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Denuvo cracked recently
As end of march showed up in a forum in last days got publicly spread, that the drm copyright denuvo specially known for games got cracked by many groups involved in this copyright bypassing.
https://torrentfreak.com/game-pirates-beat-denuvo-with-hypervisor-bypasses-irdeto-promises-countermeasure/
irdeto, creator of denuvo allready promised changes to block again all holes.
Comments
GLWS
Some things never change. Its 2026 and copy protection is still the same massive waste of resources (either in building or cracking) as it was 25 years ago. The scale might have grown exponentially but the outcome is still the same predictable and inevitable "it will be broken".
Unfortunate. Denuvo was one of the better options since it works cross platform, limits activations per 24h instead of lifetime, and doesn't require admin/kernel access.
Same as in regular retail shrinkage, when people steal it makes things more expensive/worse for everyone else who plays by the rules. Publishers can't just do nothing since otherwise piracy would completely cannibalize sales. It's just too easy and tempting for people to help themselves to free stuff they didn't pay for. So in response the DRM will probably get more invasive and AAA games will shift to be even more online than they already are (single player games too easy to crack, online games much easier to protect). So thanks, pirates =\
There is an even better option that requires no kernel access: No DRM at all.
Well, is it? I would pretty much argue that in 2026 the amount of people not simply to lazy (and suicidal - downloading pirated software is nothing but one big fat gamble of getting yourself a rootkit after all and this has only gotten worse with time) to fiddle with files they downloaded from wherever is rather negligible. Not to mention the age old wisdom of a person stopped from pirating and a person buying the product often times being a very different thing.
I have no horse in the race (as in i neither buy nor pirate games - or really anything else these days) but at least when it comes to games i see this kind of argument as more of an excuse on the publishers side for putting massive price tags (be it on the figurative box or by making any 5 new pictures into a DLC to squeeze their customers with) on what really is for the most part generic slop.
On top of that most games are pretty much dead a couple weeks after release (if they are ever alive to begin with). Sure, for single player stuff it doesn't really matter but beyond that it is simply unrealistic to expect any person capable of 1 + 1 = 2 to be all that eager to pay more than maybe a couple euros for the experience.
How many games can one expect a single person to buy anyways? If there actually was something i wanted to play and i had the time i would probably max out at 1-2 games per year and that is already pushing it (if i get burned on those "dead in 3 weeks games" a couple of times the amount will also be reduced to zero like real quick). When putting this into perspective with how flooded the gaming market is and at which rate those things get churned out there is pretty much bound to be a wants/offers imbalance.
Sure, no one is forced to like it but if copy protection is the goal executing as much code as possible remotely (as in out of the users reach - you can't copy what you don't have) is the only option that makes sense. Anything else will get reversed and neutered. In locally running software secure copy protection will never exist (even if the dwindling scene might make it take a little longer for whatever scheme to be broken) since its simply impossible. Like i have said initially: Its a futile waste of resources.
In the end it would obviously be better if publishers would just accept the fact that many people just won't buy their products no matter what (instead of pissing off - and maybe even chasing away - their actually paying customers with DRM) but i figure this is kind of a wet dream for them and they will never give it up.
Not how it works in reality. There is a massive set of players who will check for pirated versions first, and then buy if they can't get it for free. Pirates love the argument that they'd never buy so they're not causing any harm but there's enough casual pirates it makes a real difference on sales. (Something like 80% of game installs on drm-free games are pirated, and only 20% legitimate). Publishers aren't dumb, they buy these expensive DRM solutions year after year because they pay for themselves. They have the data to justify the expense.
Yep, and that's part of the reason why we see a shift towards online experiences.
Does not justify theft.
Does not justify theft.
Does not justify theft.
Does not justify theft.
I think today i will doze off into dreamland with the vision of a publisher standing in the street asking people: "Hello good sir, are you a pirate? Yes? Great. So if you couldn't have pirated would you have bought instead?" and the guy goes "Sure. My budget for games is XXX€ per month but right now i spend it on ice cream instead. By the way i am 16 years old and run two jobs to support this". Its an interesting picture.
Beyond that, well, there is a smidgen of substance i could debate you on but in general you added way to many absolutes that didn't exist in my post and somehow think that somewhere i had even a single sentence that would try to "justify theft", which smells a bit strongly of strawman, so i won't. Starting off a post with a long list of "I didn't say X" is no fun.
