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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the Defective-by-Design dept.

According to TorrentFreak, the long-awaiting stealth game Hitman 2 — which comes 'protected' by the latest variant of Denuvo (v5.3) — leaked online. Aside from having its protection circumvented, this happened three days before the title's official launch on November 13.

It appears that a relatively new cracking group called FCKDRM obtained a version of Hitman 2 that was only available to those who pre-ordered the game. While several groups have been chipping away at Denuvo for some time, FCKDRM is a new entrant (at least by branding) to the cracking scene. (Note: The group is not related to the FCKDRM initiative, an anti-DRM site launched by GOG.com, even though it does use the logo.)

It should be noted that the owners of Denuvo released marketing material a few months ago suggesting that even 4 days of protection (actually even hours according to them) is worth the price of their DRM. (However, no mention of -3 days.)


Original Submission

Related Stories

"Just Cause 4" Cracked a Day After Release - But it Gets Worse 26 comments

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Just Cause 4 Cracked a Day After Release - But it Gets Worse - TorrentFreak

The much-anticipated action-adventure game Just Cause 4 was released on December 4, protected by Denuvo. On December 5, cracking group CPY posted the game online, Denuvo defeated. While this is yet another hammer blow to the anti-tamper system, the game is currently 'enjoying' a review average of just 5/10 on Steam, which could exacerbate the problems.

[...] This long-anticipated AAA action-adventure title is the follow-up to Just Cause 3, which was also protected by Denuvo. That game was released in December 2015 but wasn’t cracked until the end of February 2017.

Compare that with Just Cause 4. The game was released on December 4, 2018 then cracked and leaked online December 5, 2018. Just Cause 3 and Just Cause 4 were both defeated by cracking group CPY, who are clearly getting very familiar with Denuvo’s technology.

[...] While having the game appear online the day after release is bad enough, another problem is raising its head. According to numerous reviewers on Steam, the game is only worthy of a ‘thumbs down’ based on complaints about graphics, gameplay, and numerous other issues.

Related: Hitman 2’s Denuvo Protection Cracked Three Days Before Launch


Original Submission

Remove Denuvo DRM, Gain Up to 20 FPS in Devil May Cry 5 16 comments

Denuvo-Free Devil May Cry 5 Reportedly Improves the Game's Performance by Up to 20FPS

It appears that Denuvo's anti-tamper tech has significant impact on Devil May Cry 5's performance, and a Denuvo-free .exe game file has now surfaced online.

The Devil May Cry 5 .exe file was actually released by Capcom following the game's release earlier today, but has now been pulled. However, the file can still be downloaded through the Steam console. Several users are reporting FPS improvements by up to 20FPS while using the Denuvo-free exe file.

Sound familiar? Devil May Cry 5 is the game AMD demoed running on a Radeon VII GPU at its CES 2019 keynote. I wonder if they were running it with DRM.

Average frame rates are only part of the story when it comes to a game's performance. Minimum frame rates, percentiles, etc. can measure frame stuttering. A significant boost in a game's performance can also increase minimum frame rates.

Related:


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 20 2018, @10:12AM (11 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday November 20 2018, @10:12AM (#764197) Homepage
    Just you wait for Denuvo 6.0, that's gonna be *da shit*. Yeah, 1.0 to 5.3 were crap, but don't worry - this time we've got it cracked, ooops, you know what we mean.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:24PM (10 children)

      by loonycyborg (6905) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:24PM (#764209)

      All DRM schemes are just based on a flawed security model while pursuing the illogical goal of sharing something with people while also not sharing it with them.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:49PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:49PM (#764213) Journal

        Proof that while the universe may or may not be infinite, human stupidity is? Doesn't seem to matter how many times the uselessness of DRM is demonstrated, and that the history of DRM and copy protection failure now goes back 40 years, there are still suckers lining up to buy it. They want to believe technological advance will bring us working DRM soon, and maybe the next version is finally the one that can't be cracked.

        DRM is another manifestation of greed, wishful thinking, and fear of loss. DRM is the Maginot Line on a computer. Heck, the Maginot Line was more effective.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:37PM (8 children)

        by ledow (5567) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:37PM (#764232) Homepage

        However, we have some security where we have precisely this kind of model and it works.

        Bluray AACS was based on encryption based on unique keys for each model of Blu-Ray player. The model was actually good and worked - the flaw was in letting some keys gets published / discovered so easily. Even today, some Blu-Ray discs are almost impossible to play without having the original in an original machine.

