Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection • Hacker News Board

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#91

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

eps wrote: post #45

fefe23 wrote: post #10

Denuvo "copy protection" is so universally loathed by PC gamers that several publishers have ended up removing it in updates to their games, for example Mass Effect Legendary Edition. https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/mass-effect-legendary-e... Note how getting rid of Denuvo also saved about one gigabyte (!!) of disk space. Denuvo slowed some games down so much that playing online with a cracked version is conside…

At some point Denuvo was basically a repack of VMProtect [0] (made by a small Russian software company) as the core of their protection "technology". This would've not been not a big deal if they weren't using a SINGLE retail license of that software, a license explicitly prohibiting this sort of white-labelling. And prior to that they were in negotiations with the VMPSoft to develop a custom solution for them. The n…

Any chance you could point me to (preferably English) sources for this? "Major DRM company caught pirating software" should make for hilarious evidence in piracy/DRM/copyright debates.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#92

Post by Cyberdog » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #3

> Irdeto’s services and solutions protect revenue, enable growth and fight cybercrime "cybercrime" is such a tell word for press release BS. What's interesting here is that there's clearly enough pressure from emulation of a system that's still the most current in its category that this product exists. There are clearly some downsides to the savings of pulling ARM architecture off-the-shelf.

> There are clearly some downsides to the savings of pulling ARM architecture off-the-shelf.

To be fair, its competitors are basically x86-64 boxes…

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#93

Post by tristor » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

prvit wrote: post #72

tristor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, back when I had time to game heavily I would, as a matter of course, pirate every single game on PC because the experience was pretty much always superior, but I would also pre-order/buy on release the same games. I didn't pirate because I didn't want to pay for it, I pirated because I didn't want to deal with a single-player games requiring an always-on Internet connection and running kernel modules in Wi…

Sure, but you can’t seriously argue that there is a significant audience of people who’d refrain from buying games if they couldn’t pirate them.

I think there's a significant audience that simply wouldn't play games at all if they couldn't pirate them, because they can't realistically afford to buy them. In that case, I don't think piracy costs sales, it just allows involvement in a cultural phenomenon and art that would otherwise be inaccessible. I leave it up to the reader to decide if that's a positive outcome or not.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#94

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #78

haunter wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don't buy games with anti-cheat So you would let cheaters win? What a weird take. Small amount of people wants to ruin game for everyone > the solution shouldn't be abandoning online games

There are more effective ways to deal with cheaters than using anti-cheat systems that degrade system security and performance by hooking into the OS kernel. Also, in many games, anti-cheat is anti-user, because the games are /not/ online multiplayer, which means the only thing the user is "cheating" is themselves. I don't cheat in most games, but there are a lot of games that are pretty grindy in genres I otherwise…

[deleted]

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#95

Post by Cyberdog » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

lousken wrote: post #22

why does this trash still exist? Haven't we learned anything from starforce, securom and all the other DRMs? Also don't companies understand that most people who pirate these days either do it or rather not play the game at all? Personally, I blacklisted all denuvo games long time ago and don't own any.

The problem is that the people most affected by this sort of software (the gamers) are not the customers of the company that makes it; the game publishers are. So Denuvo just needs to pitch the idea that their product will increase sales, which is certainly something publishers already want to hear.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#96

Post by eps » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #91

eps wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point Denuvo was basically a repack of VMProtect [0] (made by a small Russian software company) as the core of their protection "technology". This would've not been not a big deal if they weren't using a SINGLE retail license of that software, a license explicitly prohibiting this sort of white-labelling. And prior to that they were in negotiations with the VMPSoft to develop a custom solution for them. The n…

Any chance you could point me to (preferably English) sources for this? "Major DRM company caught pirating software" should make for hilarious evidence in piracy/DRM/copyright debates.

The post on RSDN is the source. Its author is the VMP developer.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#97

Post by enzanki_ars » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

mdbauman wrote: post #19

The friction in buying games these days is so low, I don't understand how this would result in more units shipped for any publisher that chooses to use this. If you're "pirating" a game, I imagine (because this is why I pirated games in the pre-Steam days) it's because you can't afford to buy it or you refuse to give the publisher/developer your money on principle. Either way, you're not a potential customer. So sure…

There is still a large amount of friction in keeping a game though. These types of DRMs can cause the game to be unplayable years later. Like when Alder Lake came out and a bunch of games with Denuvo DRM broke [1]. Because of all of this recent attention on it, I wouldn't be shocked if it resulted in less sales and higher rates of emulation. Probably not enough to cause a dent in sales to disincentive addition of DRM though sadly.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/faulty-drm-breaks-doz...

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#98

Post by tomjen3 » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

elipsey wrote: post #42

ryandrake wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One sad lesson I learned early on in my software career is, for every ethical stand you are willing to take as a developer, there's always some other developer who is willing set aside ethics or has a different set of ethics. Software needs some kind of baseline ethical standard, like a Hippocratic Oath. A line that we "shall not cross." I remember my first job out of college, I was asked to write code that caused ou…

>> https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics It is worthwhile for us to read and reflect on the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.* * https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics

That one requires a lot of free work. I believe that requiring others to work for free is morally wrong.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#99

Post by prvit » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

Shorel wrote: post #81

prvit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the best part for execs who think piracy cuts into legitimate game sales (it doesn't). I’ve bought games because there were no cracks available, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a game after pirating it. There’s no way I’m alone in this.

I half-agree with you. The lack of availability of a pirate version of a game increases sales. This has been observed for many very popular games. Not so much for small and unknown ones. At the same time, I have paid for games when they became available in Steam, years after I have played them, so I disagree on that point.

Sure, but Denuvo is pretty much exclusively used by the very popular games.

> At the same time, I have paid for games when they became available in Steam, years after I have played them, so I disagree on that point.

Presumably for vastly less money than they were charging at launch?

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#100

Post by smileybarry » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

Love that this is an anti-emulator SDK rather than anti-piracy/copy.

So hacked Switch consoles will continue to be able to play these games perfectly well, emulators will find a method around it (see: Ape Escape PS1 DRM patches), and only legitimate Switch consoles will suffer as whatever amount of unpack-execute-dbgbreak-call-repack cycles are done to "protect" the game code.