Sometimes i get the feeling there is some kind of gaming stockholm syndrom though. It might be a total coincidence due to low sample size and anecdotal evidence but it seems its usually people that burn a ton of money on games (often times with quite non-satisfactory results) that get very emotional other the perceived threat of other people cheating on the price of admission.
massive thanks to Voices38 (full cracks) and kirigiri/cs rin ru team (hypervisor bypass)
the hypervisor bypass installs a custom driver that spoofs cpuid and other HWID checks. unless denuvo makes a kernel anti-cheat level drm, and required secure boot, tpm etc, there would be no way to stop this.
voices38 made full cracks more like regular cracks, all checks bypassed, no driver needed.
i havent tried the hypervisor bypass, but the voices38 cracks work great (resident evil requiem).
the more invasive DRM gets the more people will resist. right now, there is already a large movement of gamers who usually pay, but always boycott/pirate denuvo games.
and for good reason, as denuvo is already extremely invasive. if denuvo ever adds kernel anticheat level DRM, im sure a lot more people will start pirating.
cant stop human nature though. as gabe newell said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem."
now that there are day 1 cracks for denuvo games, game studios will have to reevaluate the overhead and licensing costs of adding denuvo.
private trackers
r/piratedgames
the community maintains a list of trusted sites/sources, and if anyone gets malware and reports it, the site will be instantly delisted. if you aren't the first to download a game, chances are someone else already did and was fine.
Well, agreed, you can somewhat minimize risk and it doesn't have to be file-of-unknown-origin-downloaded-from-usenet bad. A good rootkit author/user will likely know how to minimize the risk of killing off his supply too though. Not a gamble i would be making but obviously everyone has their own level of risk aversion.
There might have been a time where i weighted the chances differently but these days there are simply way to many unknowns between sources and distribution channels (accessible to mere mortals) for my liking.
There's substantial evidence showing that the entertainment industry as a whole actually profits from piracy, and the only well-funded research that has been released publicly on the actual cost of piracy tells a very different story to the one you are painting.
Excellent video on the topic:
Can I be the next one cracked
Not a particularly useful study since it's relying on pirates self reporting whether they would have purchased a game or not, and doesn't even cover the main consumer market where the majority of game sales occur and people have the most disposable income to spend on games (US).
Here's also what their study actually says: https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Global-Online-Piracy-Study.pdf
It's relying on survey data so it's going to be kind of useless data but even that doesn't match the headline that was reported. Then it goes on to cite a single digit displacement rate as being 'high', which is a massive underestimation of their self-reported survey data compared to actual industry sales data.
Pirates hate admitting that they're doing anything that hurts the industry because that would mean admitting to themselves that they're just behaving like selfish bastards. If you want something then buy it, don't steal it.
--
Update: A different study showing revenue loss up to nearly a quarter for Denuvo being cracked in particular, which seems more close to a realistic figure to me
No problems. You can be split opened.
OK, i will give you a case study: Me back in my arr matey days. I used to use a certain program i very much loved (like very much, i recommended it so much i would almost say i had some kind of advertising value but just almost since otherwise you would make it into me justifying) and due to certain circumstances i was in dire need for updates while recent cracks became harder to acquire. Know what i did? I first tried to put up with the inconveniences and when that didn't work out searched for an alternative and never looked back. The company lost a human billboard and gained nothing.
I don't want to question your psychic abilities but are you really that sure you can just blanket predict people? Ill take the same example again. Sure, buying this program would have been a bit pricy for young me. I guess i could have somehow managed though but i just wanted to rather spend my money on beer, weed and the other odd thing. Amoral? Yeah sure but its something i don't lose sleep over. I would feel a little different if i had been using it for profit but since i wasn't i am pretty much at peace with myself over it. Its just how things go (there is obviously also the whole argument regarding idealistic value and general properties of actual productive software vs some game but that would take it to far). I never have and never will pretend to be Jesus.
Mind you, i actually write software and i don't get my panties in a twist the other way around either. I have a funny anecdote from back in the day when i was deeply into (private) modding (moderately successfully actually). We had a good thing going and the people around me were always crazy protective of every little bit and piece (starting fights and being insufferable assholes in general). Trust me 20 years later i am still dizzy from all the head shaking while telling those guys to "STFU because IDGAF". People do what people do. I made sure they didn't get to much and what i couldn't secure, well, whats the point in making a big deal out of it (in terms of a for profit developer that pretty much comes down to "you need a monetization model that actually works")?