        There's no reason that scheme can't be extended - to a literal revocation of the keys for a manufacturer, model, or even individual device. Where a revocation actually means that a vital part of the decryption key is unavailable. Then any "copied" games / movies / data with that key become useless, and pirate copies can literally be "turned off" upon discovery.

        Now that doesn't stop analogue holes, etc. but there's no reason you can't have secured access to data with key revocation and unique keys. We do it all the time for other systems.

        The problem was CSS and AACS was poor implementation. Even the HDCP things allowed someone to get hold of a key, use it in rip-off devices, and never get revoked. If the person who downloaded the pirated movie gets a "Sorry, this file was made on a revoked device" error, they'd have to keep old devices / HDMI convertors / etc. so that they NEVER come into contact with a revocation list, where you can then issue and re-key and lock out any such devices from new content for which they can't rekey.

        It's all there. We use it all the time for things like SSH, TLS, etc. It requires online services (and if you secure the online services using a client key talking HTTPS to a server, NOBODY can fake that conversation with any intermediary device because THEY DON'T HAVE YOUR PRIVATE KEY... the same way you can't fake a Windows Update even if you intercept all the Internet connection). We have timestamp servers and key revocation and re-keying and key-issuance and keys that require portions of a certain percentage of other keys (so, e.g. any 5 of 10 keys can decrypt... as per some of the Blu Ray protections... just up the numbers required and throw more computing power at it).

        It's all there. We have the capability to do this all. But every single implementation is flawed, and a true implementation has an enormous infrastructure behind it.

        Hell, use a blockchain... if the user presents proof that they were the creator of a certain purchase record on the blockchain, that's INCREDIBLY difficult to fake, even offline. If that purchase record includes decryption keys only accessible to the creator, that's how they can watch their movie. If they distribute their move, you insert a record which revokes that certificate and thus it's not eligible for future re-keys sent via the same blockchain. Now it can only play on those people who never update the blockchain. Which means that newer movies won't play either and you need a virtual copy of the blockchain as it was at point of purchase to be preserved alongside the pirate movie in perpetuity when you distribute it, which knocks it out of playing on standard hardware.

        Combine that same access into the chain from Blu-Ray to HDMI to display-device (we're almost there, but they're all competing), and the TV will either watch "old pirated" stuff or "new" stuff but not both.

        The technology and the maths are all there to use and we use them already - everything from secure certificates to SSH access to proof-of-work to timestamp servers (e.g. in code certificates).

        You just need someone to use it properly, design it properly. implement it properly and tie it all in online on their servers ("hey, this is the code you player 524389 to play movie 923574398 onto TV 8342784 for the next 2 hour window only"... after that time the token becomes invalid and the seed values you download using it will no longer function, and thus the movie will no longer play and any pirate movie will have those codes all over it - because the only way to pirate is to replicate that entire device and time state and timestamp-server responses, and blockchain at that time with the movie - and if found online we revoke all those devices or, if troublesome, the entire device model / manufacturer... just like PowerDVD got revoked in the early Blu-ray era and your choices were "use the old PowerDVD and never update and not watch new movies" or "update PowerDVD with new security code and blacklists and let you watch the new movies".

        You can't perfect DRM. But it can easily make it so damn dangerous as to make it virtually impossible to be a casual industry. TPM chips are just one proof of this. People can't get into iPads nowadays, let alone into your PC / movie.

        The fact that, as an IT guy, I hate TPM and DRM because of such potential of being locked out only goes to prove - they could be extremely effective if used properly. Hell, a Blu Ray successor could demand TPM usage on all hardware, and keys for each individual machine and brick it permanently if they wanted.

        The point of DRM is not to stop it happening. That's impossible. It's to make it so inconvenient that it's easier to pay £50 and buy the damn game. And you can easily cause more than £50 worth of hassle for the end-user if you're at the point of dictating connectivity, OS security status and online access to access your content.

        That nobody has yet? It's just a matter of time. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be so scared of TPM and DRM in our home machines.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:44PM (#764241)

          Even updated devices will play pirated content. Pirated content doesn't use pirated keys, it uses unencrypted non-drm content. The display would have no way to know that the content was anything other than public domain.

          • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:05PM

            by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:05PM (#764264) Journal

            Wait.
            They'll figure that one out sooner or later in a way that the device won't play without likewise being assured that the product is genuine. There will still be analog copy that you will use another device to play.
            It too shall pass. And then pass again.
            Round and round we go.

