Civ7 now includes Denuvo

[Gedemon]

About none of those methods you said are used for anti-piracy or hardly at all. Others exits for other reasons and pirates benefit from almost all them (maybe not support etc). So there is nothing I need to ask for myself.

According to the recent study Denuvo increases profits. So it is totally irrelevant if there is still ways left to pirate.


I guess this was addressed by irdeto somewhat same way in RPS interview as earlier in this thread.
What is ration of failed implementations vs working implementations? Irdeto themselves also referenced to experience of implementer and Firaxis and 2K have experience.

In my categorisation "fear" would too strong. I think I would categorize it as footnote.

They do have experience, not the same dev team AFAIK, but I agree it's logical to suppose they can share the experience. OTOH the fear of Firaxis optimizations is based on experience with civ6, a game that could run very large maps at launch on a 980Ti and could not launch the same maps at the end of the development cycle on a 3080 (I've not tried on my current CG, but people are still reporting issues on 40x0)

And if Denuvo requires a good implementation, that also means it requires dev time, and testing. They can't put the check in a few functions only because it would be less hard to crack it by replacing the functions (and it was cracked that way, he's saying it in the interview), and need to put it in functions that are not called too many time to prevent the impact on performance to become visible.

How much dev time exactly, we don't know, but enough for Amplitude to abandon Denuvo a few months before release because they couldn't implement it in a way that didn't impact performances (and the Giant Earth Map works fine on HK, maybe unrelated, but just saying)

That development time could have been used on a low cost feature than Hotseat for example. I'm sure 2K can calculate that they will make more money preventing piracy in the first months than adding a feature which has a relatively low demand at launch, but in the end it's us, players, who are losing something in the process, with a game that cost the same or more than other games without Denuvo.

 

[Leyrann]

- The old spinning disks and manual lookups

Those don't reduce piracy. They encourage it. When I was a kid, pirating games was the default in my household because downloading from the internet was so much more convenient than buying a physical item. It's only since Steam has become a thing that we started buying games legally, and I'd prefer to not go back.

Also, it's a pain in the behind to connect a DVD or equivalent to a computer these days, you'll have to buy a separate player which you then need to attach to your computer with a USB cable. I have one but it's always a hassle when I want to play a game from disk - if they even work, because of course those games are incredibly old; more than once I've bought a game on Steam or GOG because it won't work from the disk I have.

- Using superior features for legal copies, that illegal copies won't get access to (like patches, free game content, communities, MP, developer support, etc)

Pirated copies also get access to patches and free game content (as well as paid game content), as those are pirated too (or simply included in the pirated version). People using pirated copies can also interact with most communities just fine - you don't even need to be a civ player to be on this forum, let alone having to own a legal copy of any of the games. Similarly, a lot of developer support is separate from what copy you own in the first place, although some of the more direct support might be difficult - but frankly it's very rare that you need dev support on a level that lets them check whether you legally own the game in the first place.

Really, the only feature on this list that pirates actually miss out on is multiplayer. And even there, Hot-Seat and perhaps even LAN will likely work fine.

This is why publishers like EA attempt things like requiring you to be online to play SimCity, by the way. If you have to be online, that gives them a way to check whether you own a legal copy.

- Some games alter gameplay to make the game hard to play, two famous examples I can think of is Silent Service flipping the captains pants upwards over the periscope so you couldn't see enemy ships, and GTA4's disabling of car brakes

The legal versions of those games will not contain those issues, so all the pirates need to do is ensure they copy whatever removes the issues. Unless the issues are removed by being online I guess, in which case we're back to the SimCity stuff from just above.

Computer game makers used to write off expected losses to piracy in their profit margins as a matter of course. Now they use it as an excuse to shove extra software that raises prices, affects performance, and MAY have intrusive features down our throats.

Companies don't want to just bleed out money if they can prevent it, what a surprise.

 

[Dale]

If the measures don't work, or aren't economically-viable (r.e. developer effort), then it is a factual claim nowadays.

That said, I completely agree that they're marketing their product through this. Or trying to anyhow.

The efficacy is not the thing being discussed. It's anti-piracy measures. That rep from Denuvo is implying they are the ONLY solution to address anti-piracy. Which is just complete BS.

Those don't reduce piracy. They encourage it. When I was a kid, pirating games was the default in my household because downloading from the internet was so much more convenient than buying a physical item. It's only since Steam has become a thing that we started buying games legally, and I'd prefer to not go back.

