Pirate Group (3DM) Suspends New Cracks To Measure Impact On Sales - Polidicks

Never really understood increasing DRM, I now just wait for game of year edition + sale before even bothering to buy a game. What's the point in stopping pirates if you condition your audience to wait to get the game anyways. Of course there are exceptions to the rule as some games are worth it at launch.

Only shame about having to buy ME: Andromeda is the fact I'll have to use Origin, which is shite.

[QUOTE=DELL;49690971]Never really understood increasing DRM, I now just wait for game of year edition + sale before even bothering to buy a game. What's the point in stopping pirates if you condition your audience to wait to get the game anyways. Of course there are exceptions to the rule as some games are worth it at launch.[/QUOTE] Because why wait when you can just buy it and play it now? That's literally their goal.

[QUOTE=DELL;49690971]Never really understood increasing DRM, I now just wait for game of year edition + sale before even bothering to buy a game. What's the point in stopping pirates if you condition your audience to wait to get the game anyways. Of course there are exceptions to the rule as some games are worth it at launch.[/QUOTE] Denuvo exists for but one reason: to stop first week-month piracy. The bulk of sales still comes from those people who buy at launch. People who buy games at later dates on steam sales provide less profit in the first place.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;49690899]Can you provide some sources? All I can find on google is that some sort of encryption is going on.[/QUOTE] Denuvo themselves explain that the anti-tamper software they make does do some form of encryption and runtime obfuscation. But it's never anything performance critical (because that would be dumb), just stuff that is needed, but wont affect the runtime performance of the software. Along with the calls to the actual DRM mechanism in play (Steamworks, Origin, etc.) It's actually quite a clever solution to the problem of DRM being cracked. Rather than make the DRM itself more complex and risk it impacting the game, use a piece of middleware designed to hide the functions of the DRM. It's pretty understandable as to why it would make cracking that much harder, it's not a one-time solution, it's different in every implementation due to the game functions it protects.

This article is a total fabrication, which is typical for TF seeing as they are nothing but a clickbait blog. This whole “measuring effects of piracy” is a load of shit, the actual cause was internal drama on the 3DM forums. First off, 3DM isn’t an actual de facto cracking group, it’s the name of the forum that a group of crackers post their cracks on. The site hosts a hugely popular gaming forum as well. Secondly, piracy was huge in China until Steam came along and games were made more affordable. But there is still the “old guard” who refuses to pay for anything, resulting in a constant battle between the pirates and the “buy it” gamers who buy their games. What actually happened to cause this announcement was someone released a crack for the game Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13, which was then published by 3DM. 3DM received a cease and desist letter from the developer which they complied with. That caused a huge backlash on the 3DM forums. Members viewed the compliance with the C&D as a way of caving to “buy it” gamers, or those who refused to pirate. In protest, those who still pirate their games started a mass petition to get the Chinese censorship board to ban Steam from China to piss off the “buy it” gamers. Obviously that would be a disaster to 3DM decided to stop releasing cracks for the time being until the controversy dies down.

[QUOTE=l337k1ll4;49690348]Pretty much in agreement, Denuvo seems to have basically no effect whatsoever on paying customers and only fucks pirates. And if you read the comments on Denuvo games on KAT they're just filled with people who have given up and bought them. Good for the devs who get extra money from this without fucking over paying customers.[/QUOTE] There seems to be a suspicious recurring pattern with games running Denuvo and having piss-poor performance. Cracked copies of DA:I run noticeably better than versions using Denuvo according to some people. The whole "denuvo causes hardware failure" thing was made up but it doesn't mean it's not extremely intensive on hardware to begin with. You're still running a game along with DRM that's based around constantly writing shit on your harddrive, clogging both the drive and your ram in the process.

[QUOTE=GordonZombie;49691005]Only shame about having to buy ME: Andromeda is the fact I'll have to use Origin, which is shite.[/QUOTE] Origin has never been shit, stop this silly misnomer. uPlay on the other hand...

