Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days • Hacker News Board

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#61

Post by pizza234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

karlkloss wrote: post #12

The thing is, this DRM stuff causes a lot of problems, like performance loss and even crashes. Therefore even honest buyers use the cracks, to get rid of it. Some people even wait until the game appears DRM-free on GOG, because of this.

Users like to hate DRMs, even when it's not justified.

Technically Denuvo is not a DRM, it's an anti-tampering system. This is not just a matter of wording - nobody complains about Steam's DRM, so it's not about DRMs, it's about a specific product.

Having said that, Denuvo performance loss is minor. It's quite amusing that in one case, a patch which also included its removal, decreased the performance: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/rage-2-patch-removes-denuvo-but-p....

Regarding the crashes, there's much hearsay around. However, in absence of rigorous examinations, there's the benefit of doubt. In my opinion, it's not buggy in itself (I've played several games with Denuvo, and they were working fine), rather as the general bug risk of adding extra functionality to software. As the article above points, "[...] that would imply Denuvo checks constantly running within the main game loop, which would make no sense.".

All in all, defining Denuvo as "this DRM stuff causes a lot of problems" is definitely a mischaracterization, although it's not clear if "this DRM" refers to Denuvo, or DRMs in general.

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#62

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #61

karlkloss wrote: post #12

The thing is, this DRM stuff causes a lot of problems, like performance loss and even crashes. Therefore even honest buyers use the cracks, to get rid of it. Some people even wait until the game appears DRM-free on GOG, because of this.

Users like to hate DRMs, even when it's not justified. Technically Denuvo is not a DRM, it's an anti-tampering system. This is not just a matter of wording - nobody complains about Steam's DRM, so it's not about DRMs, it's about a specific product. Having said that, Denuvo performance loss is minor. It's quite amusing that in one case, a patch which also included its removal, decreased the performance: https://www.pc…

[deleted]

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#63

Post by p0nce » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

pieno wrote: post #9

qazpot wrote: post #2

It is still profitable to add Denuvo for game publishers, because most sales happen in the first week.

You are assuming that everyone purchasing a game, would not purchase it if they could download a pirated version. Call me naive, but I like to think that a lot of people that have the money to purchase a game in the first week, would still purchase it even if a cracked version is available. Just look at the billions of revenue earned by Spotify and iTunes before it, even if most music is available on release date (or…

> I like to think that a lot of people that have the money to purchase a game in the first week, would still purchase it even if a cracked version is available.

This is incorrect.

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#64

Post by as1mov » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #58

username90 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM often creates bugs and performance problems for users, so removing it makes users happy.

If they see it’s the cause they can decide. From that i can tell there is very little evidence that Denuvo causes problems if well implemented so i doubt there is much incentive to remove it.

> From that i can tell there is very little evidence that Denuvo causes problems if well implemented so i doubt there is much incentive to remove it.

The game will become unplayable after a decade or so if/when Denuvo decides to shut down it's servers. Lots of MMO's from early 2000's are already in this state. DRM like Denuvo is a disaster for long term preservation of games.

I can take a movie from 1940 and watch it today with minimal effort, but the same can't be said for games. It's already difficult with rapidly shifting computing landscape (eg. try playing NFS Porsche Unleased on a Win10 PC), shit like Denuvo just adds insult to the injury for some hypothetical gain which might not even be real.

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#65

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

FDSGSG wrote: post #21

karlkloss wrote: post #12

The thing is, this DRM stuff causes a lot of problems, like performance loss and even crashes. Therefore even honest buyers use the cracks, to get rid of it. Some people even wait until the game appears DRM-free on GOG, because of this.

> Therefore even honest buyers use the cracks, to get rid of it. How many of these cracks actually fully get rid of denuvo? I'm not familiar enough with current developments, but most DRM patches I've seen didn't actually get rid of the DRM.

You're right, almost none of them do.

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#66

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

There are many problems with the headline.

First of all, a lot of Denuvo games no one cares about, either due to low popularity or because they aren't very different to the older, cracked version. These are a dozen of games that add times in the multiple hundreds of hours, warrantlessly.

Second, cracking groups often voluntarily hold off on cracking games so that they are already updated by then. Often for multiple weeks to a month, where you see the crack to be on yesterday's update.

In reality, I'd estimate cracking times to be around one or two weeks, with some high profile, usable at launch games to be cracked in hours.

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#67

Post by tomc1985 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #25

tomc1985 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that number is far lower... like 95% PC Gaming may be mainstream now but in its nerdier days awareness of cracking was quite high... and I imagine it still is among demographics that cannot afford to plunk down $60 for the latest whatever-they-want

Awareness of cracking is high, but if you own a PC that can play these games you can afford 60$ to pay for the game. Or you can just wait a little and get one of the millions of games on Steam for approximately no money.

Dude you obviously did not grow up on computer games, because if you did you may have saved up for that $500-$1000 gaming PC over a period of months (or years) and then had very little money left over or per month for games.

When I was younger I could barely afford a gaming PC and certainly didn't have very much money for games, and I knew a lot of other people in my boat. I lived for the bargain bin (and later, Steam Sales) and it was still not enough

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#68

Post by HelloNurse » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #61

karlkloss wrote: post #12

The thing is, this DRM stuff causes a lot of problems, like performance loss and even crashes. Therefore even honest buyers use the cracks, to get rid of it. Some people even wait until the game appears DRM-free on GOG, because of this.

Users like to hate DRMs, even when it's not justified. Technically Denuvo is not a DRM, it's an anti-tampering system. This is not just a matter of wording - nobody complains about Steam's DRM, so it's not about DRMs, it's about a specific product. Having said that, Denuvo performance loss is minor. It's quite amusing that in one case, a patch which also included its removal, decreased the performance: https://www.pc…

Are you seriously trying to distinguish different flavors of shit? Seriously claiming that Denuvo is not harmful hostile software?

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#69

Post by Eldt » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #51

fxtentacle wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any significant difference between the 2018 and 2019 versions? Also, online multi-player games tend not to get cracked, because then you'd just get banned.

online multi-player games tend not to get cracked, because then you'd just get banned I think that's another way of saying they're too hard to crack properly, i.e. the servers can always detect cracked copies of the game because the modifications aren't perfectly disguised.

How do you crack an online service that doesn't authenticate you without a valid license key?

Re: Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days

#70

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Sun, Jan 05, 2020, 8:14 AM UTC

as1mov wrote: post #64

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they see it’s the cause they can decide. From that i can tell there is very little evidence that Denuvo causes problems if well implemented so i doubt there is much incentive to remove it.

> From that i can tell there is very little evidence that Denuvo causes problems if well implemented so i doubt there is much incentive to remove it. The game will become unplayable after a decade or so if/when Denuvo decides to shut down it's servers. Lots of MMO's from early 2000's are already in this state. DRM like Denuvo is a disaster for long term preservation of games. I can take a movie from 1940 and watch it…

> game will become unplayable after a decade or so if/when Denuvo decides to shut down it's servers.

Which is even more of a reason for a publisher not to remove it. Opens the possibility to do re-releases in the future.