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"Scene Groups Have Figured Out Denuvo", Piracy Group Declares

Raevenlord

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Denuvo's fall from grace - and current thread of obsolescence waters - has been a long time coming for scene crackers and pirates. One of the only anti-tamper mechanisms to actually deter pirates in their cracking efforts as of late, Denuvo ushered in an era of unmitigated success upon the first months after its launch, by any measure. Marketed as a "best in class" solution, Denuvo's makers were smart enough to know that any kind of protection they made would be eventually surpassed by pirates' efforts - which is why they simply said that Denuvo's mission was to " (...) provide the longest crack-free release window compared to competitors." Looking to guarantee developers and publishers the arguably most important time-frame for new game releases and sales, Denuvo's sales and marketing director Thomas Goebl said that their aim was "to help publishers to secure the initial sales windows of their games, hence delaying piracy."





However, after massively successful initial anti-tamper efforts, which saw Denuvo-protected games going uncracked for months after release, the death knell seems to be sounding for the company's protection mechanism. As users have been noting, and as scene groups have been touting, "(...) Denuvo protected games will continue to get cracked faster and faster." The new methods no longer involve reverse-engineering a game's executable to strip a game of its DRM software; now "[piracy] scene groups have found a way to get past [Denuvo's] encryption and keygen files in just a day. They do not crack Denuvo, they simply keygen it, so Denuvo thinks nothing is wrong on the pirated version."

Perhaps the most dangerous indicator for Denuvo has been the inclusion of a second layer of DRM protection on the latest Assassin's Creed Origins, which makes use of VMProtect on top of Denuvo's Anti-Tamper. That a publisher has decided to invest twice in DRM, not fully trusting Denuvo's solution to handle the assault from pirates, is likely the clearest sign of a company that has seen its products fall out of favor. It likely signals an industry-wide eye-opener that Denuvo isn't fitting the bill anymore, which will certainly make it harder for the company to keep selling its services. After all, a couple of days of piracy protection likely isn't the kind of "early sales window" publishers are looking for when they pay for Denuvo's royalties, now is it?

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Its really sad to see developers push for DRM rather than optimising games for PCs. I do pay for games but this whole DRM **** is getting too much to tolerate and spoils the whole experience of playing games for fun.
 
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I remember the attempts to curb piracy back in the first computer games, and despite every study showing that increasing DRM lowers sales, increases piracy, and adding more than just a basic version (CD Key was a basic way of preventing copying a game for a friend right off the bat, or asking for a specific word on a specific page of a manual shipped with it) is like painting a target on your back for people who enjoy figuring out how it works and being able to break it.
 
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Well, someone will remember that plain old ROM Cartridges type can be an option... to stop(delay) piracy.
 
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And this my friends, is what is hurting PC AAA gaming. The Ubisoft solution is unaceptable. This is a fight between crackers that want to crack the games, and companies that want max profit. And in the middle, we customers, are the ones that pay for it.

The problem is, the next big step against piracy, is the same that was taken 7 years ago: Some companies simply stop releasing their games on PC. Just wait and see. Any game is cracked in 1 day now. I´m on a private FTP that has all the game releases instantly, some even before the steam release. Reminds me of the 1990s and 2000s.
 
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I´m on a private FTP that has all the game releases instantly, some even before the steam release.
Well good for you, it's so nice of you to inform the internet about it
 
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Informing? I´m not linking anything, and I don´t use that FTP for games, I use it for other stuff. Just saying that the piracy problem is growing again. Call of Duty got cracked in 2 hours, for example. You talk like I´m making the pirated games thing worse. I´m just an user on a forum.
 
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I´m just an user on a forum who has access to a private FTP that has all the game releases instantly, some even before the steam release.
FTFY ... I'd be the last one judging you even if you own the damn server, just demonstrating what it means 'to inform' ;)
 
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Just saying that the piracy problem is growing again.
It's not getting any worse. Piracy has always been around, and WILL always be around. When game devs stop treating everyone like a criminal, we all will start caring about them again. It's a proven fact that when you push the public, they push back often harder. So devs, stop pushing!
Its really sad to see developers push for DRM rather than optimizing games for PCs. I do pay for games but this whole DRM **** is getting too much to tolerate and spoils the whole experience of playing games for fun.
Completely agree! I'm not a promoter of piracy, however DRM is worse and even less tolerable.
 
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And this my friends, is what is hurting PC AAA gaming. The Ubisoft solution is unaceptable. This is a fight between crackers that want to crack the games, and companies that want max profit. And in the middle, we customers, are the ones that pay for it.

The problem is, the next big step against piracy, is the same that was taken 7 years ago: Some companies simply stop releasing their games on PC. Just wait and see. Any game is cracked in 1 day now. I´m on a private FTP that has all the game releases instantly, some even before the steam release. Reminds me of the 1990s and 2000s.

Thats fine, the marketplace doesnt need Ubi, EA and activision at all. They are leeches that have turned publishing into a warzone where they execute one good studio after another, killing franchises and creativity while theyre at it. I am 100% fine with them releasing their junk on consolew because it will also improve the qualiry of PC gaming and its userbase.

The commercial drive within gaming is sonething we have only seen as being counterproductive to qualiry and progress until now. Real innovation in gaming concepts and mechanics suffers from the presence of big publishers. Its the same way with modding as well, make it xommercial and the passion to make sonwthing special will be destroyed by the need for safe investing and profit margins.
 
