I would hope publishers would take note and remove it, having hundreds of megabytes of junk in the executable is just wasteful to put it mildly
Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
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Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#42No, it hasn't: > in late 2025, the MKDev collective and the prolific DenuvOwO came up with a hypervisor-based bypass (HVB) that installs a kernel-level driver to intercept and respond to Denuvo's checks. While that's not an actual crack, it's good enough for piracy work, as the saying goes.
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Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#43I would hope publishers would take note and remove it, having hundreds of megabytes of junk in the executable is just wasteful to put it mildly
The bigger problem with Denuvo is that it appears to significantly impact game performance as well
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#44No, it hasn't: > in late 2025, the MKDev collective and the prolific DenuvOwO came up with a hypervisor-based bypass (HVB) that installs a kernel-level driver to intercept and respond to Denuvo's checks. While that's not an actual crack, it's good enough for piracy work, as the saying goes.
This. It's bypassed, not cracked. All the games released need HVB to work. They use legit Denuvo licenses from other systems.
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Surely, this has nothing to do with the fact that live service and subscription games generate more revenue, whether or not piracy is involved.
To give you an idea of the scale of the problem:
Greenheart Games famously released a "cracked" version of their own game (Game Dev Tycoon) onto torrent sites on launch day. In this version, the player's in-game studio eventually goes bankrupt because "pirates" steal their games.
The Data: Within 24 hours, 93.6% of players were playing the pirated version.
The Consequence: The developer's blog post highlighted the irony of pirates posting on forums complaining that the "in-game piracy" was unfair and "ruining" their fun. The experiment proved that even at a low price point ($8), a massive majority of the PC audience will choose "free" regardless of the developer's size or struggle.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161118042043/http://arstechnic...
https://web.archive.org/web/20131214165241/http://aussie-gam...
P.S.: It bears repeating that the game cost only 8 dollars.
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Run anti-cheat server-side. Give us private servers again. There's no reason we should have to put up with client-side rootkits written by non-kernel-devs to play a game.
It's not possible, technically, to run effective anti-cheat server-side. Clients need precise enemy location data for things like sound effects. The server can't tell if the client is using the data for unfair purposes or not.
Once the data is sent to the client, in an untrusted setting, all bets are off. Not your hardware, no control over it.
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Run anti-cheat server-side. Give us private servers again. There's no reason we should have to put up with client-side rootkits written by non-kernel-devs to play a game.
It's not possible, technically, to run effective anti-cheat server-side. Clients need precise enemy location data for things like sound effects. The server can't tell if the client is using the data for unfair purposes or not.
Too bad. It's not possible for rootkits to be a good idea for a video game.
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely, this has nothing to do with the fact that live service and subscription games generate more revenue, whether or not piracy is involved.
To give you an idea of the scale of the problem: Greenheart Games famously released a "cracked" version of their own game (Game Dev Tycoon) onto torrent sites on launch day. In this version, the player's in-game studio eventually goes bankrupt because "pirates" steal their games. The Data: Within 24 hours, 93.6% of players were playing the pirated version. The Consequence: The developer's blog post highlighted the ir…
Thats playing with statistics and you know it. Why such game?
If they would release only the paid game, there wouldn't be 93% + 7% of the gamers playing, far from it.
Cost is almost irrelevant to pirates, either its free or its not, like it or not. There is mix of folks who do it for the lulz, some do it to have higher performance gaming without denuvo taking resources and computing power, and some are outright poor. Even 8-usd-is-too-much poor.
I've lived like that. Don't judge too easily. Don't do stupid mistakes and count those as otherwise-paying-gamers. Thats PR for denuvo and similar, not a fair discussion.
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Surely, this has nothing to do with the fact that live service and subscription games generate more revenue, whether or not piracy is involved.
For a long time now I've found it weird that people who like single player games on PC (and to a lesser extent older consoles which had piracy enabling mods) didn't acknowledge the long game consequences of their actions, or at least were willfully ignorant to them because everyone loves getting something for free. It seems to be a variation on Goodhart's law - you get what you reward - if the reward for a company (big or small) in spending lots of time and money isn't as good as other options, those other options will get more investment in the future and the ones you do like will get less.
The other option I can see for the large companies is that any project involving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars is likely to be insured, and a condition of that insurance is they take all reasonable options available to get the most success out of it that they can. If they don't they need to reduce the risk which probably means less resources allocated which again may not be interesting to the companies capable of making grand experiences versus other options.
Re: Denuvo has been cracked in all single-player games it previously protected
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely, this has nothing to do with the fact that live service and subscription games generate more revenue, whether or not piracy is involved.
For a long time now I've found it weird that people who like single player games on PC (and to a lesser extent older consoles which had piracy enabling mods) didn't acknowledge the long game consequences of their actions, or at least were willfully ignorant to them because everyone loves getting something for free. It seems to be a variation on Goodhart's law - you get what you reward - if the reward for a company (b…
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