AC: Origins (Denuvo and VMProtect) cracked - Sensationalist Headlines

Thing is they have been alredy able to crack denuvo on day 1, its really just a big game of cat and mouse where they crack denuvo, then the devs patch the vulnerability and the cycle begins again

I think Chaos Theory and Starforce still hold the record for length of time before a crack, doesn't it? Something like a year. Starforce was some bad shit for a lot of people, though. From not launching games because you had 2 disc drives, to spinning your drive to full RPM and staying there, not even slowing and stopping before ejecting the disc so you get a fuckin frisbee thrown at your face, ruining both the disc and the optical drive, which actually happened to me

[QUOTE=geel9;53105629]Having your binaries cracked [i]4 months[/i] after you released the game is [i]phenomenal[/i] performance of that DRM. People have had 4 months to modify your binaries and it took them until now to get it. All software can be hacked. The most crucial sales window of AC:O is over and I'm sure Ubisoft got what they want out of it. Also, I don't at all trust crackers when they talk about the performance hit of a DRM. [B]They have everything to gain by making you distrust the creators of DRM.[/B] They're not credible at all.[/QUOTE] What is it that they gain exactly?

they dont gain anything lol. groups do it as a sort of sport and a competition to see who can crack what first, hell people who pirate are even lucky to get the end product/result

[QUOTE=geel9;53105629]Having your binaries cracked [i]4 months[/i] after you released the game is [i]phenomenal[/i] performance of that DRM. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=hexpunK;53105369]Okay but not really, most DRM falls before the game is even released. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=MadBomber;53105357]Well the DRM did its job, people who were gonna buy it have probably already bought it by now.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=LegndNikko;53105361]DRM isn't supposed to stop cracks, just stall them. And it did.[/QUOTE] I kinda think posts like these are missing the point of this. It isn't about the fact that it only took them [I]four months[/I] to crack it, or how Denuvo didn't work in this instance because it was cracked. It's more or less just a monumental moment in fighting against Denuvo, every Denuvo title that gets goes uncracked (a list that is getting smaller and smaller every release schedule) kind of becomes this milestone to reach, and this milestone has been reached. Sales windows and whether or not Denuvo 'did it's job' doesn't seem very relevant to this - everyone knows that if a DRM persists past a week, the scummy (presumably) publishers who advocated for it pat themselves on the back in victory, what's much more important here is that some of the uncrackables [I]are[/I] getting cracked, and it didn't take AC:O as long as it's taken other 'uncrackable' Denuvo titles. Which is absolutely crazy for reasons listed in the OP: AC:O is being fucking strangled by the amount of DRM running.

[QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;53105949]Which is absolutely crazy for reasons listed in the OP: AC:O is being fucking strangled by the amount of DRM running.[/QUOTE] Is there actually any evidence of this at all or is this just more FUD from the crackers like that fucking laughable "Denuvo kills SSDs!!!" shit? Because until there is a copy of the game with absolutely none of the DRM layers in it, it's unprovable. Sure there's an expected amount of performance drop, but "strangling" the game?

[QUOTE=hexpunK;53106072]Is there actually any evidence of this at all or is this just more FUD from the crackers like that fucking laughable "Denuvo kills DRM!!!" shit? Because until there is a copy of the game with absolutely none of the DRM layers in it, it's unprovable. Sure there's an expected amount of performance drop, but "strangling" the game?[/QUOTE] Yeah that's why I was careful to repeatedly use the word 'speculation'. We'll never actually know, unfortunately. Any cracks that don't result in a performance improvement could explain it away by saying it still has to emulate the drm, or that it's still running only bypassed, etc. That's probably another reason for the speculation, it's pretty much impossible to prove or disprove.

[QUOTE=Skipcast;53105864]What is it that they gain exactly?[/QUOTE] Notoriety. The first group that releases a crack basically gets the opportunity to claim performance improvements because of it, and it spreads like a wildfire.

