Denuvo Got Cracked

[Red Hawk]

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-first-real-crack-is-now-available/

The infamous Denuvo DRM method that's gotten attention over the past few years as "uncrackable" and has caused concerns about CPU overhead and solid state drive damage has finally been cracked. There had previously been "bypasses", ways to fool the license checks and such with an uncracked .exe for games. But a hacking team has managed to actually remove all those check triggers from the .exe of Rise of the Tomb Raider, allowing them to distribute a completely cracked .exe file. And now that they know how to crack Rise of the Tomb Raider, it won't be very hard to crack other Denuvo protected games.

I will of course not link to where you might get the crack, and the news site linked above doesn't allow links to cracks either. I'm against piracy myself and will not be making use of the crack. I just find it interesting that Denuvo has finally been cracked. One might argue that this is shows how pointless DRM protection really is -- but I don't think that's the case. The majority of game sales happen shortly after a game's release, and it's been over half a year since ROTTR's release on PC. If in those six months there were players who wanted the game and would have just pirated it if they could, but ended up buying it since they couldn't, then the DRM partially accomplished its goal. Of course there are people who only cared to get it if they could pirate it so DRM made no difference one way or the other, but who's to say that's all of the people who would have pirated it? In any case, it's cracked now, and Denuvo's star has fallen. Wonder what they'll come up with next.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

It's a battle the game devs can't win, I was just at DefCon with literally thousands of hackers and meeting the people there and seeing the level of technical skill and ingenuity as well as passion for breaking things, it's impossible to make DRM these guys cannot break. It's even worse because it costs hundreds of thousands to develop and implement but the people cracking it do it for fun and for recognition, there's no opposing financial cost, it's not as though chucking out this kind of DRM is costing someone else something to crack it, these people enjoy doing it, it's like a large puzzle for them, something they can't get anywhere else in the world.

It will be interesting to see numbers of downloads on games that remained uncracked for some time, the hypothesis here is that gamers who would normally download the game when faced with an "uncrackable" copy will simply buy it, resulting in a net increase in sales, but I'd wager that number of downloads if you track some public trackers is going to be pretty much the same as any game gets at launch meaning the whole thing is just a giant waste of time.

The lesson here should always be - Gamers who love games buy good games, sink that money into making your game good and people will buy it.

 

[TheELF]

I think title should be "newest version of denuvo got cracked" since there have been a number of old denuvo titles that where cracked previously.

 

[Phynaz]

Denuvo didn't get cracked, ROTTR did. Big difference.

 

[smackababy]

Has Denuvo actually not been cracked? I thought quite a few games had been cracked, it just takes much longer than day one, which is okay by most developers and publishers. Having 4-6 weeks of uncracked sale time is fine.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Implementation of Denuvo in every game is slightly different, the copy protection that is Denuvo has been cracked in the sense that the implementation in ROTTR has been cracked, and the copies used in other games will be shortly behind it, I'd also be willing to predict that future titles protected with it will be cracked faster with the knowledge the crackers have of it right now.

 

[nerp]

This is why developers love releasing online only multiplayer games. Hard to crack a server.

 

[Revolution 11]

The problem the games industry faces with Denuvo getting cracked and all forms of DRM really is the same problem that any proprietary software faces with free/open/reputation-based software groups. As long as there is programmers willing to work in groups that make free/open/reputation-based software (in this case, Denuvo cracking), the proprietary solution will eventually lose (Denuvo DRM).

Same thing is happening to Windows. Linux (the free/open/reputation-based software) is catching up at a faster rate than Windows can push ahead. I don't think that Linux is ready for the masses for at least a few more years because of certain design choices and implementations and just the barrier of re-learning a new UI, but the gap between Linux and Windows is smaller than ever.

 

[Revolution 11]

I think title should be "newest version of denuvo got cracked" since there have been a number of old denuvo titles that where cracked previously.

The difference is that in those older titles, Denuvo was not totally cracked and you had to rely on messy hacks and installers and shady warez groups to get past the DRM (like with Just Cause 3). ROTTR seems to be the first crack that is like the older pre-Denuvo DRM cracks where the install process is simple, clean, and widely distributed from a more reliable group.

Expect more of these "complete" cracks as the hackers learn more about Denuvo each time.

 

[master_shake_]

This is why developers love releasing online only multiplayer games. Hard to crack a server.

ha ha ha ha ha ha

oh you're serious?

let me laugh even harder.

