I think that ‘effectively’ unbreakable DRM is possible and has been for awhile. Maybe Denuvo is it, maybe not. It would only take a concerted effort by Microsoft and/or partnership with developers. Thing is Microsoft Windows and Office have benefited from piracy for a long time (and continue to). Similar to Photoshop, Android, etc.
I for one generally support DRM, because it hasn’t bothered me much and yeah, it does bother me a bit that I pay for content and others just take it.
Yeah, effectively unbreakable DRM probably has been available since the first Intel chips with TPM. It’s probably ends up involving hardware locking as well, which is not acceptable to media consumers. I’m sure there’s probably enterprise software that uses that type of DRM, which is perfectly acceptable for businesses.
(Hearsay) Apparently Denuvo isn’t doing anything new in terms of strategy, but the technical barrier is inadequate debugging tools for 64bit encrypted executables. So apparently once that barrier falls, its dead in the water. Who knows.
I was hoping to see the Steam Overlay running in this pic.
You can’t run Dying Light on the PC without Steam, can you?
Uh, oh.
(Note - this didn’t stop it from having the third-best debut in the series’ history. And the top seller in the UK.)
“Unbreakable” copy protection comes around every couple years.
LOL.
I have root on my desktop. There’s no way to really protect against someone with superuser privileges. That’s why console piracy is less prevalent-- you don’t have root.
I’d argue that Denuvo worked just long enough for every AAA publisher to migrate to always-online required or online-enhanced systems for their PC games.
Be interesting to see how Denuvo responds. They had one of their early copy protections cracked after a month or so (Dragon Age: Inquisition, I believe) and responded by coming up with their newer scheme that defied pirates and hackers for almost a year.
Oh the arms race will absolutely continue. As the man says, “war. war never changes.”
Well, It changed with GOG, The Witcher 2/3 releasing as DRM-Free, and Kickstarter titles.
If some companies want to continue selling games with a lock and chain attached, sure, money saved.
I fear that UWP/Win10 will be a bigger hassle than Denuvo ever was, even if it too hopefully can be unchained.
You have root on windows 10. There is no hypervisor. UWP apps run sandboxed in a limited security context, but you don’t.
HAHAHAHAHA. Okay, this response from Denuvo is hilarious.
[quote]
"Please note that we always position our Anti-Tamper solution as hard to crack, not as uncrackable. So far only one piracy group has been able to bypass it.
As always, we continue working to improve our solution to create security updates for upcoming Anti-Tamper versions. We will do the same with the learning from this bypass. It’s correct that the title in question was cracked some days after release. Given the fact that every unprotected title is cracked on the day of release - as well as every update of games - our solution made a difference for this title."[/quote]
Hey, only one hacker group was able to defeat it! It’s still working otherwise, right?
But of course. I mean hackers would never ever talk to each other and share techniques. Right, guys? Guys?
Actually yes that is completely correct. They are highly competitive.
They are and they aren’t. It’s not like these are people sitting in locked rooms unable to share what they are doing with anyone. The Scene exists and will always be filled with like minded warez operatives of different purposes. So sure, a particular group may not be sharing all their secrets on what they may be doing for a DRM crack, but they may very well work with other individuals or groups who have closer access to say … the devs in a particular game studio and pre-release code.
Perhaps the cracking group would put “thanks to H00pl44 for providing the game! M4d pr0pz!!1!” in the file_id.diz. They won’t tell H00pl44 how they cracked it. Or if H00pl44 releases the game, they’ll thank the crack group in their file_id.diz instead.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s time for them to set aside their differences and unite so that all may save $60 to play 7/10 singleplayer games.
I agree with you @TimJames I always wonder about all that wasted effort. I guess some people just really need a hobby. I have been to places where cracked media was sold though, so perhaps they are making money off it and we’re the ones who are fooled.
Cracking DRM is actually a compelling technical challenge, hacking in the true oldschool meaning. I don’t wonder about that at all.
Cracks regrettably enable piracy, but that isn’t their only function. Without cracks, many old games with restrictive and now obsolete protection mechanisms would be completely unplayable for legitimate owners today. Cracks preserve consumer rights.
Appearing to be in competition and sniping at each other through NFOs, but behind the scenes there is a lot of cooperation and sharing of tools/techniques.
And as stusser says, they preserve consumer rights, which most consumers unfortunately give a toss about.