[QUOTE=redBadger;49691238]Origin has never been shit, stop this silly misnomer. uPlay on the other hand...[/QUOTE] Using Origin is a bit of a chore because I use it so infrequently that it always has a bunch of updates to sit through, but it's not bad. Denuvo on the other hand can go fuck itself.

Tell you what'd be a master plan for the pirates then; they actually have cracked Denuvo, but they're letting the industry pick it up so all the big games use it, then they unleash a new golden age of piracy. Genius

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49691175]There seems to be a suspicious recurring pattern with games running Denuvo and having piss-poor performance. Cracked copies of DA:I run noticeably better than versions using Denuvo according to some people. The whole "denuvo causes hardware failure" thing was made up but it doesn't mean it's not extremely intensive on hardware to begin with. You're still running a game along with DRM that's based around constantly writing shit on your harddrive, clogging both the drive and your ram in the process.[/QUOTE] Considering the DA:I crack just shipped an executable for every conceivable CPU and a valid license file thanks to the DRM being crappy, I'm going to call bullshit.

[QUOTE=redBadger;49691238]Origin has never been shit, stop this silly misnomer. uPlay on the other hand...[/QUOTE] I've found uPlay much better than Origin, it always starts and works way faster and it can actually fucking remember my login details.

[QUOTE=Tobba;49691297]Considering the DA:I crack just shipped an executable for every conceivable CPU and a valid license file thanks to the DRM being crappy, I'm going to call bullshit.[/QUOTE] Denuvo is designed to prevent exe rewrites, and in order to accomplish that it practically dumps data on your hard drive all the time. The kind of performance hits I witnessed on games like Lords of the Fallen, Arkham Knight, The Phantom Pain and Mad Max weren't constant stuttering or my GPU struggling to run the game. It was elongated loading times, brief freezes, RAM getting devoured by the game and the titles overall leeching far more off my computer than they should. TPP was the only game that worked around it well because Fox Engine is optimized to run on toasters, and even then loading times felt far longer than they should be. I can replicate the effect by unpacking a preloaded game while playing any game installed on the same hard drive. The game will frequently freeze and stutter due to the harddrive being busy with other shit - that's the kind of performance issue we're talking about with denuvo.

[QUOTE=simkas;49691298]I've found uPlay much better than Origin, it always starts and works way faster [B]and it can actually fucking remember my login details[/B].[/QUOTE] It's for security reasons. You know, to prevent people on your computer from accessing your billing information that you may have linked to Origin. I seriously can't believe you think that that was some bug in the system.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49691345]Denuvo is designed to prevent exe rewrites, and in order to accomplish that it practically dumps data on your hard drive all the time. The kind of performance hits I witnessed on games like Lords of the Fallen, Arkham Knight, The Phantom Pain and Mad Max weren't constant stuttering or my GPU struggling to run the game. It was elongated loading times, brief freezes, RAM getting devoured by the game and the titles overall leeching far more off my computer than they should. TPP was the only game that worked around it well because Fox Engine is optimized to run on toasters, and even then loading times felt far longer than they should be[/QUOTE] I'd love to hear a good explanation of why preventing code modification would require constant disk I/O, but in the case of the DA:I crack this irrelevant, because [B]Denuvo is still running[/B]. The DA:I crack just gets you the right executable for your CPU (to get past denuvo) and tricks the DRM.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49691345]Denuvo is designed to prevent exe rewrites, and in order to accomplish that it practically dumps data on your hard drive all the time. The kind of performance hits I witnessed on games like Lords of the Fallen, Arkham Knight, The Phantom Pain and Mad Max weren't constant stuttering or my GPU struggling to run the game. It was elongated loading times, brief freezes, RAM getting devoured by the game and the titles overall leeching far more off my computer than they should. TPP was the only game that worked around it well because Fox Engine is optimized to run on toasters, and even then loading times felt far longer than they should be. I can replicate the effect by unpacking a preloaded game while playing any game installed on the same hard drive. The game will frequently freeze and stutter due to the harddrive being busy with other shit - that's the kind of performance issue we're talking about with denuvo.[/QUOTE] Denuvo doesn't continuously read or write data from a hard drive, that was a rumor.

