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Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal

arstechnica.com

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

#21

Post by Google234 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9
Jyaif wrote: post #7

This is going to cost them tens of millions of loss in sales.

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!"

I think it’s fair to say that you have a very naive view of the average human. I‘ll stick with the real data on piracy rates.

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

#22

Post by alkonaut »

How hard can it be to protect AAA games when can't be bought or played without an internet connection? (Can't be bought because you don't buy stuff on physical media any more, and can't be played because there is a huge patch every 3 days that you'll need if you expect to be able to finish it).

Just make the damn thing require an internet connection all the time. I don't care. If you are a good publisher then you promise to remove this restriction after 1 or 2 years and enable offline play.

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

#23

Post by vidarh »

smoyer wrote: 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…

This is a poor example. Most locks - like most DRM - does not stop the most determined people from gaining access. It makes it slightly harder, more time consuming and/or more resource consuming to get access, with the hope that it will deter the most opportunistic attackers, and slow the more determined ones "enough" where "enough" is a function of the cost of the protection vs. the benefit of delaying access.

We accept that because we recognize that there is a cost/benefit tradeoff to be made to protection - it is relatively rare for a protection to need to be absolute to be worthwhile; in fact in a lot of settings protections that attempts to be "absolute" will be prohibitively expensive and/or complicated.

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

#25

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

Google234 wrote: post #21
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9

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!"

I think it’s fair to say that you have a very naive view of the average human. I‘ll stick with the real data on piracy rates.

I think your own view that every game pirated is a lost sale is equally naive, so, to each his own.

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

#26

Post by Retric »

capableweb wrote: post #19
Retric wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Preorders are a huge part of that initial sales rush. Clearly those are independent of if the game happens to be cracked on opening day.

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

#27

Post by leetcrew »

alkonaut wrote: post #22

How hard can it be to protect AAA games when can't be bought or played without an internet connection? (Can't be bought because you don't buy stuff on physical media any more, and can't be played because there is a huge patch every 3 days that you'll need if you expect to be able to finish it). Just make the damn thing require an internet connection all the time. I don't care. If you are a good publisher then you pro…

once the game is cracked, the scene tends to be pretty efficient at posting patches. unless something nontrivial is happening over the connection, they can just emulate it locally.

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

#28

Post by leetcrew »

vidarh wrote: post #23
smoyer wrote: 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…

This is a poor example. Most locks - like most DRM - does not stop the most determined people from gaining access. It makes it slightly harder, more time consuming and/or more resource consuming to get access, with the hope that it will deter the most opportunistic attackers, and slow the more determined ones "enough" where "enough" is a function of the cost of the protection vs. the benefit of delaying access. We ac…

as they say, "Locks don’t keep robbers from stealing. Locks keep honest men from making mistakes."

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

#29

Post by leetcrew »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #25
Google234 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s fair to say that you have a very naive view of the average human. I‘ll stick with the real data on piracy rates.

I think your own view that every game pirated is a lost sale is equally naive, so, to each his own.

I certainly don't believe this, but I doubt that the "I only pirate games to try them before buying" crowd is terribly large either. even fewer people are going to actually buy the game first and then download a pirated .exe to replace the original.

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

#30

Post by tedunangst »

alkonaut wrote: post #22

How hard can it be to protect AAA games when can't be bought or played without an internet connection? (Can't be bought because you don't buy stuff on physical media any more, and can't be played because there is a huge patch every 3 days that you'll need if you expect to be able to finish it). Just make the damn thing require an internet connection all the time. I don't care. If you are a good publisher then you pro…

One person buys it, downloads, uploads the files, others play it... not sure why physical media would be required for somebody to pirate a game.
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