[QUOTE=hexpunK;53106072]Is there actually any evidence of this at all or is this just more FUD from the crackers like that fucking laughable "Denuvo kills DRM!!!" shit? Because until there is a copy of the game with absolutely none of the DRM layers in it, it's unprovable. Sure there's an expected amount of performance drop, but "strangling" the game?[/QUOTE] Precisely ONE guy decompiled the executable and insists some DRM calls are tied to like, the movement of the player character or something. Everyone took his word as gospel.

[QUOTE=hexpunK;53106072]Is there actually any evidence of this at all or is this just more FUD from the crackers like that fucking laughable "Denuvo kills DRM!!!" shit? Because until there is a copy of the game with absolutely none of the DRM layers in it, it's unprovable. Sure there's an expected amount of performance drop, but "strangling" the game?[/QUOTE] I absolutely fucking hate Denuvo and the AAA industry's desperate attempts to keep it alive, but I'm always extremely wary of those claims, because 99% of the time they turn out to be complete bullshit, backed by unsubstantial or made up or anecdotal evidence. In the case of AC:O, the rumor/theory comes from a few things: the game runs comparatively worse on PC than it does on consoles due to a significant CPU bottleneck (capping CPU usage to 100% whenever the game runs), and some guy who claimed to have had access to the game's binary code said this: [quote]"This layer of VMProtect will make Denuvo a lot more harder to trace and keygen than without it, but if you are a legit customer, well, it’s not that great for you since this combo could tank your performance by a lot, especially if you are using a low-mid range CPU. That’s why we are seeing 100 percent CPU usage on 4 core CPUs right now for example." [/quote] [url=http://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-says-assassins-creed-origins-high-cpu-usage-is-not-due-to-drm/](source on that)[/url] Note how this is in the conditional. This is important, because there is no actual established correlation because those two DRM solutions and CPU usage. Possibly the final nail in the coffin of this entire theory is that the engine on which Origins runs is AnvilNext, an engine notorious for being very CPU hungry. Unity didn't run Denuvo and it still ran like dogshit at release. Rainbow Six Siege will easily eat up all of your CPU usage and it also runs on the same engine. It's no wonder Origins would follow the pattern and get these bottlenecks as well. There has never been a proven case of Denuvo actively harming performance in a game. Almost all evidence of "well Denuvo was removed altogether and it improved performance!" are anecdotal or flat out wrong seeing as Denuvo is seldom neutralized by a crack and usually just bypassed, meaning it still runs and thus would still eat up any theoretical performance. However, another reason why there is often false causation assumed between Denuvo and bad performance is because there is correlation between Denuvo and bad PC ports. The AAA industry has been frequently guilty of employing outsourced companies on tight deadlines to hastily port games to PC while paying for Denuvo to secure it, rather than giving the original team more time to produce a worthwhile PC port. This kind of undercutting has been visible many times and has lead to an association of Denuvo's name to bad PC ports and thus bad performance, even though there is technically no direct link between them.

[QUOTE=Swebonny;53105374]I keep hearing these performance issue claims, but have they been confirmed at all? Because to me the below quote sounds ridiculous.[/QUOTE] The "telling your Windows PC to pretend it's a Mac" thing is completely false, something like VMProtect is more like Java's virtual machine, in that it's just a different architecture (at least that's what I can tell from their site)

The thing is Denuvo can very much have a big impact in performance. That has been demonstrated by one games that simple bombarded the computer with the DRM checks. Those were reduced in an update and the game run fine. Something that checks during the game will always have a performance impact, in most cases it should be minimal if the checks are sensible. Doesn't really change the fact that DRM impacts legit customers in many other ways.

[QUOTE=FalconKrunch;53106231]Notoriety. The first group that releases a crack basically gets the opportunity to claim performance improvements because of it, and it spreads like a wildfire.[/QUOTE] My favorite is when they claim improvements and someone actually finds out that it performs worse. [editline]4th February 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=Mitsuma;53106764]The thing is Denuvo can very much have a big impact in performance. That has been demonstrated by one games that simple bombarded the computer with the DRM checks. Those were reduced in an update and the game run fine. Something that checks during the game will always have a performance impact, in most cases it should be minimal if the checks are sensible. Doesn't really change the fact that DRM impacts legit customers in many other ways.[/QUOTE] Denuvo's own makers admit if their solutions are just pasted on it will affect performance. Its up to developers to properly integrate that shit.

