Most recently, the gaming industry once again was shaken by the wave of anti-piracy hysteria. Its initiator was a famous Chinese hacker group called 3DM and, in particular, its founder, known under the nickname of Bird Sister. As a matter of fact, if you are into video game industry stuff, you can read more about video game facts. So, According to Bird Sister, in the next two years, the video game developers may simply bury the pirates alive. How? With the help of a sophisticated protective technology that is called Denuvo.
It was created by some unknown Austrian company, behind which, as it turns out, stands Sony. And the reason for such a statement was due to the Just Cause 3 action adventure game from Square Enix or, to be more exact, its powerful protection system that flummoxed even the most experienced and talented hackers from 3DM since game has not been hacked yet, despite the fact that it came out on December 1, 2015.
So what is this antipiracy technology like? First of all, it should be said that Denuvo is not an instrument to protect video game content. It is rather a powerful system that “protects” a well-known DRM technology. Thus, Denuvo acts as insurance, or if we may say so, “a protection for protection tools.” For experienced hackers, DRM is not a problem, however, Denuvo is not so simple to bypass, as it turns out.
The Denuvo technology is now especially widespread in popular gaming stores, such as Origin or Steam. In addition to the Just Cause 3 game, Denuvo protects other games like FIFA 15 and FIFA 16, the fantasy action-RPG Lords of the Fallen, Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Battlefield: Hardline shooter etc. All these games were cracked. However, no one has been able to bypass the protection of Just Cause yet.
Well, Denuvo’s advantages are quite clear. It really gives pirates severe headache and makes lovers of unlicensed content wait much longer. However, according to some experts, this smart technology has a serious drawback. In particular, Denuvo is accused of the fact that it allegedly overloads hard drives and thus significantly reduces their life expectancy. However, the Denuvo developers themselves deny these indictments, stating that their technology does not “read” any storages of information, and therefore any overload is out of the question.
Nevertheless, whether Denuvo will become a real killer of gaming industry pirates is yet to be seen in the near future, but even if it gets cracked, developers might start skipping PC ports at all and stick to the consoles like Xbox, PS4 or even Nintendo 64 instead.
In 2016, EA, Square Enix, and other developers will release a lot of grand paid games. Among the possible games that might get a Denuvo protection will be Rise of the Tomb Raider, Hitman, Street Fighter 5, Far Cry Primal, Tom Clancy’s The Division, EA Sports UFC 2, Dark Souls 3, Mafia 3, the new Doom, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and possibly many others.