And when I was a kid, my and my mates would sit in the lounge room of this old guy waiting to put C64 games on 5.25" disks that he had downloaded over shortwave.

As I said above, the efficacy is not what was being discussed, but the claim that Denuvo is the only anti-piracy technique. Which is false.

 

[Gorbles]

The efficacy is not the thing being discussed. It's anti-piracy measures. That rep from Denuvo is implying they are the ONLY solution to address anti-piracy. Which is just complete BS.

Let me try and rephrase it:

If they are the only solution out there at the moment which works, then yes, they are the only solution. Steam and Epic DRM is ineffectual, and therefore are not solutions to any publisher looking to DRM to address piracy (however theoretical, alleged, or real).

If you're trying to state that historically solutions have existed at specific points in time that may or may not have been effective, that's a very fine hair to split, if not an irrelevant technicality in of itself.

 

[Dale]

Let me try and rephrase it:

If they are the only solution out there at the moment which works, then yes, they are the only solution. Steam and Epic DRM is ineffectual, and therefore are not solutions to any publisher looking to DRM to address piracy (however theoretical, alleged, or real).

If you're trying to state that historically solutions have existed at specific points in time that may or may not have been effective, that's a very fine hair to split, if not an irrelevant technicality in of itself.

But it is not history. Other methods are used today. Whether it works or not is irrelevant. Sure, Denuvo may be better at controlling piracy, but it is not the only method trying to do it.

Here is a recent article discussing what it considers the top 10 anti-circumvention methods: https://www.scoredetect.com/blog/posts/game-anti-circumvention-tech-top-10-methods

Note that Denuvo anti-tamper addresses points 1, 3, 4, 9, and 10. Denuvo is working on (or will soon release) anti-leak technology which IF integrated into anti-tamper will also cover point 2.

So no, Denuvo is NOT the only anti-piracy solution.

Here's another article discussing 10 anti-piracy strategies creators can use in 2024: https://www.scoredetect.com/blog/posts/10-anti-piracy-strategies-for-creators-2024

How about 15 ways developers of games have tried to discourage piracy (with varying results): https://www.thegamer.com/clever-anti-piracy-techniques-in-gaming/

Oh hey look, a company THAT'S NOT DENUVO, that specialises in guess what? Protecting software! And hey, a game is just another piece of software at the end the day. https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/

So no, Denuvo is NOT the only anti-piracy solution.

 

[Leyrann]

And when I was a kid, my and my mates would sit in the lounge room of this old guy waiting to put C64 games on 5.25" disks that he had downloaded over shortwave.

As I said above, the efficacy is not what was being discussed, but the claim that Denuvo is the only anti-piracy technique. Which is false.

The issue is, you name a bunch of alternative anti-piracy techniques, but none of them actually work. The only one in your list which 2 seconds of critical thinking from my side didn't disprove was Steam/Epic/whatever, which I simply don't know enough about - and I've seen plenty of people in this thread argue that they're not effective.

Mind, I'm not saying that Denuvo is the only option. Just that you didn't provide a good argument for using another option. I'm personally mostly ambivalent about Denuvo, perhaps slightly negative, although it won't keep me from buying and playing Civ VII.

(also, I noted 'when I was a kid', but that doesn't mean I was talking about childhood-related limitations; my brothers are a decade older than me and my dad is very tech savvy - it was absolutely adults (and teens) who had the means to legally buy the games that nonetheless pirated them because of the convenience; and I guess I should note that not all games were pirated, I got those old disks from somewhere after all)

 

[stealth_nsk]

The issue is, you name a bunch of alternative anti-piracy techniques, but none of them actually work. The only one in your list which 2 seconds of critical thinking from my side didn't disprove was Steam/Epic/whatever, which I simply don't know enough about - and I've seen plenty of people in this thread argue that they're not effective.

Mind, I'm not saying that Denuvo is the only option. Just that you didn't provide a good argument for using another option. I'm personally mostly ambivalent about Denuvo, perhaps slightly negative, although it won't keep me from buying and playing Civ VII.

(also, I noted 'when I was a kid', but that doesn't mean I was talking about childhood-related limitations; my brothers are a decade older than me and my dad is very tech savvy - it was absolutely adults (and teens) who had the means to legally buy the games that nonetheless pirated them because of the convenience; and I guess I should note that not all games were pirated, I got those old disks from somewhere after all)

But does Denuvo work? I thought it's hacked exactly like other solutions.