Don't get me wrong, i don't want to invalidate your opinion. If thats how your moral compass is calibrated thats perfectly fine, i would just maybe be a slight bit less obsessive about universal applicability.
Sidenote: Since you are invalidating statistics on the basis of self reporting i am kinda curious why someone would admit to pirating stuff and then try to hide the negative impact when it would be way easier to not admit to piracy in the first place?
Fuck Denuvo.
1) It isn't theft when you don't own the product you pay for in the first place. What you're buying is a digital license that can be revoked at any time. That's why we end up having to advocate for initiatives like Stop Killing Games, which I admire but it doesn't fix the root cause, it's just a band-aid solution where we're literally begging publishers not to scam us so blatantly. And I really do mean scam, because by the point where they pull the plug on a game you've already given them your money and you're not getting it back.
2) As far as I understand DRM for video games, the point isn't to protect a game indefinitely but to prevent it from being cracked during the first few weeks of its release or worst on day 0 because that's when sales hit their peak and the publisher makes most of its revenue.
As insecure as hypervisor bypasses are, I have to say that it's an impressive tour de force because of the skill it requires and I appreciate the commitment of the cs.rin.ru admins to stringently moderate them so that end users don't get hacked that easily. Obviously all down to trust and I wouldn't ever run a hypervisor stripped of its security measures on my PC, it would be nice to have a spare gaming PC that's not connected to the Internet to run these HV-cracked games but the current economy doesn't make it possible for us plebs lol.
Yeah, that is actually a good point. The delay is worth a fair bit. Can't argue with that. The impatience crowd is quite a juicy target audience (i have never really understood why people feel the need to have some random - i mean if you are fanboy of the franchise or whatever i can at least somewhat see a point - game on day one or even day zero at the price of paying premium on top of the already premium pricing as long as it isn't simply out fear of having no one left to play with anymore a couple weeks/months later). Hype and fomo are powerful drugs, i guess.
People are still pre-ordering Call of Duty every year
The break neck pace release cycle of games like COD is pretty much a whole topic on its own in my opinion. I mean by now there is probably generations, which feel its normal since they have basically grown up with it but to me it just seems crazy.
Even buying on day one you already know that in one year a new release will either make your acquisition fully obsolete or at the very least splinter the community (even further). At least COD releases probably aren't instantly falling off a cliff but still... Sure, games that let you grind the learning curve even years in and/or manage to offer enough variance after such a time span to continue captivating a community have never been exactly the norm but they existed and such a release cycle basically says screw that by default.
Duplication is not theft. One could argue that it could cause potential lost profits (just like telling people to avoid a service or purchase could cause potential lost profits), but it's still not theft.
Theft without the deprivation of property is not theft.
Pretty much every government around the world disagrees with you and has laws explicitly covering IP theft rather than theft of a physical object.
I wonder who is paying the government's ministers their election funds and taxes. You might say, they have an incentive to protect the interests of corporations that control the IPs so might have an issue with IP infringement...
Well, yes and no. Sure, its usually simplified to theft but as @forest said in the strict definition of theft some kind of good needs to be taken away, which doesn't happen in relation to piracy.
At best there is some loss of revenue occurring. One could probably argue that the money the pirate choose to not pay is what was stolen but then stealing something you already had is still a pretty weird idea.
While piracy can of course cause damage/have a victim it is not really possible to 1:1 map it to classical theft.
I have money to buy any game I want, but intentionally choose to pirate most of the titles. Because of endless dlcs, stupid restrictions or even micro transactions. Also game quality. I do buy some titles such as rimworld, red alert all series, civilization, diablo.
Create good games - take my money, play stupid corpo bullshit - pay the consequences.
Yes, that's classic weasel words to say property has to be deprived for it to be stolen or theft. This is a typical piracy argument.
I grew up with more generic "taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission" and in the real world, people steal intellectual property all the time that is unquestionably theft.
Governments also say that corporations are people. These are what are called legal fictions:
in between all the wall of texts, this is all that matters.
So what version of Sesame Street in your country taught you was the meaning stealing as a child?
The argument that corporations are people is more complex than agreeing on what stealing/theft means.
Unless you're arguing it needs to be property to be theft is a legal fiction and bullshit with common sense.
I'd be happy to discuss this if your responses are polite. Until then, let's discontinue.