[QUOTE=LegndNikko;53105506]Insignificant to the sales they made tbh. The average consumer, even PC gamer, doesn't really care.[/QUOTE] Now this is a rather good argument against DRM

[QUOTE=Mitsuma;53106764]The thing is Denuvo can very much have a big impact in performance. That has been demonstrated by one games that simple bombarded the computer with the DRM checks. Those were reduced in an update and the game run fine. Something that checks during the game will always have a performance impact, in most cases it should be minimal if the checks are sensible. Doesn't really change the fact that DRM impacts legit customers in many other ways.[/QUOTE] It's not really just checks. The modern approach of software DRM, which both Denuvo and VMProtect employ, is to obfuscate part of the game code and hide its checks within that obfuscated code so the two aren't easily separated, and to apply this to enough chunks that rewriting the protected bits by guessing what they're supposed to do becomes impractically hard and time-intensive. Code obfuscation works by transforming normal code into code that eventually does exactly the same thing in the most convoluted/verbose/redundant way possible, and thus has massive performance impact. Which is why well-integrated DRM will only do it to initialisation code (increasing initial load times); by the time you hit gameplay there should be no DRM code running at all and thus no performance impact. It's certainly possible to screw this up, but not hard to notice and fix.

Yeah I knew full well it had DRM and was even holding out to see if it would get cracked but I heard so many good things about it I decided to just buy it on sale, knowing full well it had denuvo. And you know what? I'm happy I made the purchase. It was a great game and I'm glad I supported a team who put a ton of hard work into their product.

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;53107500]Which is why well-integrated DRM will only do it to initialisation code (increasing initial load times); by the time you hit gameplay there should be no DRM code running at all and thus no performance impact. It's certainly possible to screw this up, but not hard to notice and fix.[/QUOTE] This isn't entirely the case. It's possible to add those checks into the actual game itself, so long as it's bound to a game critical routine that isn't called constantly at the very least. Something like triggering autosaves or opening a vital menu or something. Only having a single check on start up creates an attack vector after all, all you need to to is circumvent one instance of the obfuscation. On modern hardware the (de-)obfuscation process shouldn't create that big a performance impact either, assuming the developers actually did their job and profiled for a relatively low impact but important function. Something like VMProtect almost certainly has a performance impact, but it's probably nowhere near as big as people would expect. Having an intermediate bytecode running on a VM like it appears to do will obviously require a few more cycles per instruction to process, but modern VM tech is pretty good and I expect it's another case of it not needing to hide everything, just a few vital things. VMProtect really isn't meant to be used for realtime applications because of this however so it's a weird choice to embed into a game.

TBH Three months before getting cracked is pretty impressive. So many games are cracked before or on Day 1

[QUOTE=MadBomber;53105357]Well the DRM did its job, people who were gonna buy it have probably already bought it by now.[/QUOTE] DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.

[QUOTE=eirexe;53107651]DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.[/QUOTE] "DRM isn't there to prevent piracy" Yeah nevermind the list of games that could not be pirated for months on end due to DRM

[QUOTE=eirexe;53107651]DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.[/QUOTE] No it isn't.

[QUOTE=eirexe;53107651]DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.[/QUOTE] is that why aggressive DRM sometimes will break and totally block legitimate users out

[QUOTE=eirexe;53107651]DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.[/QUOTE] It's only there to secure initial sales as multiple devs and Denuvo themselves have said. They know it will get cracked eventually.

[QUOTE=eirexe;53107651]DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.[/QUOTE] No that's online game stores such as Steam.

[QUOTE=eirexe;53107651]DRM isn't there to prevent privacy, it exists to control how legitimate users access their stuff.[/QUOTE] This is the result, but that's kind of tinfoil-ey to say that that's the primary purpose.

