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Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

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Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#111

Post by prvit »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #110
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'm sure you're not alone, but AFAIK every time it's actually been studied piracy appears to actually improve overall sales. Given the number of those studies that were leaked because they were run by DRM-happy companies, I'm inclined to believe them. So: You might not be the only one, but statistically your conclusion, perhaps counter-intuitively, doesn't hold out.

What do you think is the gold standard study on this subject?

I’ve seen this claim repeated often, but never with good evidence.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#112

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

sarsway wrote: post #49

Lots of Anti-DRM sentiment here, understandably. However, I think the big issue is the Steamdeck becoming a popular platform for Switch emulation. That's simply not ok. It's wild Valve can get away with this. I would think Nintendo would sue, but its probably fruitless.

> the Steamdeck becoming a popular platform for Switch emulation. That's simply not ok. It's wild Valve can get away with this. I would think Nintendo would sue, but its probably fruitless.

What is Valve getting away with / what would Nintendo sue for? Valve is just selling a general-purpose computer that is intended for - and I suspect (but don't have numbers) mostly used for - running games from Steam. That it's a general-purpose computer and thus ends up running some emulators doesn't make it illegal any more than, say, a Macbook, which can run emulators just as well. Valve would have to somehow be going out of their way to intentionally push/support running Switch games on the Steamdeck for Nintendo to have any standing to go after them.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#113

Post by Thaxll »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #103
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

Devs can do whatever they want server side. Leave the client machine alone. But also, at the end of the day, they're just games. I think we started taking things a bit too seriously.

I think you're missing the point that cheater ruins games for everyone, so people leave and just don't play those games anymore.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#114

Post by Thaxll »

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…

cripple performance is a strech, there was some cases in the past of that but it's not the vast majority of games.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#115

Post by GuB-42 »

Retr0id wrote: post #102
AndrewDucker wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crack it. As fast as possible.

It doesn't even need a crack, it "just" needs more accurate emulation. It may turn out that cracking is the path of least resistance, but making emulation more accurate is less of a legal issue - I for one would feel comfortable working on it "in the open" (which I may well do, depending on how much I care about the first Denuvo'd switch games to come out).

Accurate emulation is extremely hard, even for ancient hardware. See this article from 2011 for example: https://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-t... It takes a 3 GHz CPU to emulate the SNES accurately. You can do with less, obviously, but you will notice differences in some games.

With modern hardware, I don't think perfectly accurate emulation will ever be possible. We don't have that for the PS2 and XBox, maybe on the original PlayStation, but I am not even sure. Emulators for modern systems are all high level, emulating API calls instead of the hardware.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#116

Post by Shorel »

prvit wrote: post #99
Shorel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah, I would say I paid about half of their original price.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#117

Post by autoexec »

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.

Here's an article on it. https://torrentfreak.com/denuvo-accused-of-using-unlicensed-...

The official word from the company is that the post is wrong and that DENUVO had the right and always will have the right to use their software: https://vmpsoft.com/20170606/vmprotect-and-denuvo-gmbh/

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#118

Post by eps »

autoexec wrote: post #117
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's an article on it. https://torrentfreak.com/denuvo-accused-of-using-unlicensed-... The official word from the company is that the post is wrong and that DENUVO had the right and always will have the right to use their software: https://vmpsoft.com/20170606/vmprotect-and-denuvo-gmbh/

That's a post-settlement statement made 3 months after the original post, which wasn't retracted. Also the company and the original poster are one and the same. It sure looks like they "came to an understanding" that was then sealed with an NDA.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#119

Post by Shorel »

badocr wrote: post #89
Shorel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iRacing installs an anti-cheating service which is not Denuvo. It works fine as far as I know.

Reminder that Denuvo is not an anti-cheat, it's DRM.

Reminder not needed.

Many of these solutions, both DRM and anti-cheat, work using the principle of checking if the user is using the original unmodified files, and checking if the user is not also modifying the memory of the running program with some tool.

Re: Denuvo Launches Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection

#120

Post by thot_experiment »

Shorel wrote: post #76
thot_experiment wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really makes me sad that people are even willing to create these systems. It would haunt me forever if I took part in writing something like this.

As an iRacing customer, I am glad the anti-cheat they use, exists. Otherwise, I would be subjected to shitty racers who would ruin every race in the first lap, and cheaters who compete on hacks instead of talent. I am also sure there are equivalent bad apples in every single gaming platform.

Anti-cheat and DRM are not the same thing, and having community servers with admins greatly reduces the need for anti-cheat. So does not having rewards for winning other than winning.
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