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Topic on Talk:The big list of third-party DRM on Steam

BONKERS (talkcontribs)

We need to start building a list of games that use this POS DRM scheme. I refuse to buy any game that uses such crap.


ON their website they claim "Does Denuvo Anti-Tamper affect my SSD or any other type of hard drives in any way?

No. As mentioned before, Denuvo Anti-Tamper does not constantly read or write any data to storage media. " http://www.denuvo.com/


"Early reports from Slavic language tech-focused sites are suggesting that playing the game for about 40 minutes caused over 150,000 data rewrites - or roughly 10,000 times more often than any other game in recent memory that didn't use Denuvo's copy protection."

http://www.kentaiblog.com/2014_11_01_archive.html?zx=700f7df15675bc9c


This is in regards to Dragon Age Inquisition.

Anonymous (talkcontribs)

"Early reports from Slavic language tech-focused sites are suggesting that playing the game for about 40 minutes caused over 150,000 data rewrites - or roughly 10,000 times more often than any other game in recent memory that didn't use Denuvo's copy protection."

...and have you actually looked for these alleged Slavic-language reports? I did, and I found a long string of comments leading back to rpgcodex.com, which cites a source from Facepunch. Every attempt to replicate these results I've found on both Dragon Age: Inquisition and on games which use Denuvo have failed.

I'm calling false info driven by the anti-DRM hivemind.

Garrett (talkcontribs)

Expack3 has addressed the drive claims while I was writing this. I wouldn't seriously consider this until some more trustworthy source has tested it directly. Obfuscation increases reads and execution overhead (since it's basically using deliberately unoptimised code) but it wouldn't need that many extra writes since a decrypted result isn't being stored permanently.

As for games using Denuvo I think Lords of the Fallen is the only one on Steam so far; confirmed cases outside of Steam are currently FIFA 14, FIFA 15 and the aforementioned Dragon Age: Inquisition.

The Denuvo website previously had a Who we work with section showing Rockstar and various others (leading to speculation that Grand Theft Auto V might use it). Either way it looks like most (all?) upcoming EA titles are using Denuvo.

BONKERS (talkcontribs)

Whether it causes problems or not.

Shit like this is completely unwarranted. I'm sick of layering DRM on DRM. Treating paying customers like criminals, requiring them to jump through endless hoops. It gets old.

It's only a matter of time before the DRM is cracked and pirates will continue to keep'a'crackin

Mirh (talkcontribs)

DRMs are not meant to last forever. Just long enough to persuade miser assholes that have the money, but don't care about others's work to buy the game.
In reality I think publishers are already fine if they last for a week.
And indeed this resisted 46 days with FIFA 14. Still uncracked for both FIFA 15 and lords of the fallen.

You could even call something like starforce the worst protection ever created... but at least it stand for almost 15 months with chaos theory before falling.
The legends about broken DVD player might even be true, but more than a year is definitively a big thing

Now, yeah, if say GTA:SA was protected by something like denuvo, modding scene would be entirely different (and the game still broken). Though this seems pretty straightforward, besides some unconfirmed tests

Or are you experiencing problems yourself?

EDIT: of course when protection has been broken, or enough time is passed, if you are not dumb you should remove it.

BONKERS (talkcontribs)

No, I am not experiencing problems. I just dont' care for or trust how companies handle this kind of stuff.

Piracy =/= always a lost sale. So many people never intend to buy the game in the first place. This isn't going to get them any new sales or save them any money since none is lost in the first place. (Only in their minds , theoretical money that doesn't exist) And then you have legitimate paying customers , who are the ones forced to put up with it.

Mirh (talkcontribs)

1 pirated copy ≠ 1 sold copy

But if I take 10 pirated copy, at least 3 of these people have the money, but are just the kind of aforementioned greedy morons.
They are the reason for me justifying DRMs in some cases.

Then you could probably have your stories with crappy protections, where the cure is worse than the disease... but I don't think this problem is technically intrinsic

Mirh (talkcontribs)

Just to enliven the discussion, denuvo even deny to be a DRM by itself, claiming it's just an anti-tamper solution that works on top of other -already existing- DRMs such as Steam or Origin

Garrett (talkcontribs)

Denuvo Anti-Tamper appears to use online authentication of a hardware hash (hence the existence of an offline activation page for Lords of the Fallen) which sounds like standard DRM behaviour to me.

I don't have a Denuvo game to test this for myself but it seems like it wouldn't be possible to install and play one of these games if the server isn't available for this first-run authentication process.

Their assertion that it assists existing DRM is because it authenticates the hardware hash against a Steam/Origin account rather than a traditional product key (so it isn't a standalone solution).