Monday, November 12th 2018
Another Denuvo Version Falls: Hitman 2 Cracked Days Before Official Release
Well, Hitman 2 has been released, really, but only for special edition buyers, who are able to get their hands on the game where you kill Sean Bean (one of the most killed actors of all time, if I recall correctly). However, the official launch date really is set for tomorrow, so the title is still accurate. And providing the title early for special edition buyers has turned the tides on Warner Bro's decision, and put the pressure on Denuvo... Again. the DRM used on Hitman 2 stands at version number 5.3, but a single day after the game was made available to early players, on November 9th, Denuvo was gone.
That's not much to say on protecting the most critical cycle on any new game release: as Irdeto, Denuvo's parent company, puts it, the first 14 days. You can read the entire press release where Irdeto explains their market understanding after the break. The fact of the matter, however, seems to be that hackers are getting better and better and understanding and circumventing Denuvo's efforts.
Sources:
Ars Technica, Irdeto
That's not much to say on protecting the most critical cycle on any new game release: as Irdeto, Denuvo's parent company, puts it, the first 14 days. You can read the entire press release where Irdeto explains their market understanding after the break. The fact of the matter, however, seems to be that hackers are getting better and better and understanding and circumventing Denuvo's efforts.
As the latest premium game titles become increasingly anticipated by consumers looking to play, data from Irdeto reveals that if a AAA title is pirated upon its launch, publishers can expect hundreds of thousands of downloads of illegal copies, resulting in massive revenue loss.
The most critical part of the release cycle is the first 14 days as the majority of activations occur during this period. For highly anticipated titles, this could include up to 80% of sales, 50% of which are within the first four days.
Irdeto tracked the downloads of a major sports title on P2P networks after the title, which did not include anti-tamper protection, was cracked on the same day of its release. During the first two weeks, Irdeto detected 355,664 torrent downloads of the illegal copy of the title. Given the retail price of the game, this puts the total potential loss of revenue from P2P downloads at $21,336,283.
The research also found that the first day of release alone is crucial for the protection of a AAA title, as 12% of the illegal P2P downloads occurred within the first day of the cracked copy appearing on the P2P networks (and a substantial number of these in the first hour).
"Piracy is a threat that is firmly established in the games industry and, as our research suggests, it can result in potentially huge revenue losses for publishers if their games are compromised within the 14-day window following release," said Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director of Denuvo, Irdeto. "With this in mind, it is crucial for publishers to implement security strategies that make their games as difficult as possible to crack and reverse engineer. This way they will be able to better protect the revenues that allow them to continue to create such compelling games."
Irdeto, Denuvo parent company
26 Comments on Another Denuvo Version Falls: Hitman 2 Cracked Days Before Official Release
the crack was a bad crack according to Crackwatch and several other sources.
Time for a downgrade :D
DRM hurts me a lot even if its not noticeable for you big boy 6 core boys with large coolers.
EDIT: potential loss doesnt sound as threatening or as damaging so they remove the word potential.
There are to much no machine level games who requare internet, steam service,..
Men Go There Own Way
On the rest, fully agreed...
I called Eurocom, no callback. Never again will I do a laptop, I will just pay extra for a micro-atx water AIO build, most likely 7nm AMD vega 2 and 7nm vega 2 in Fall/Winter 2019
I've had laptops with 7700hq and I once tried one with a 7820hk and non ran lower than 3.8ghz with everything running at 100%. 7700hq running max at 3.4ghz didnt even pass 72C at stock voltage.
Having said that DRM is so 20th century, it needs to die everywhere not just gaming.