 

[gdr_willter]

But does Denuvo work? I thought it's hacked exactly like other solutions.

Most games with Denuvo were eventually hacked or removed it, but after several months from release.
And the research showed that the severeal months of protection effectively prevented falling sales caused by hacked copies.

 

[Gorbles]

Whether it works or not is irrelevant. Sure, Denuvo may be better at controlling piracy, but it is not the only method trying to do it.

There's a difference between "trying to" and "doing", and I couldn't disagree more that "whether it works or not is irrelevant". It's central to the selling of a solution in the first place. Even if Denuvo was above-board in a clear and transparent manner, in a different hypothetical reality, the solution working is critical to the tender process (to get into business speak for a second). Now, some sales pipelines involve what everyone knows as snake oil, and others wilfully mislead in order to secure a sale (and leave the subsequent pain up to the implementation team or developers further down the line), but "whether the product works or not" becomes central to pretty much any kind of contract between customer and supplier / vendor.

Here is a recent article discussing what it considers the top 10 anti-circumvention methods: https://www.scoredetect.com/blog/posts/game-anti-circumvention-tech-top-10-methods

The first result is "use DRM". Not sure this works against Denuvo.

The rest are mostly techniques used in individual games. These are not solutions, or even a solution (as presented in Denuvo). There is a difference between software that, for a really simple example, reads from a disk, and a software product designed to read from a disk / facilitate that interaction with your hardware. Nobody would claim that an "always online" requirement (a la online authentication) is in any way a "solution" to piracy. SimCity has already been talked about in this thread, right? I don't think it was cited positively!

Here's another article discussing 10 anti-piracy strategies creators can use in 2024: https://www.scoredetect.com/blog/posts/10-anti-piracy-strategies-for-creators-2024

The first result is, again, DRM. The second is something that is basically impossible to scale beyond closed tests (NDAs). I can and will go on if you demand it, but I think you're failing to recognise that none of these are solutions. Whether it's because you really want Denuvo to be wrong about that one point and that one point alone (which is weird considering the amount we do agree on given the lack of independent verification), or for some other reason, I don't know.

How about 15 ways developers of games have tried to discourage piracy (with varying results): https://www.thegamer.com/clever-anti-piracy-techniques-in-gaming/

See again "solution" vs. individual techniques. Also note a ton of these games are old (in some cases, positively ancient). Nor does it rate their effectiveness, or even mention if it stopped piracy vs. merely trying to dissuade it. The games were still cracked, at the end of the day (otherwise how would people know the techniques these games employed). The point is Denuvo prevents piracy, before the fact. That is their solution, or at least one of them.

Oh hey look, a company THAT'S NOT DENUVO, that specialises in guess what? Protecting software! And hey, a game is just another piece of software at the end the day. https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/

I hope you understand that a lot of the technologies they're selling (the ones they actually offer, vs. the consultancy services / packages they also appear to offer that result in third-party recommendations) aren't really applicable to video games? If at all? I've only had a cursory glance, but for example if you're looking at the Internet of Things (IoT), this isn't something that's at all relevant to stopping a pirate from cracking a copy of your game. Cybersecurity isn't really my bag, but I take a moderate interest in it (I keep up with CVEs for Windows, as a Windows user, I've been involved in numerous security audits at work that evaluate our tech stack, and so on). I'm not claiming I'm an authority, but nothing you're listing here is a product competitor to Denuvo in the space Denuvo is operating.

 

[Riconatic]

But does Denuvo work? I thought it's hacked exactly like other solutions.

I am not sure I understand your question.

But we can assume that proficient hacker can use exactly same methods to crack it as any other. And eventually it could be done.

But then the difference is that is so difficult and so time consuming that for games in recent years no hacker has put in the effort to crack it and almost all games stay uncracked or stay uncracked for years.
So yes it works.

 

[Dale]

The issue is, you name a bunch of alternative anti-piracy techniques, but none of them actually work. The only one in your list which 2 seconds of critical thinking from my side didn't disprove was Steam/Epic/whatever, which I simply don't know enough about - and I've seen plenty of people in this thread argue that they're not effective.

Mind, I'm not saying that Denuvo is the only option. Just that you didn't provide a good argument for using another option. I'm personally mostly ambivalent about Denuvo, perhaps slightly negative, although it won't keep me from buying and playing Civ VII.

