drives (SSDs), since it supposedly encrypts and decrypts itself to make it stupendously difficult to crack. However, the company had released a statement that says that the software “does not constantly read or write any data to storage media”.

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More information.

More information.

I kinda feel like repeating myself because we didn't (or did we?) have a general Denuvo thread.

I've seen it first in DA:I. While some blamed it as a cause of bad performance, I never saw anything that could ruin my game (well, 'xcept bears).
Prior to it there were rumors it caused bad performance in some Dark Souls clone but later it turned out not to be true and the game was patched.
Also as noted in the article, another rumor turned out not to be true - Denuvo doesn't hurt SSD.

Denuvo encrypts game's executable file and keeps it (nearly) impossible to mess with.
Why is this great? Because many MMO developers don't protect properly their exe and then you're constantly meeting cheaters in those games because they use a changed executable that has powers to turn your online character into godlike being.
In terms of singleplayer games, Denuvo protects the exe so a cracker can't remove/edit the code part responsible for DRM. It's not the perfect solution ofc. While a cracker can't touch game's exe file, they can "trick" that exe to believe it's receiving data that would legally come from steamworks, origin, uplay or other DRM crapware like rockstar social club. But making this needs time and by the time a crack appears noone even remembers that a game exists.

Also in the article mentioned, a game Just Cause 3 was not cracked yet. I've seen reviews and read some stuff about that game and I was determined not to buy it at all. Not sure why the publisher wanted to protect such crap. IMO if a game sucks, noone will want it nor will pirates care to crack it (well… unless prestige).

But there is a bad part. Where I have to return to DA:I.
That game is banned in India, officially because some "hentai", I say cut the crap be honest and say sex with a horned creature is tabu.
So while politicians and other parasites called censors disallow a product to normal people who don't mix real life with games, the common folk in India is practically forced into pirating a game in order to enjoy it. The sad news was - Denuvo. But in case of DA:I it took a month (or two, can't remember) for the crack to appear so now all RPG fans in India can play DA:I.

What I wanted to say, sure, Denuvo everything!
It doesn't hurt the performance, doesn't hurt the hardware, prevents pirating a product on it's highest sales peak (not just that, there were situations where pirates played the game before we who bought it could) and cures me not playing MMOs because goddamned cheaters.

However there are cases where Denuvo should not be applied:
- a game is not released at the same time everywhere on the planet
- a game is banned/censored or it's parts are removed/edited in different releases
Because it would mean protecting an insult to the audience.

joxer said:

Also in the article mentioned, a game Just Cause 3 was not cracked yet. I've seen reviews and read some stuff about that game and I was determined not to buy it at all. Not sure why the publisher wanted to protect such crap. IMO if a game sukcs, noone will want it nor will pirates care to crack it (well… unless prestige).


However there are cases where Denuvo should not be applied:
- a game is not released at the same time everywhere on the planet
- a game is banned/censored or it's parts are removed/edited in different releases
Because it would mean protecting an insult to the audience.

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The Just Cause series is the best of mindless action you can get ;-) It actually has many fans simply because it is so much over the top. It's a guilty pleasure (never played one game of the series myself but I can somewhat understand its appeal) and those usually have a huge fanbase.

As for DA:I and its crack - that worked because it was an old version of Denuvo and it had a backdoor the hackers could use, the new version (which is used in JC3 and all games released in the future) is still not crackable.

Good thing I am not interested in buying or pirating crappy AAA games.
And if one AAA game I would like to play in a year does show up I can always buy it cheaper on key reseller site or something.

The end of piracy is nigh. Been hearing that one for 30 years now, ever since the days people piraced Spectrum 48k tapes.

Emerwyn said:

The end of piracy is nigh. Been hearing that one for 30 years now, ever since the days people piraced Spectrum 48k tapes.

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That actually isn't the aim - but if you can manage to make the game uncrackable for the first 2-3 months since release many people will have bought it - afterwards its price falls quickly in any case and the "market" is saturated with the game; at that point the producers don't care anymore about piracy as they had enough income ;-)

“may remain even after the product is uninstalled from your computer”

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Ugh no thanks - been there done that.

well i hope dark souls 3 wont have this

News that makes me want to play even more independent products. I do really dislike thieves, though.

Not interested in any 'AAA' games (more 'FFF' games to me...) so it won't affect me. For people on the fence, just stick with good and sounding Indie companies (like Larian) and you will have plenty to play for years to come... The idea that some companies are licensed to install their malaware legally repulse me.

mbpopolano24 said:

The idea that some companies are licensed to install their malaware legally repulse me.