[QUOTE=l337k1ll4;49691397]Denuvo doesn't continuously read or write data from a hard drive, that was a rumor.[/QUOTE] so what does it do then?

[QUOTE=Egevened;49691466]so what does it do then?[/QUOTE] I don't think anyone can claim to be an expert, but from my knowledge it inserts checks to make sure the generated exuectable doesn't run on anything but the target computer (and requests a new executable if you change hardware) and does various things to prevent anyone from tampering with the DRM's code.

[QUOTE=Tobba;49691494]I don't think anyone can claim to be an expert, but from my knowledge it inserts checks to make sure the generated exuectable doesn't run on anything but the target computer (and requests a new executable if you change hardware) and does various things to prevent anyone from tampering with the DRM's code.[/QUOTE] so while that would refute the write claim, you are admitting that it is constantly running a process seperate from the game, tied to the exe? it's performance intensive [editline]7th February 2016[/editline] like sorry but it's invasive and surprise many people would rather not have fps or stutter issues with their video games [editline]7th February 2016[/editline] like ganerumo says, 9 out of 10 games that use devnuvo have a branch of people complaining about performance issues in one way or the other, there has to be some sort of link

[QUOTE=Egevened;49691466]so what does it do then?[/QUOTE] Obfuscates key software vital calls that don't impact performance and DRM system calls to prevent them from being easily identified and modified at runtime. That literally requires no I/O as that shit will be in RAM the entire lifespan of the application. The DRM system will always be there in the background, and the protected calls have to be loaded at all times otherwise the software will just fail to function. No disk I/O needed, it's all in the system memory the entire time. And is never written back to the disk because [I]that would be dumb as fuck[/I]. DeNuvo has no reason to do any disk I/O past the initialisation stage. They explain the abstract workings of it on their site, no indication at all it would perform excessive I/O, let alone regular I/O.

[QUOTE=Egevened;49691505]so while that would refute the write claim, you are admitting that it is constantly running a process seperate from the game, tied to the exe? it's performance intensive[/QUOTE] "admitting", I don't work for denuvo, I do have some far more reliable sources than random forum posts though. I don't see why it would need it's own process either, to my knowledge the whole thing is caked into the games executable.

[QUOTE=hexpunK;49691520]Obfuscates key software vital calls that don't impact performance and DRM system calls to prevent them from being easily identified and modified at runtime. That literally requires no I/O as that shit will be in RAM the entire lifespan of the application. The DRM system will always be there in the background, and the protected calls have to be loaded at all times otherwise the software will just fail to function. No disk I/O needed, it's all in the system memory the entire time. And is never written back to the disk because [I]that would be dumb as fuck[/I]. DeNuvo has no reason to do any disk I/O past the initialisation stage. They explain the abstract workings of it on their site, no indication at all it would perform excessive I/O, let alone regular I/O.[/QUOTE] but this is the entire point people are making, harddrive or not, it puts unneccessary strain onto the computer that would not be there if denuvo wasn't

denuvo isn't uncrackable lmao, it's just that the piracy scene is literally standing on half a leg these days because most people who knew what they were doing got either [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fastlink]arrested[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Buccaneer]threatened[/url], retired or simply faded from the scene due to inactivity. skidrow, reloaded and razor 1911 come to mind. another problem is there was no real competition for these three to replace them. just a bunch of chinese and russian crackers that are about as reliable as a cheesecloth condom. couple this with all the shit pirate bay went through, as well as a bunch of other torrent sites that either got shutdown or severely punished some time ago, most frontrunners of the piracy scene probably stopped caring altogether or feel too intimidated. i hope some new group or person shows up that puts out releases with the same dedication as the previous guys put up. they sometimes even leaked entire games before release which was always fun to see.

