The Denuvo DRM Thread

[Strange Fellow]

I want to play 20 year old games in 20 years.

Of the kind that use DRM like Denuvo? I can't think of a single one.

 

[unfairlight]

Tekken 7 is the only Denuvo game that I know of that is worth playing and has not removed it yet. All the ones that are worth anything have removed it since it was cracked.
Although I have a philosophy closer to what Ross from Accursed Farms has, the idea that games shouldn't die - ever.

 

[whydoibother]

The worst possible thing is a game cracked and released BEFORE release date.

How about a game where the pirates get MORE content, and earlier? Ubisoft managed it a few times. I think one Assassins Creed game famously crashed all the time due to online connection problems, while pirates had it earlier, with all preorder stuff (including store specific, so guaranteed more than any buyer), and it never crashed for them.
Really, is it even a rare occurrence for the pirated version to be not only free, but also better?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Tekken 7 is the only Denuvo game that I know of that is worth playing and has not removed it yet. All the ones that are worth anything have removed it since it was cracked.
Although I have a philosophy closer to what Ross from Accursed Farms has, the idea that games shouldn't die - ever.

Cracked Tekken 7 has been out for a few days.

 

[epeli]

An informed, exhaustive and completely retarded post bc we're talking specifically about videogame DRM you autistic imbecile.

Don't treat vidya DRM like it exists in a vacuum disconnected from the rest of reality. I had to give an outside example in an attempt to explain why people are anti-DRM, because you routinely dismissed anything directed against Denuvo without giving it any serious consideration. And I'm not very familiar with Denuvo because I can and will avoid it.

For the record my uninformed stance on Denuvo isn't all that different from yours. It's not the worst game DRM ever. Using it to secure initial sales is a reasonable business practice for huge AAA+++ budget titles. And it'll be removed or cracked later. But I certainly won't be buying any product using Denuvo.

 

[DalekFlay]

I want to play 20 year old games in 20 years.

Of the kind that use DRM like Denuvo? I can't think of a single one.

Looking at the Wikipedia list I see plenty of games I enjoy or want to play. Dishonored 2, Prey, Sniper Elite 4, MGS5, last few Far Cry games, latest Assassin's Creed. Granted I'm not an edgelord Codexer who pretends everything modern sucks ass.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I didn't know Prey used Denuvo.

Granted I'm not an edgelord Codexer who pretends everything modern sucks ass.

You should try it sometime, we don't have to worry about DRM, and our games cost less.

 

[unfairlight]

Cracked Tekken 7 has been out for a few days.

Cracked Tekken 7 has been out for a year and a month.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I misread your original post, I thought you had said that it had not been cracked yet - in fact you said that it had not been removed yet. My bad.

 

[unfairlight]

Looking at the Wikipedia list I see plenty of games I enjoy or want to play. Dishonored 2, Prey, Sniper Elite 4, MGS5, last few Far Cry games, latest Assassin's Creed. Granted I'm not an edgelord Codexer who pretends everything modern sucks ass.

No offense brah but literally the only good game in that list is Sniper Elite 4. Everything else is legit shit.

 

[unfairlight]

I misread your original post, I thought you had said that it had not been cracked yet - in fact you said that it had not been removed yet. My bad.

Yeah I thought so. Apparently though, the devs upgraded to a newer version of Denuvo with a recent patch which also got cracked, so you were right regardless.

 

[Raghar]

Steamworks doesn't stop day one piracy like it used to.

Has Steamworks ever stopped day one piracy? I mean, Valve themselves have admitted multiple times that it's barely even meant to be DRM. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm

Steam used CEG, which took while to break. And steam uses it's own libraries which required being reverse engineered for compatibility reason.

Even delaying the pirated version a few days can dramatically increase sales from what I have read, let alone delaying it a month or more.

Real world developers company calculate expected sales with expected number of piracy. And if they didn't recoup investment costs within 3 years, they are fucked. In days of old, game companies had really low running costs, thus 80 percent piracy didn't affect them as long as they had decent sales. Current companies are either milking money, or are grossly mismanaged. (For example that recent historical RPG had crazy high development cost considering content they delivered.)

 

[Cael]

Real world developers company calculate expected sales with expected number of piracy. And if they didn't recoup investment costs within 3 years, they are fucked. In days of old, game companies had really low running costs, thus 80 percent piracy didn't affect them as long as they had decent sales. Current companies are either milking money, or are grossly mismanaged. (For example that recent historical RPG had crazy high development cost considering content they delivered.)

They calculate it based on bullshit. I may get a pirated version of a game if I think it might be interesting, but I certainly will NOT be BUYING it. Therefore, did the developer actually lose any money from my pirated version of the game? Absolutely not. If I hadn't gotten a pirated version, I would not even be looking at the game, and would be doing something else instead. Now, if the game is really good and I end up loving it, I might buy a real copy for a variety of reasons and recommend it to my friends, who may then also buy it.

