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Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 62 posts

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#11
> That 67MB file can reportedly replace the 370MB, DRM-protected executable in the main game folder with minimal effort and no practical effect on playability.

What other things is that 370MB executable doing that it needs to be over 5½ times as large as the game itself? Sending every keystroke home? Searching the hard drive for crimethink? Running a Bitcoin miner?

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#12
> Denuvo says it still considers even a few days of effective DRM protection to be valuable to its publisher customers

This is a pretty ridiculous position and should be embarrassing if you work at Denuvo. Would you buy anti-virus software or any other security product with that claim. (Police officer to homeowner) I see you bought a lock for your front door that only offered two days of protection ... it's been 3.5 so we're not going to investigate and your insurance probably won't cover it.

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Doom has enough of a brand name that the average person probably isn't going to say, "Great, now that I know a DRM-free version exists, I will pirate it!" More likely, someone like me would just say, "Sweet! Now if I buy the game, I can get at a version that won't slow down my performance with all of the obnoxious DRM crap running in the background!"

This is part of why I quit PC gaming and took the plunge to Linux. It seems like every PC game recently requires a social login with its own launcher and a dedicated DRM rootkit. And the privacy policies for all of this stuff are very "permissive." After a certain point you realize you aren't in control of your own computer. At least with consoles you _know_ going in that the manufacturer has every executable on lock…

Agreed. I gave up when everyone demanded that I install Steam.

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#15
post #12

> Denuvo says it still considers even a few days of effective DRM protection to be valuable to its publisher customers This is a pretty ridiculous position and should be embarrassing if you work at Denuvo. Would you buy anti-virus software or any other security product with that claim. (Police officer to homeowner) I see you bought a lock for your front door that only offered two days of protection ... it's been 3.5…

I don't think you understand the point of this DRM. If one week of protection means that you sell 80,000 more copies of your game to people that are too impatient to wait for piratable version, it's worth it. Your analogy doesn't work.

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#16
post #11

> That 67MB file can reportedly replace the 370MB, DRM-protected executable in the main game folder with minimal effort and no practical effect on playability. What other things is that 370MB executable doing that it needs to be over 5½ times as large as the game itself? Sending every keystroke home? Searching the hard drive for crimethink? Running a Bitcoin miner?

Mostly just obfuscation, but obfuscation via injecting more code rather than just symbol mangling. It's designed to ram tamper checks & other validation all over the place, making it hard to identify & remove.

And if you're thinking "but surely all that injected overhead would slow the game down?" then yes that's absolutely correct, it does: https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/282924-denuvo-really-does...

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#18
post #12

> Denuvo says it still considers even a few days of effective DRM protection to be valuable to its publisher customers This is a pretty ridiculous position and should be embarrassing if you work at Denuvo. Would you buy anti-virus software or any other security product with that claim. (Police officer to homeowner) I see you bought a lock for your front door that only offered two days of protection ... it's been 3.5…

I don't think you understand the point of this DRM. If one week of protection means that you sell 80,000 more copies of your game to people that are too impatient to wait for piratable version, it's worth it. Your analogy doesn't work.

If it’s free then sure, but your numbers are unlikely to be accurate and this stuff both directly and indirectly expensive. So, it’s easy for it to slightly increase sales and still be a net loss.

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand the point of this DRM. If one week of protection means that you sell 80,000 more copies of your game to people that are too impatient to wait for piratable version, it's worth it. Your analogy doesn't work.

If it’s free then sure, but your numbers are unlikely to be accurate and this stuff both directly and indirectly expensive. So, it’s easy for it to slightly increase sales and still be a net loss.

Basically most of the sales of the blockbuster games comes from the initial week or two, when people can't wait to get their hands on the game. The anti-piracy protection companies and the game companies know this, and that's why it's fine that the anti-piracy protection gets broken eventually. Just not when the game initially launched.

Re: Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

#20
Anyone remember the Unreal Tournament 2003 (or was it 2004?) Demo, which had an exe that was compatible with original retail release as a DRM free copy.

Of course, Unreal Tournament was a mostly online multiplayer game, and relied on cdkeys as well.

I'm surprised with everything i've heard about release pressure and crunch time that this doesn't happen more often.

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