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Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

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Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#2

Post by jsheard »

For the curious, there's a running tally of which Denuvo games have or haven't been cracked over on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa...

Currently not a single Denuvo game released during 2024 has been cracked, and more games released during 2023 remain uncracked than those that were. It's actually pretty effective unlike most other PC DRM schemes.

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#3

Post by wincy »

jsheard wrote: post #2

For the curious, there's a running tally of which Denuvo games have or haven't been cracked over on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa... Currently not a single Denuvo game released during 2024 has been cracked, and more games released during 2023 remain uncracked than those that were. It's actually pretty effective unlike most other PC DRM schemes.

I was going to say Lies of P was cracked, but turns out they just removed it from their game. It was up on piracy sites the same day.

I wonder why this happens? Does Denuvo cost a lot of ongoing subscription money for a developer or something? I’ve noticed this happens a decent amount.

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#4

Post by post_break »

wincy wrote: post #3
jsheard wrote: post #2

For the curious, there's a running tally of which Denuvo games have or haven't been cracked over on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa... Currently not a single Denuvo game released during 2024 has been cracked, and more games released during 2023 remain uncracked than those that were. It's actually pretty effective unlike most other PC DRM schemes.

I was going to say Lies of P was cracked, but turns out they just removed it from their game. It was up on piracy sites the same day. I wonder why this happens? Does Denuvo cost a lot of ongoing subscription money for a developer or something? I’ve noticed this happens a decent amount.

I think it’s because piracy at launch is the most important. Stopping it right at launch is key. Also I do believe it’s a subscription.

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#5

Post by codetrotter »

wincy wrote: post #3
jsheard wrote: post #2

For the curious, there's a running tally of which Denuvo games have or haven't been cracked over on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa... Currently not a single Denuvo game released during 2024 has been cracked, and more games released during 2023 remain uncracked than those that were. It's actually pretty effective unlike most other PC DRM schemes.

I was going to say Lies of P was cracked, but turns out they just removed it from their game. It was up on piracy sites the same day. I wonder why this happens? Does Denuvo cost a lot of ongoing subscription money for a developer or something? I’ve noticed this happens a decent amount.

Every graph I’ve ever seen of video game sales from people who distribute via Steam etc typically has an initial spike if they caught on and got featured, and then a few spikes for things like holiday sales.

Maybe the devs of the game you mentioned decided that after the initial spike had passed, and they are in a long tail period, it is cheaper to remove Denuvo.

Or they just used Denuvo to protect the game during early time when most sales happen and they removed it because they want better performance and also they want people to be able to play the game 20, 50, 100, and 1000 years from now.

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#6

Post by bakugo »

wincy wrote: post #3
jsheard wrote: post #2

For the curious, there's a running tally of which Denuvo games have or haven't been cracked over on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa... Currently not a single Denuvo game released during 2024 has been cracked, and more games released during 2023 remain uncracked than those that were. It's actually pretty effective unlike most other PC DRM schemes.

I was going to say Lies of P was cracked, but turns out they just removed it from their game. It was up on piracy sites the same day. I wonder why this happens? Does Denuvo cost a lot of ongoing subscription money for a developer or something? I’ve noticed this happens a decent amount.

Yes, Denuvo has recurring costs to the developer, it's not a one time payment.

In the case of Lies of P though, the developers accidentally included a debug build .exe without Denuvo in an update, only afterwards was it actually removed entirely because there was no point in including it anymore.

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#7

Post by molticrystal »

wincy wrote: post #3
jsheard wrote: post #2

For the curious, there's a running tally of which Denuvo games have or haven't been cracked over on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/p9ak4n/crack_wa... Currently not a single Denuvo game released during 2024 has been cracked, and more games released during 2023 remain uncracked than those that were. It's actually pretty effective unlike most other PC DRM schemes.

I was going to say Lies of P was cracked, but turns out they just removed it from their game. It was up on piracy sites the same day. I wonder why this happens? Does Denuvo cost a lot of ongoing subscription money for a developer or something? I’ve noticed this happens a decent amount.

I believe Denuvo charges for access to the activation servers. [0] While the pricing structure has likely changed, for most game companies the long tail end [1] of the sales doesn't justify continuing. For example, Square-Enix(Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest) removes Denuvo 6 months into a release. For a counter-example, Atlus(makers of Persona/Shin Megami Tensei) are known to never purposely remove the protection.

[0] https://www.techpowerup.com/275158/denuvo-drm-pricing-struct...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail?useskin=vector

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#8

Post by jsheard »

bakugo wrote: post #6
wincy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say Lies of P was cracked, but turns out they just removed it from their game. It was up on piracy sites the same day. I wonder why this happens? Does Denuvo cost a lot of ongoing subscription money for a developer or something? I’ve noticed this happens a decent amount.

Yes, Denuvo has recurring costs to the developer, it's not a one time payment. In the case of Lies of P though, the developers accidentally included a debug build .exe without Denuvo in an update, only afterwards was it actually removed entirely because there was no point in including it anymore.

It's always funny when they go to the expense of licensing Denuvo but then accidentally release a DRM-free version one way or another. The other classic blunder is to release a free demo version with an executable that is complete enough to play the data packages from the full version of the game if they are swapped in. That's what "demo bypass" means in the Reddit table.

Re: Bypassing Denuvo in Hogwarts Legacy

#10

Post by kiririn »

The performance impact Denuvo is known for is not due to the license checks, it is due to running parts of the game in a custom vm. Hogwarts Legacy is new enough that they might be taking a different approach entirely after the whole vmprotect controversy
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