CyberSecurity
Top AAA Titles take longer to crack. DRM is winning the war.
Death Stranding, probably the most awaited game of the year (at least for PC), have been released just yesterday. For the ones that are awaiting a cracked version of the game, the latest news is far more than disappointing: terrifying, to say the least.
Pirate Logo, seemed appropriate
Disclaimer
This article gives an update on the current state of the piracy industry, I have not included any link to any pirated/illegal content. Regarding the links to CrackWatch, according to their website: ?CrackWatch.com does NOT host any pirated or illegal content, does NOT provide links to any illegal files such as torrents and is NOT associated with any scene group.?
The last warzone: Death Stranding
Death Stranding is considered the last masterpiece of Hideo Kojima (videogame designer). When a videogame enters the market, in online shops such as Steam, the Cracking community activates (they are very organized, by the way).
https://crackwatch.com, Death Stranding comment page
The leading website for information regarding cracked games is called CrackWatch. There, you can check the crack status of every single game updated daily.
Hacking Groups
The hacking community is organized in ?rebellion? groups: each one has a name, such as Skidrow, CPY (RIP) or Codex?
https://crackwatch.com/groups an extensive list
Each group attempts to crack specific protection protocols and, after the game has been released, making available for FREE download. Unfortunately, this illegal practice has hurt many Game Developing Companies, pushing for more reliable protection methods.
DRM
DRM are protections that won?t allow players to play the original game. For example, if you had the original files (a few years ago you had in your hands the disk of a game) could you play the game? No, that would be too easy. Depending on the level of security, most of the time you need to provide authentication.
Top protections for videogames
Hackers create a version of the files that bypass the authentication, allowing a person to play with this FREE, pirated copy.
What is Denuvo?
Since 2016, the most advanced protection software for videogames is called Denuvo. Its implementation from the Developing House can cost up to 100.000 USD per videogame, but the protection level is almost absurd. Hacking groups really need to spend months to crack individual games. During this time, the Developing company has the possibility to increase earnings by delaying the inevitable.
www.crackwatch.com, Screenshot of Denuvo Games
As you can see from the screenshot above, and at the following link, cracking a Denuvo protection is far from easy. A few ago, games could be cracked in just a few days maximum. The required waiting time for a Denuvo protected game ranges from 4 days to even 6 months.
Denuvo will be cracked anyway, why is Piracy losing?
When developing companies develop a Title spending up to 100 million USD (we are in the AAA rating), the assumption is that the game will be cracked soon or later. Why bother? The point of DRM such as Denuvo is not to prevent cracking, but to delay it indefinitely, so that the Developing Houses are able to gain an advantage in the first period of the sales.
Cracking videogames is a practice that hit Developing Houses, especially on PC. You cannot easily find a way to use crack games on platforms such as PS4 or Xbox. There is always going to be a portion of the gamers that will support the game and are willing to buy it, while another portion who is willing to wait for the crack in order to play it.
However, if you extend the period of time from when the crack will be available, you can easily tempt people into buying right now, rather than waiting 6 months for something they have been waiting for 2 years!