(also, I noted 'when I was a kid', but that doesn't mean I was talking about childhood-related limitations; my brothers are a decade older than me and my dad is very tech savvy - it was absolutely adults (and teens) who had the means to legally buy the games that nonetheless pirated them because of the convenience; and I guess I should note that not all games were pirated, I got those old disks from somewhere after all)

I believe we're talking tangents to each other. I'm countering their claim that to address piracy you use Denuvo or not. That statement of theirs is not true. There are other methods of anti-piracy. Regardless of whether they work, or not, or even partial effective. The fact is other methods exist to try to counter piracy.

 

[Dale]

There's a difference between "trying to" and "doing", and I couldn't disagree more that "whether it works or not is irrelevant". It's central to the selling of a solution in the first place. Even if Denuvo was above-board in a clear and transparent manner, in a different hypothetical reality, the solution working is critical to the tender process (to get into business speak for a second). Now, some sales pipelines involve what everyone knows as snake oil, and others wilfully mislead in order to secure a sale (and leave the subsequent pain up to the implementation team or developers further down the line), but "whether the product works or not" becomes central to pretty much any kind of contract between customer and supplier / vendor.

The first result is "use DRM". Not sure this works against Denuvo.

The rest are mostly techniques used in individual games. These are not solutions, or even a solution (as presented in Denuvo). There is a difference between software that, for a really simple example, reads from a disk, and a software product designed to read from a disk / facilitate that interaction with your hardware. Nobody would claim that an "always online" requirement (a la online authentication) is in any way a "solution" to piracy. SimCity has already been talked about in this thread, right? I don't think it was cited positively!

The first result is, again, DRM. The second is something that is basically impossible to scale beyond closed tests (NDAs). I can and will go on if you demand it, but I think you're failing to recognise that none of these are solutions. Whether it's because you really want Denuvo to be wrong about that one point and that one point alone (which is weird considering the amount we do agree on given the lack of independent verification), or for some other reason, I don't know.

See again "solution" vs. individual techniques. Also note a ton of these games are old (in some cases, positively ancient). Nor does it rate their effectiveness, or even mention if it stopped piracy vs. merely trying to dissuade it. The games were still cracked, at the end of the day (otherwise how would people know the techniques these games employed). The point is Denuvo prevents piracy, before the fact. That is their solution, or at least one of them.

I hope you understand that a lot of the technologies they're selling (the ones they actually offer, vs. the consultancy services / packages they also appear to offer that result in third-party recommendations) aren't really applicable to video games? If at all? I've only had a cursory glance, but for example if you're looking at the Internet of Things (IoT), this isn't something that's at all relevant to stopping a pirate from cracking a copy of your game. Cybersecurity isn't really my bag, but I take a moderate interest in it (I keep up with CVEs for Windows, as a Windows user, I've been involved in numerous security audits at work that evaluate our tech stack, and so on). I'm not claiming I'm an authority, but nothing you're listing here is a product competitor to Denuvo in the space Denuvo is operating.

See my post above to leyrann. I believe it's the same situation.

 

[gdr_willter]

I believe we're talking tangents to each other. I'm countering their claim that to address piracy you use Denuvo or not. That statement of theirs is not true. There are other methods of anti-piracy. Regardless of whether they work, or not, or even partial effective. The fact is other methods exist to try to counter piracy.

But, what's wrong with the sentence? "Use Denuvo or not" itself is not actually collide with using another solution.
And you are intentionally ignoring that the difference between Denuvo and the others - Denuvo works and the others not.
I can't really understand why this thread needs 700+ posts, just take it or not. We talked about it enough and I see nothing more to argue.

 

[Dale]

But, what's wrong with the sentence? "Use Denuvo or not" itself is not actually collide with using another solution.
And you are intentionally ignoring that the difference between Denuvo and the others - Denuvo works and the others not.
I can't really understand why this thread needs 700+ posts, just take it or not. We talked about it enough and I see nothing more to argue.

The actual quote from the article is "there's two ways to protect a game against piracy, you don't or you use Denuvo".

 

[Gorbles]

See my post above to leyrann. I believe it's the same situation.

I think we're coming back to "solution" vs. "techniques" that I mentioned in my post. Is there a comparable solution to Denuvo that in any way works? Do we still have evidence that developer techniques like the ones listed work today, in 2024?

A lot of the games mentioned are old games. People who crack games are incredibly, increasingly skilled at what they do. It's kind of a back-and-forth (similar to malware vs. security / firewall software, albeit with a nobler goal). Can anything a developer does match up to Denuvo stopping a game being cracked for X months? Techniques that punish cracked copies for being cracked do not stop it from being cracked and pirated in the first place.