The primary purpose is to bullshit shareholders, your average pirate isn't going to buy the game just because they have to wait a longer period for it to be cracked.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;53107953]The primary purpose is to bullshit shareholders, your average pirate isn't going to buy the game just because they have to wait a longer period for it to be cracked.[/QUOTE] Licensing the DRM probably isn't very cheap, and if they truly have stats that DRM doesn't work, they're almost obligated to share it.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;53107957]Licensing the DRM probably isn't very cheap, and if they truly have stats that DRM doesn't work, they're almost obligated to share it.[/QUOTE] Problem is it's very difficult to get reliable stats on piracy, I certainly have not seen anything I'd trust that indicates Denuvo is actually effective, especially when you consider many pirates do it simply because they don't want to pay, it might be enough to get some casual pirates that really can't wait to buy but given the overall negative view of Denuvo I am skeptical it amounts to much. Ultimately it's in Denuvo's best interest to promote it as an effective tool at 'reclaiming lost sales'.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;53107953]The primary purpose is to bullshit shareholders, your average pirate isn't going to buy the game just because they have to wait a longer period for it to be cracked.[/QUOTE] An 'average' pirate isn't what most gamers seem to think it is. It's not the person who spends a bunch of time on gaming forums, or searches exhaustively for cracks for games they're interested in. It's the mainstream, casual gamer who more likely than not will pirate a game rather than buy it if an easy download link is available on the first page of Google results. Those are who publishers care about. The people that know their way around sites other than TPB and complain on the Internet about DRM are the demographic that doesn't buy on release and waits for sales anyways, so aren't a high priority. [QUOTE=Chryseus;53107981]Problem is it's very difficult to get reliable stats on piracy[/QUOTE] It's hard to assess a global impact of piracy, but in proprietary (non-reported) sales info, actuaries spend a lot of time and effort on assessing it, and digital distribution makes it plain to see a drop in sales that just happens to correlate with a widely distributed crack. That's the kind of stuff publishers use to justify DRM implementation decisions, not 'uhhhh we think it'll maybe work' which for any profit-focused corporation (see: all of them) doesn't justify multi-million-dollar expenditures. [QUOTE=Chryseus;53107981]given the overall negative view of Denuvo I am skeptical it amounts to much.[/QUOTE] I think you dramatically overestimate the amount of real backlash there is against DRM, especially concerning DRM that is completely invisible to a majority of users. SecuROM is [i]way[/i] more intrusive than Denuvo could ever possibly be and yet SecuROM-protected games have become massive successes, eg Bioshock. For that matter, Denuvo's been doing fine with games like Doom.

[QUOTE=catbarf;53108292]An 'average' pirate isn't what most gamers seem to think it is. It's not the person who spends a bunch of time on gaming forums, or searches exhaustively for cracks for games they're interested in. It's the mainstream, casual gamer who more likely than not will pirate a game rather than buy it if an easy download link is available on the first page of Google results. Those are who publishers care about. The people that know their way around sites other than TPB and complain on the Internet about DRM are the demographic that doesn't buy on release and waits for sales anyways, so aren't a high priority. It's hard to assess a global impact of piracy, but in proprietary (non-reported) sales info, actuaries spend a lot of time and effort on assessing it, and digital distribution makes it plain to see a drop in sales that just happens to correlate with a widely distributed crack. That's the kind of stuff publishers use to justify DRM implementation decisions, not 'uhhhh we think it'll maybe work' which for any profit-focused corporation (see: all of them) doesn't justify multi-million-dollar expenditures. I think you dramatically overestimate the amount of real backlash there is against DRM, especially concerning DRM that is completely invisible to a majority of users. SecuROM is [i]way[/i] more intrusive than Denuvo could ever possibly be and yet SecuROM-protected games have become massive successes, eg Bioshock. For that matter, Denuvo's been doing fine with games like Doom.[/QUOTE] I'm not on either side of the argument, but I want to point out Doom had Denuvo removed as soon as it was cracked, and that's when it started to get a shitload of sales.