For the developers to say that every single copy of a pirated game out there is a direct chunk out of their pockets is basically fraud in line with greenies demanding that if we all don't turn over 0.07% of our GDP to them, the world will burn in a globull warming apocalypse.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

this is an old story. as if prohibitionism never happened. greedy morons, greedy morons never change.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Buying physical copy of Spyro's Trilogy remakes but only the first one is on disc, wtf? New form of DRM?

 

[Taxnomore]

All of this will be sorted when offline games disappear off the surface of the world.

Give it 5 years.

 

[Valky]

Developers or whoever the kikes are that calculate sales from piracy for unreleased games are fucking retarded.
A pirated copy of a game does not translate to a potential sale. A game that is actually a good fucking game translates to a potential sale. Stop making shitty games if you want more sales.

 

[karoliner]

I feel bad for Voksi. While i'm in the comfort of my house enjoying a game he cracked the dude is detained at a CIA black site taking the knot.

 

[DalekFlay]

All of this will be sorted when offline games disappear off the surface of the world.

Give it 5 years.

In all truthfulness if a popular, mainstream singleplayer game is ever killed off forever somehow due to DRM people would finally flip. No one really cares now because they aren't impacted in any way. If they were to be impacted, they would then care. Humans 101. I think this is a big reason why those games won't be allowed to die though, generally. Company would actually step in if it happened for PR reasons, to keep people faithfully buying digital. Only way it happens is if the company itself dies, which is what I rely on our lovely PC community to handle should it ever happen (and there'd be no company left to bitch about it legally).

 

[Vorark]

Most recent case was GFWL, at least most devs worth their salt removed it (or swapped it for Steamworks )

 

[Vorark]

After Stopping Pirates, Denuvo Plans to Catch Cheaters Too
https://torrentfreak.com/after-stopping-pirates-denuvo-plans-to-catch-cheaters-too-180822/

Denuvo, the company that's widely known for its anti-piracy solution in games, is expanding its reach. Parent company Irdeto announced today that it will soon launch its own anti-cheat technology, to keep games fair and enjoyable for everyone.

Denuvo‘s anti-piracy system has been a sworn enemy of many gaming pirates for years. While it is no longer as unbreakable as it once was, the software is still seen as a major roadblock.

Earlier this year the company was acquired by Irdeto, a global anti-piracy company, which has also taken an interest in cheating.

The company recently conducted an extensive survey which revealed that more than half of all gamers felt the negative impact of cheaters. In addition, three-quarters of the gamers agreed that it was important for games to have protection against cheaters.

Game publishers and developers have recognized the problem as well, as is illustrated by recent lawsuits. And according to Irdeto, they’re taking cheating as seriously as piracy.
“Thankfully, we are finally seeing the industry taking anti-cheat as seriously as anti-piracy,” Irdeto’s Bob Hernandez wrote two months ago.

“To succeed, they’ll need to put anti-cheat strategies at the heart of game design, alongside smart technologies for cheat detection, data encryption and behavioral analysis.”

The cheating research and additional commentary exist for a reason. Today, Iredeto announced that they’re joining the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC). And perhaps more importantly, Denuvo will soon launch its own anti-cheat technology to help solve this problem.

“Denuvo’s Anti-Cheat technology, which is soon to be launched as a full end-to-end solution, will prevent hackers in multiplayer games from manipulating and distorting data and code to gain an advantage over other gamers or bypass in-game micro-transactions,” the company says.

With its anti-cheating solution, Denuvo hopes to help game companies protect the value of their games. But, unlike their anti-piracy technology, it’s also good news for gamers, and not just professional E-sporters.

Whether that will be good enough to restore some of Denuvo’s negative image, which even rubs off on game ratings, has yet to be seen.

What a joy.

 

[Urthor]

I mean they are pretty successful at stopping pirates, stopping cheaters in PUBG would be a far more worthwhile use of their time

 

[A horse of course]

Mods=cheats

 

[Raghar]

After Stopping Pirates, Denuvo Plans to Catch Cheaters Too
https://torrentfreak.com/after-stopping-pirates-denuvo-plans-to-catch-cheaters-too-180822/

Denuvo, the company that's widely known for its anti-piracy solution in games, is expanding its reach. Parent company Irdeto announced today that it will soon launch its own anti-cheat technology, to keep games fair and enjoyable for everyone.

Denuvo‘s anti-piracy system has been a sworn enemy of many gaming pirates for years. While it is no longer as unbreakable as it once was, the software is still seen as a major roadblock.

Earlier this year the company was acquired by Irdeto, a global anti-piracy company, which has also taken an interest in cheating.

The company recently conducted an extensive survey which revealed that more than half of all gamers felt the negative impact of cheaters. In addition, three-quarters of the gamers agreed that it was important for games to have protection against cheaters.