 

[Dale]

I think we're coming back to "solution" vs. "techniques" that I mentioned in my post. Is there a comparable solution to Denuvo that in any way works? Do we still have evidence that developer techniques like the ones listed work today, in 2024?

A lot of the games mentioned are old games. People who crack games are incredibly, increasingly skilled at what they do. It's kind of a back-and-forth (similar to malware vs. security / firewall software, albeit with a nobler goal). Can anything a developer does match up to Denuvo stopping a game being cracked for X months? Techniques that punish cracked copies for being cracked do not stop it from being cracked and pirated in the first place.

Do you agree that publishers/developers use methods other than Denuvo in an attempt to address piracy?

 

[imperfectpeter]

Been lurking this thread for a while, but I just want to say again what others have said previously. DRM of this nature never benefits the consumer. Occasionally they can be non-intrusive enough that they don't make the experience actively worse, but they never make it better. Whether or not the DRM effectively prevents piracy is irrelevant to me and everyone else here, unless you happen to be a shareholder.

The presence of Denuvo isn't enough to deter me from Civ 7, but combined with all the other doubts I'm definitely holding off for a while!

 

[stealth_nsk]

The actual quote from the article is "there's two ways to protect a game against piracy, you don't or you use Denuvo".

Honestly, all this looks like a marketing bull****:
1. Denuvo technologies aren't super-unique, other DRM solutions work as well and most algorithms are pretty well-known (or have well-known analogues)
2. There's no solid proof what anti-pirate measures somehow increase sales at all. Nobody was able to launch the same game in the same conditions with and without DRM
(it's often argued what people who download pirate copies and people who buy games are just different audiences, you can't turn one to another. If you somehow delay pirated version, most of people who would pirate it just won't play it, not buy)

 

[Gorbles]

Do you agree that publishers/developers use methods other than Denuvo in an attempt to address piracy?

To attempt to, sure.

I don't see that as being a smoking gun that proves Denuvo are lying when they say their solution is the only one that actually does something. And by all accounts, Denuvo seems to work r.e. stopping piracy (at least for a few months, if not longer). The things that generally draw criticism are things like the alleged performance impact, what it does to your system and / or hardware, the level of access Denuvo requires to work, "phoning home", etc.

I'm open to being shown a publisher or developer whose games have not been cracked, at least for days / weeks / months after release. Especially for any game released in the past 5 years or so (newer is obviously better). To me, that's the only thing that would arguably prove Denuvo are lying, vs. making a pretty strong-armed statement in favour of their own solution (which is marketing, but arguably not inaccurate marketing).

Honestly, all this looks like a marketing bull****:
1. Denuvo technologies aren't super-unique, other DRM solutions work as well and most algorithms are pretty well-known (or have well-known analogues)
2. There's no solid proof what anti-pirate measures somehow increase sales at all. Nobody was able to launch the same game in the same conditions with and without DRM
(it's often argued what people who download pirate copies and people who buy games are just different audiences, you can't turn one to another. If you somehow delay pirated version, most of people who would pirate it just won't play it, not buy)

What other DRM solutions work?

As for the proof of increasing sales, completely agree that it's beneficial for Denuvo to claim this. It's definitely marketing. But marketing isn't necessarily good or bad. One of the biggest problems indie games face (especially in this day and age) is marketing. Marketing is how games live and die, and it's much the same for software. Of course, it can be done badly, you can spend too much on it, etc, et al. But it being marketing doesn't automatically make it bad, or false, or something like that.

I also agree that plausible that people who download pirated software don't necessarily overlap with people who would actually buy the game. However games are a for-profit business, and publishers expect a predetermined return on investment, and to that end, protecting any lost copies is motivation enough - so long as it doesn't harm consumers in my opinion (I sincerely doubt whether upper management at that kind of level cares about consumers beyond their ability to spend money ).

 

[gdr_willter]

Whether or not the DRM effectively prevents piracy is irrelevant to me and everyone else here, unless you happen to be a shareholder.

I don't agree. The developers and publishers have their right to earn fair price for their offering, just like the customers have their right to receive fair product at resonable price.
And I want they earn proper reward from their work to allow them to keep developing upcoming content well. We know that Civ franchise have made a nontrivial loss by piracy through all the previous titles.
Of course we have to argue about the price policy, but I don't think the anti-piracy is a controversial thing unless it extremely interrupt the playability of customers.