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Thats fine, the marketplace doesnt need Ubi, EA and activision at all. They are leeches that have turned publishing into a warzone where they execute one good studio after another, killing franchises and creativity while theyre at it. I am 100% fine with them releasing their junk on consolew because it will also improve the qualiry of PC gaming and its userbase.

The commercial drive within gaming is sonething we have only seen as being counterproductive to qualiry and progress until now. Real innovation in gaming concepts and mechanics suffers from the presence of big publishers. Its the same way with modding as well, make it xommercial and the passion to make sonwthing special will be destroyed by the need for safe investing and profit margins.

I hope you know that the most sucessful PC games belong to Activision... so I didn´t really get this post. At all.

Also it doesn´t make sense to have less companies releasing games on PC. The more companies, the better. More options, less exclusives. No platform should have exclusives.
 
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I hope you know that the most sucessful PC games belong to Activision... so I didn´t really get this post. At all.

Also it doesn´t make sense to have less companies releasing games on PC. The more companies, the better. More options, less exclusives. No platform should have exclusives.

Activision is just the publisher. The developer doing the good work is Blizzard. Unless you feel Bungie is doing the world a favor with junk like Destiny, or that we need our yearly CoD.
 
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Activision is just the publisher. The developer doing the good work is Blizzard. Unless you feel Bungie is doing the world a favor with junk like Destiny, or that we need our yearly CoD.

Maybe you don´t like those games, but other people do like. Each one has its own preferences. Saying that those games shouldn´t release on PC makes no sense. We should have every game available. Is good to have options and the more games available, the better. I personally like those companies and their games. I don´t like league of legends, but you won´t see me saying it is junk that shouldn´t be released on PC. That´s dumb.

Btw, now that you mentioned it, Call of Duty WW2 is a good game.

And I know Activision is the publisher, just like it is the publisher for call of duty wich is made by Treyarch, SledgeHammer and Infinity Ward. That doesn´t change anything. Call of Duty, Destiny, Warcraft, Heartstone, Diablo, etc, they all belong to activision. Your comment made no sense sorry. Activision is not a developer on any game. You said "market doesn´t need activision", wich is laughable considering the amount of PC players on Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
 
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I no longer care enough about games to even bother with piracy TBH.

They're nothing but DLC infested, loot box cash grabs now and I'm not playing along anymore.

Fuck these money grabbing publishers.

The only good thing to come out of it is that it has removed my desire/need to upgrade to expensive new CPU's & GPU's in order to play them.

My current rig is going to last me a long,long,long while yet.
 
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Maybe you don´t like those games, but other people do like. Each one has its own preferences. Saying that those games shouldn´t release on PC makes no sense. We should have every game available. Is good to have options and the more games available, the better. I personally like those companies and their games. I don´t like league of legends, but you won´t see me saying it is junk that shouldn´t be released on PC. That´s dumb.

Btw, now that you mentioned it, Call of Duty WW2 is a good game.

And I know Activision is the publisher, just like it is the publisher for call of duty wich is made by Treyarch, SledgeHammer and Infinity Ward. That doesn´t change anything. Call of Duty, Destiny, Warcraft, Heartstone, Diablo, etc, they all belong to activision. Your comment made no sense sorry. Activision is not a developer on any game. You said "market doesn´t need activision", wich is laughable considering the amount of PC players on Overwatch and World of Warcraft.

Again, Activision won't be missed if they vanish. The IP isn't gone with them and Activision itself brings us nothing but crappy, yearly release schemes (and while COD WW2 is good, it is an exception not the rule). Its only good that they are letting Blizzard do its thing most of the time and I agree fully with you on the actual games. But again; for that we don't need the publisher at all.

The fact is that big publishers really are no longer relevant by todays standards at all, with the emergence of crowd funding and the low requirements to actually publish a project. They serve no purpose except as a stakeholder. The only relevance they have are as license holders and for paying out dividends. Old boys networks 'managing' our gaming experiences and getting in the way of creativity and game content/longevity most of the time. Activision isn't the worst of the bunch, but it still represents dead weight.
 
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Piracy growing comes from 2 Tech evolution factors, Internet speeds and Internet Access to it.

Games nowdays, most of them comes to release with many many problems and bugs... something that wasn't tolerated a few years ago.
Publishers like EA, Activision are simply money grabbers, studios struggle to get the game done in time... and then the price of those games are just not real. 60€ from a brand new version of a game ? something that a week after get a free pirate version of it ? No wonder people just play the pirate one just to see if the game is good enough to buy it.

With this comes another matter about gaming. Some games, (I remember No Man's Sky) overhyped game failed to hook the players, and many titles comes in the same way. So why i should even bother buy a game, if it really doesnt delivery user experience ? I've tested NMS pirated...and I felt that was the right judgement for me not to buy game.

I do buy games, only..and only if they are fairly priced games and can deliver user experience. Diablo 3, FFXIV Realm Reborn, ArcheAge (EA), BlackDesert Online... are some examples, even if they arent the best of best....
If the game is good enough they really dont need so many DRM actions, people buy it and play it. So when a game is behing a DRM...maybe its because is not good enough.. or the publisher is a money grabber.
 
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IMO the prices for games and software should be set with a high regard for that country's economy. I mean 60$/€ is something in Germany and a totally different thing in China.

Edit: I took China as an example, but there are also a lot of other countries where people earn less.
 
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