Game publishers and developers have recognized the problem as well, as is illustrated by recent lawsuits. And according to Irdeto, they’re taking cheating as seriously as piracy.
“Thankfully, we are finally seeing the industry taking anti-cheat as seriously as anti-piracy,” Irdeto’s Bob Hernandez wrote two months ago.

“To succeed, they’ll need to put anti-cheat strategies at the heart of game design, alongside smart technologies for cheat detection, data encryption and behavioral analysis.”

The cheating research and additional commentary exist for a reason. Today, Iredeto announced that they’re joining the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC). And perhaps more importantly, Denuvo will soon launch its own anti-cheat technology to help solve this problem.

“Denuvo’s Anti-Cheat technology, which is soon to be launched as a full end-to-end solution, will prevent hackers in multiplayer games from manipulating and distorting data and code to gain an advantage over other gamers or bypass in-game micro-transactions,” the company says.

With its anti-cheating solution, Denuvo hopes to help game companies protect the value of their games. But, unlike their anti-piracy technology, it’s also good news for gamers, and not just professional E-sporters.

Whether that will be good enough to restore some of Denuvo’s negative image, which even rubs off on game ratings, has yet to be seen.

What a joy.

Cheating is bad, worse than piracy.

However this is relatively old info, I remember few years ago, someone managed to download few MBs of Denuvo papers and emails, and found they were talking with Google about incorporating it into tablets. (or something like that) Google was bit nebulous and was just inquiring about possibility. However even the fact that Google bothered to inquire about that stuff...

 

[Berekän]

Spoiler

This bit is interesting:

This release contains the latest update from August 21st and all
additional content of the Legendary Edition.

For the reason explained below, we noticed that two of the 38
included fighters (Gorilla and Robin) can have some small
delays/micro freezes when executing certain attacks. The slower
your cpu, the more noticeable the lags are on these two.
Even though the game isnt exactly new anymore, there are still a
lot of bugs left in the legit version.



Some Denuvo Techtalk :

For example when Robin does one of his special attacks, throwing a
smoke bomb on the ground, Denuvo starts writing a private key to the
memory from 000000014C113692:

000000014C113692 | 44 88 07 | mov byte ptr ds:[rdi],r8b
000000014C113695 | 5F | pop rdi
000000014C113696 | 50 | push rax
000000014C113697 | 21 C0 | and eax,eax
000000014C113699 | 9C | pushfq
000000014C11369A | 44 01 C1 | add ecx,r8d
000000014C11369D | 4C 89 F0 | mov rax,r14
000000014C1136A0 | 48 89 C1 | mov rcx,rax
000000014C1136A3 | 48 C7 C0 00 00 00 00 | mov rax,0
000000014C1136AA | 48 09 D0 | or rax,rdx
000000014C1136AD | 48 83 C1 01 | add rcx,1
000000014C1136B1 | 49 89 CE | mov r14,rcx
000000014C1136B4 | C1 C1 08 | rol ecx,8
000000014C1136B7 | 9D | popfq
000000014C1136B8 | 58 | pop rax

Then it fills the buffer at: 000000014779F593.

When everything is filled and the key is obtained by Denuvo itself,
it starts executing anti-tamper checks from 000000014774C37E:

000000014774C37E | 41 89 7D 00 | mov dword ptr ds:[r13],edi
000000014774C382 | 48 29 F3 | sub rbx,rsi
000000014774C385 | 41 54 | push r12
000000014774C387 | C1 CB 0D | ror ebx,D
000000014774C38A | BE D4 72 4D 3E | mov esi,3E4D72D4
000000014774C38F | 4C 8D 25 4F B5 06 FE | lea r12,qword ptr ds:[1457B78E5]
000000014774C396 | 4C 33 24 24 | xor r12,qword ptr ss:[rsp]
000000014774C39A | 48 8B 1C 24 | mov rbx,qword ptr ss:[rsp]
000000014774C39E | 4C 21 E3 | and rbx,r12
000000014774C3A1 | 4C 09 24 24 | or qword ptr ss:[rsp],r12
000000014774C3A5 | 0F BA F8 06 | btc eax,6
000000014774C3A9 | 0F BA F6 0D | btr esi,D
000000014774C3AD | 48 29 1C 24 | sub qword ptr ss:[rsp],rbx
000000014774C3B1 | 4C 89 E3 | mov rbx,r12
000000014774C3B4 | 48 23 1C 24 | and rbx,qword ptr ss:[rsp]
000000014774C3B8 | 4C 0B 24 24 | or r12,qword ptr ss:[rsp]
000000014774C3BC | 49 29 DC | sub r12,rbx
000000014774C3BF | C3 | ret

Here it gets the addresses of the various functions inside the Denuvo code
from r13 register and forces the original bytes, a single DWORD per cycle,
essentially overwriting any potential patches that were applied to these
functions before.

The way our crack works is that it reads a huge amount of encrypted code,
(including the code that the anti-tamper tries to overwrite) and therefore
patching the required place causes some slowdowns thanks to Denuvo and
the devs.