I can't tell you if it's actually resource intensive, nor can anyone else that doesn't have the original unmodified executable, because no crack so far has actually removed Denuvo, just bypassed it. Other than DA:I the TPP crack supposedly uses some really fucky hooking to trick the checks, which has no right to be any faster than the original. It certainly doesn't have to be resource intensive by nature either, checking the hardware and DRM integrity every 10 minutes would be just fine.

[QUOTE=l337k1ll4;49690348]Pretty much in agreement, Denuvo seems to have basically no effect whatsoever on paying customers and only fucks pirates. And if you read the comments on Denuvo games on KAT they're just filled with people who have given up and bought them. Good for the devs who get extra money from this without fucking over paying customers.[/QUOTE] [del]I wouldn't install anything with Denuvo to an SSD though because it constantly reads and writes so it'll shorten your drive's lifespan.[/del] Apparently this was a myth, nevermind.

[QUOTE=FlakTheMighty;49691569]I wouldn't install anything with Denuvo to an SSD though because it constantly reads and writes so it'll shorten your drive's lifespan.[/QUOTE] According to a myth that was reported because they believed a 4chan user for one day before being completely debunked. [editline]7th February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Egevened;49691557]but this is the entire point people are making, harddrive or not, it puts unneccessary strain onto the computer that would not be there if denuvo wasn't[/QUOTE] Any proof of this extra strain being there at all? Any DRM puts an extra strain on a computer but never any noticeable amount, and by all accounts neither does Denuvo. Every game that has had Denuvo and had performance issues also has some other explanation. Arkham Knight was ported by one of the most incompetant and inexperienced companies in the industry, Just Cause 3 is also terrible on consoles, etc. And conversely some of the best PC ports in years, like Battlefront (despite being a shit game it looks gorgeous and runs flawlessly on a toaster), have had Denuvo.

[QUOTE=Egevened;49691557]but this is the entire point people are making, harddrive or not, it puts unneccessary strain onto the computer that would not be there if denuvo wasn't[/QUOTE] Maybe if you're still running a P4 with overheating issues lmao. I'm pretty sure the guys who wrote DeNuvo would have gone out of their way to mitigate the impact of the software. It's highly unlikely that it performs de-obfuscation constantly, possibly during load times, obviously at start up, and periodically during general runtime. If the software was causing genuine performance issues, I'm pretty sure it would never have stuck as much as it has. My shitass Phenom II X4 955 could run MGS V with no noticeable performance issues. This is a 7 or 8 year old chip now that has no right to have run that game as well as it did. If the de-obfusication process was a genuine performance problem, something like this CPU would have fucking died during it.

Everything is crackeable, its only a matter of time before denuvo its completly removed..Thinking that an sort of DRM is "completly uncrackeable " is a pretty stupid though to be honest

[QUOTE=Egevened;49691505]so while that would refute the write claim, you are admitting that it is constantly running a process seperate from the game, tied to the exe? it's performance intensive [editline]7th February 2016[/editline] like sorry but it's invasive and surprise many people would rather not have fps or stutter issues with their video games [editline]7th February 2016[/editline] like ganerumo says, 9 out of 10 games that use devnuvo have a branch of people complaining about performance issues in one way or the other, there has to be some sort of link[/QUOTE] That's a lot of conclusions you're jumping to. And on top of being wrong, you can check this thing called task manager and see your PC is running dozens of processes at one time that don't grind you to a halt. Could it be the reason maybe? But the games that all have problems have had troubled development cycles to begin with, theirs no proof that anyone has been able to produce to back up this claim that denuvo is a performance killer.

[QUOTE=Worstcase;49691354]It's for security reasons. You know, to prevent people on your computer from accessing your billing information that you may have linked to Origin. I seriously can't believe you think that that was some bug in the system.[/QUOTE] That doesn't seem to be a problem with literally every other program that remembers your login details so you're saying that Origin is the only software that tries to protect my information?