Rebirth
Cracking for the first time Denuvo did not clearly “completely defeat” the new anti-tampering technology: every game with the software requires a long process of dedicated protection , which also requires months to complete release. About two years after the first crack was published, however , 3DM announced its momentary departure – apparently, in order to test the Group’s effective influence on the Chinese market.
The reaction of the community did not wait: by exploiting the demo of the recent Doom , a nineteen-year-old hacker (named Voksi ) managed to bypass – for just over a weekend – the protection of a handful of titles covered by Denuvo. The exploit wa
s quickly fixed , but it was enough to draw attention to new, possible vulnerabilities in the system. The rest of the Scene then chose to come forward; in other words, the news ” They have cracked Denuvo ” would have appeared countless times on the pages of headlines and specialized sites .
The emptiness left by 3DM was soon filled by Conspir4cy – or “CPY” – a historic Italian group (founded in 1999) able to steal the Scene Spotlight for months; after successfully defeating Rise of the Tomb Raider , Inside and Doom , the team managed to cr
ack in just five days of Resident Evil 7 (marking a record record at the time). As a response, the company behind Denuvo continued unwilling to update its software, proposing a new version from time to time. Without much surprise, the thing just made it attract new blood in the Warez Scene line: Baldman can come to mind, the cracker of the Russian community Steam Underground (known for spraying first Nier Automata and Tekken 7 ), Mkdev , and STEAMPUNKS , mysterious group from controversial debut (due to the unusual preference for keygen to typical crack).
Within a few months, the competition has come back again; Moved from a common goal (essentially, ” Denuvo’s crackdown before others “), the Scene is back in full swing, supported by a new and wider community. In a word, the main players in video gambling piracy seem to have returned more active than ever (or almost), and merit basically falls on Denuvo.
DRM problems
From 2014 to today, a crack was made for about three quarters of the over 80 titles protected by Denuvo; this does not necessarily imply that publishers and developers are dissatisfied with the performance of the anti-tamper system. After all, the vast majority of sales (of triple A games) are generally recorded in the 30 days immediately following the release; being able to protect your product for a few months (or, at the limit, week) is still quite successful in this industry.
Effective or not, Denuvo seems rather unpopular – and I do not mean (only) to the opinion of pirates.
The software is, for example, e
xclusively designed for Microsoft environments. In other words, games protected by Denuvo can not boast of porting on Linux and OS X ; more than one publisher abandoned (silently) the support of alternative operating systems to
Windows. As if that was not enough, the anti-tamper also limits the use of third party software (such as Wine), completely excluding the purchase of games by Mac and Linux users. The system is also malicious for more technical reasons; for example, problems with the payment method (of any game covered by Denuvo) may temporarily preclude the start o
f the rest of the titles – from their library – subject to the same protection. Stay offline for too long also requires online “reactivation” of games (even if singleplayer); even though it is a better system than the ” always online ” detest, it can be problematic for anyone with a particularly unstable connection.
As “anti-tamper” (thus, anti-tampering), Denuvo significantly complicates the realization of mod, often preventing it altogether; the software is also accused of causing some PC releases (such as Sonic Mania ) to slip on the performance of certain games (such as Rime ), and deny moders the ability to bring back online non-core titles more supported by their publishers.