 

[Elixer]

I found this funny, yet sad.
Funny that they used a double dose of Denuvo.
Sad that the pirates can get into the game 40 secs faster.

 

[shortylickens]

I dont think ANY drm ever made has lasted longer than a couple months.

 

[ImpulsE69]

This is exactly why nothing will ever be truly secure and putting everything 'out there' for ease of use (oh and government spying) is just dumb. Someone out there will break it eventually. What can be made can be unmade.

 

[Borealis7]

the age of DRM and piracy will end when all software would run on a remote server ("cloud" of sorts) and served to the end user through a thin client.
you can't hack, copy or steal software when you're not even running it on your computer. problem is, the technology is still far behind for this to happen.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

the age of DRM and piracy will end when all software would run on a remote server ("cloud" of sorts) and served to the end user through a thin client.
you can't hack, copy or steal software when you're not even running it on your computer. problem is, the technology is still far behind for this to happen.

Behind? This is the old way of doing things. Running locally was the new hotness.

Everything old is new again.

 

[ImpulsE69]

They aren't the same as local thin clients...or even remote thin clients. This is gaming, not office work. We are a LONG ways off from that ever being the case especially with all the ISP's pushing for data caps and not making their infrastructure any better. Gaming will die off before we go to only cloud based gaming. Only the most populated areas (for the most part) have the bandwidth to support it and the way the government and ISP's are behaving so anti-consumer which isn't changing under the Trump administration, don't expect some massive upgrade to happen across the board any time soon.

I've tried PSN's streaming gaming. It leaves A LOT to be desired. There is no way I would pay for a service like that right now.

 

[smackababy]

I dont think ANY drm ever made has lasted longer than a couple months.

There are plenty of Denuvo games that have yet to be cracked. Games far older than a couple of months.

 

[BFG10K]

I found this funny, yet sad.
Funny that they used a double dose of Denuvo.
Sad that the pirates can get into the game 40 secs faster.

The same applies to other DRM payloads...erm..."clients". In particular, Steam is notorious for adding to load times especially if starting in offline mode for the first time. I've personally seen a 30 second reduction in Serious Sam 3 and Call of Duty Black Ops by using cracked versions.

Same thing in movies where paying customers get 30 seconds of unskippable ads and FBI warnings while the pirates go straight to an auto-played full movie.

 

[BFG10K]

I dont think ANY drm ever made has lasted longer than a couple months.

Something like Diablo 3 can't be cracked. There's no way anyone could reverse engineer its server because it does everything except graphics, sound and input. A crack would basically require recreating the game in its entirety.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Something like Diablo 3 can't be cracked. There's no way anyone could reverse engineer its server because it does everything except graphics, sound and input. A crack would basically require recreating the game in its entirety.

Isn't it possible to play World of Warcraft on pirate servers?

 

[BFG10K]

Isn't it possible to play World of Warcraft on pirate servers?

Has anyone verified whether they have the the exact same experience (e.g. damage, loot, monster placement, balancing, etc) as authentic servers?

 

[Raduque]

I dont think ANY drm ever made has lasted longer than a couple months.

I read something a while back written by a dev that said they only use/expect DRM to protect the first few months of sales. The sales in those months are generally the best numbers a game makes over it's lifetime.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Has anyone verified whether they have the the exact same experience (e.g. damage, loot, monster placement, balancing, etc) as authentic servers?

Probably not the same, my point is that it is impressive that it is possible at all.

 

[KMFJD]

Has anyone verified whether they have the the exact same experience (e.g. damage, loot, monster placement, balancing, etc) as authentic servers?

It's close enough to the real thing and there are quite a few servers (even have Legion up and running)

 

[smackababy]

Has anyone verified whether they have the the exact same experience (e.g. damage, loot, monster placement, balancing, etc) as authentic servers?

The servers are emulators that are made by people who guess, honestly. Blizzard haven't released their code (and claim it's gone forever, but anyone who actually believes they have zero code repositories and can't just go back to 1.0.4 or whatever the first real release was is delusional). And, I'm sure you'll find people who argue back and forth about whether it is "close enough" or not. Ultima Online had similar issues. Once the code is no longer in live, it is incredibly hard to verify things are exactly as they were years before. Plenty of people said spell casting felt just like old Pub 15 days and plenty said the exact opposite, that it was quite different.