Thursday, October 12th 2017
Where Art Thou, Denuvo? Shadow of War DRM Cracked in Two Days
Denuvo has been one of the foremost DRM technologies in recent times. There have been a number of issues around this particular RM technology: unclear terms of service that didn't explain the use of this third party DRM, or reports of inconsistent and even degraded performance on Denuvo-protected games. While some of those points have since been corrected - there's no clear evidence of degraded performance with Denuvo anti-tamper on or off - and games' terms of service have been updated to include references to Denuvo anti-tamper being used, this is one of those technologies that has been more ill-received - kind of like SecuROM, back in the days.
Denuvo, however, has enjoyed some measure of success in the past, in that it has allowed games developers to see their products remain uncracked for longer periods of time that they would with other DRM technologies that are currently employed (like Steam, for instance). Developers and publishers say this allows them to see more fruits from their labor in that at least during that DRM-protected window, would-be pirates will likely make the jump towards a legitimate version of the game, instead of waiting for the DRM protection to be bypassed. Lately, though, its protections are being bypassed almost as fast as Steam's, which has been the case with Middle-Earth: Shadow of War - cracked two days after release. This is a prickly subject that usually neatly divides proponents of either DRM-free games, or those that really don't care, so long as it doesn't tamper with end-user experience. There are success cases for both fields - GOG on the DRM-free side of the fence and Steam on the other, for example - but this is clearly a debate that won't be settled any time soon.
Sources:
Crack Watch, User @ rdri on Reddit
Denuvo, however, has enjoyed some measure of success in the past, in that it has allowed games developers to see their products remain uncracked for longer periods of time that they would with other DRM technologies that are currently employed (like Steam, for instance). Developers and publishers say this allows them to see more fruits from their labor in that at least during that DRM-protected window, would-be pirates will likely make the jump towards a legitimate version of the game, instead of waiting for the DRM protection to be bypassed. Lately, though, its protections are being bypassed almost as fast as Steam's, which has been the case with Middle-Earth: Shadow of War - cracked two days after release. This is a prickly subject that usually neatly divides proponents of either DRM-free games, or those that really don't care, so long as it doesn't tamper with end-user experience. There are success cases for both fields - GOG on the DRM-free side of the fence and Steam on the other, for example - but this is clearly a debate that won't be settled any time soon.
43 Comments on Where Art Thou, Denuvo? Shadow of War DRM Cracked in Two Days
For more information, talk to CDPR.
There has been plenty of proof in the past that a good game will be brought in mass even if it has no protection whatsoever with the condition of it being of good quality. Here's a practical example: www.wired.com/2008/03/sins-of-a-solar-3/
While that, many games are of very poor quality and actually, by using DRMs, trick people into buying them just to notice how junk they are.
The success and earning of a game are dictated by its quality, not its anti-piracy measures.
If companies would invest the $ in better game content rather than better DRMs they would win a lot more earnings.
You almost have to applaud a pirate for torrenting something that large.
Then again, perhaps I'm one of the few that didn't copy games or look for keycode cracks and actually bought games I wanted to play.
I either did that or waited for those game bundles they used to sell with like 5 games. Like a "LucasArt" pack. Anyone remember those?
anyways half of them are unfinished games. 5 new games in a day these days, i start dislike almost all off them they are slow i dont haw time and money for them.
also the 4.6 ver. is still not cracked yet , this game seems to use 4.5 ver. though
With Denuvo getting cracked so easily these days I wonder if there's going to be a resurgence in publishers/developers blaming piracy if their games fail or don't meet expectations. The blame could never fall on them after all.
btw 10 million copies is include consoles, where cracks not exist and most income come from them (AAA titles).
Total War: Warhammer had Denuvo and had record sales in the franchisee.
The only thing goes very well on PC, is shittly half priced / free online games.
Consoles are cracked quite frequently in asian countries. The 360 and Ps3 had serious issues with it, and it is pretty easy to figure the current crop will be no better.
Over 4 million of those sales for witcher 3 were PC sales. CD projektRED has already stated that sales of the DRMed copies of the witcher 1 were much lower then the DRM free variety. Hence why they started GOG.com and stopped using DRM, they found that people were far more willing to buy the DRM free variety on PC. You have no basis for stating that DRMed witcher 3 would have sold better (and there was a DRMed version, the steam version)
Denuvo does not guarantee sales. JC3 had denuvo and didnt sell very hot on PC for example.
It's like you have an agenda against PCs or something, based on your comment.