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The idea the many people feel entitled to steal music, movies, books, games, other software, and anything else they can swipe of the web repulses me. The idea of people hacking and cheating at simple video games is also repulsive.

It's unfortunate that legit and honest paying customers have to endure the measures aimed at the people willing to be thieves, for sure, but all of this is the result of all that entitlement and the general acceptance of it all by everyone else.

Denuvo is readily cracked but it doesnt show up on common crack sites because its not an easy process. As the popularity of this type of DRM increases, more hacking resources will be allocated leading to faster crack times.

Many companies love to blame piracy for low sales, poor exposure, failed projects and global warming. Truth is there is no hard data available about the impact of piracy.

Lots of the data they use is as follows.
10,000 units sold at €25 each is €250,000 gross sales.
However data tracking shows 12,000 active copies.
The assumption made is that equates to €50,000 lost profit.

Music execs are particularly idiotic in their rationale, but occasionally software company execs rival them.

Caleb said:

That actually isn't the aim - but if you can manage to make the game uncrackable for the first 2-3 months since release many people will have bought it

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No, thats not how real world works. Piarted copy does NOT equal lost sales. Thats just an old ass rethoric publishers are using. In actual fact, people who pirate will just play another game that has a crack. People who buy games will continue to do so, people that play pirate copies will not suddenly start to buy games. They just treat those uncrackable games as if they don't exist. Sure, a small percentage will buy a coveted game if it will not be available for free, but nowhere near a number of copies to make a tangible difference.

In fact you can see games like Mad Max or MGS 5, denuvo protected, without fully functional cracks, they have low to moderate sales. And it's easy to monitor tracker forums and see how pirates deal with it. Almost no one played the game. People didn't flock to stores to buy the game, they just didn't play it. There are forum discutions about the other games that apeared at that time and that do have cracks.

Witcher 3 is practically free on the web, with no drm versions one click away. Yet it sold in the millions and the PC is the single most profitable platform. Examples are there, people just need to look. Pirates will continue to pirate and buyers will continue to buy. Sales will not be affected by lack of pirate copies. It will be however interesting what publishers will say in the future when their piece of shit game has the exact same low sales as before. What will be blamed then ?

Nameless said:

Piarted copy does NOT equal lost sales. Thats just an old ass rethoric publishers are using.

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This is true.
Pirated or not pirated, I have not a slightest desire to touch some games even if the publisher paid me to play their crap.

If a game was good in the first place, it'd sell like a cure. If it stinks... Well... Sure it's easy to blame it on pirates but are pirates actually that stupid to play a turd?

joxer said:

This is true.
Pirated or not pirated, I have not a slightest desire to touch some games even if the publisher paid me to play their crap.

If a game was good in the first place, it'd sell like a cure. If it stinks… Well… Sure it's easy to blame it on pirates but are pirates actually that stupid to play a turd?

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I guess I was because I played Fallout 4 for way too long

Nameless said:

No, thats not how real world works. Piarted copy does NOT equal lost sales. Thats just an old ass rethoric publishers are using. In actual fact, people who pirate will just play another game that has a crack. People who buy games will continue to do so, people that play pirate copies will not suddenly start to buy games. They just treat those uncrackable games as if they don't exist. Sure, a small percentage will but a coveted game if it will not be available for free, but nowhere near a number of copies to make a tangible difference.

In fact you can see games like Mad Max or MGS 5, denuvo protected, without fully functional cracks, they have low to moderate sales. And it's easy to monitor tracker forums and see how pirates deal with it. Almost no one played the game. People didn't flock to stores to buy the game, they just didn't play it. There are forum discutions about the other games that apeared at that time and that do have cracks.

Witcher 3 is practically free on the web, with no drm versions one click away. Yet it sold in the millions and the PC is the single most profitable platform. Examples are there, people just need to look. Pirate will continue to pirate and buyers will continue to buy. Sales will not be affected by lack of pirate copies. It will be however interesting what publishers will say in the future when their piece of shit game has the exact same low sales as before. What will be blamed then ?

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It is not my reasoning, it is ,as you said, why the publishers use it - personally I couldn't care less, haven't pirated a game since I was 15.

But in the end a game is the property of the game developers and I can understand why they would want to save it from being stolen. Whether or not their methods are wrong is highly subjective and was already discussed to death

Funny how games like The Witcher 3 sell just fine without intrusive DRM. Say no to that crap.

Will contain a version of the software that “may remain even after the product is uninstalled from your computer”? What? No thanks.

I'd find it funny if some hackers cracked Denuvo, not to let you play some game, but to inject malware into Denuvo's files.

Just another reason to stick more glue between me and GOG.