            --
            This sig for rent.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:55PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @02:55PM (#764245)

          In case of games with physical and unique interaction, this may work. Although as you mentioned, getting a working implementation without discoverable bugs will take more than a few attempts.
          For video or audio, there already is a very effective copy method. Get a good camera, pay and play the movie once and record it on some drm-free media, distribute. The quality of house-hold recording is certainly good enough to satisfy most people with this copy. To get around this they need full control of all your devices, I doubt they can afford that.

          However there is another elephant in the room. Implementing this is very expensive, it probably also puts some extra hassle on real customers. Multiple studies have already shown that pirating in no way reduces actual profit/sales. Combined this gives a few things:
          If they make unbreakable protection,
          1. this will cost them part of their profit-margin, without getting any value in return.
          2. they will actually lose a profit-line, namely suing copyright infringers.
          3. They can no longer beg for handouts because hey piracy! E.g. risk another income-line with the now irrelevant hard-drive tax etc... (They will obviously continue lobbying for copyright extensions etc...)

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:56PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @06:56PM (#764340)

            To put it concisely, DRM is a fence. It's there to signal that the inside belongs to someone else, so that people who are worried of getting caught don't break in.
            You can make the damn wall or fence as high as you want, someone will try to get through just for kicks. The more bragging rights the better.

            The internet made it easy to share the pass-through techniques, and the feeling of impunity means that your imperfect wall is breached by a lot of people. But most of those people still acknowledge that doing so breaches the law, so the companies still make their cash despite some losses (yes, some people would buy if they couldn't pirate).

            It's a tradeoff between the cost of the better wall, the cost of getting the cops to come around more often, the ability to whine that your problems are from theft, and the actual amount of the "theft". The current situation seems to be at about the right equilibrium for most parties involved.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:56PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:56PM (#764416)

          Stop giving them ideas

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday November 20 2018, @10:35PM (2 children)

          by edIII (791) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @10:35PM (#764428)

          You may be correct. Bluray had some other problems in it, and the fundamental flaw in your design is that I would kill you before I need to check in with you each and every single time I enjoy content of any kind. That's the #1 deal breaker right there. The damn machine won't work without being connected to the Internet, and requires updates for the cryptography, while not respecting my purchases at all. Having to perform a DRM dance with you to obtain my peaceful enjoyment of property is never going to happen. Any DRM system must allow anonymous usage at a minimum, and none of them do. Doesn't sound like it is possible, and mutually exclusive most likely.

          So I never bought anything BluRay ever. Still buy DVDs though, but I stopped doing that when they made it too difficult to decrypt and remove the PUOs. I don't concern myself with DRM products because I don't ever buy them in the first place, or actually use them (they stay in plastic). Regardless of whether I paid for it or not, the vast majority of my consumption in the last decade has been pirate produced products.

          I don't need any codes [youtube.com]. I don't need any DRM libraries installed. I don't need the Internet. I don't have to be forced to watch commercials, or annoying overlays. I don't have to wonder what was said, because I can't find adequate subtitles in my native language (mostly true). I don't need to pay three times to obtain three different formats and qualities. I don't have to check in with my masters before I watch something.

          As for your observation of what they could do, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers" :)

          Seriously though, with what I see kids doing today, all of the old models are going to die. They're on YouTube and Twitch and could apparently care less about TV. Since they're making their own content with each other, the real money is in the platform, not licensing on the content.

          --
          Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
          • (Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday November 21 2018, @08:34AM (1 child)

            by ledow (5567) on Wednesday November 21 2018, @08:34AM (#764628) Homepage

            You're in the minority.

            It's as simple as that.

            Most average people have Netflix accounts, are buying Disney stuff for their kids, are using smartphone and SmartTV apps that require an account and check-in.

            Think Microsoft activation (which almost every person and business in the world tolerates for Office 365, even "offline"). You don't check in every time, but every 30 days, the key flips and you have to upgrade the key. You get all the offline functionality (for 30 days) and then it becomes useless. No different to Steam (millions of users) when used Offline. Sure there are "hacks" but those hacks are painful for the average user and not as simple as "just run this" and also can result in "sorry, we've disabled your account" just the same. Average people aren't going to risk that, certainly not after the first time they lose their library.

            You may be able to continue. I agree with your principle entirely. But... that's not how the world works at the moment for the average person and so it's not how it's going to work in the future. Millions of people aren't going to suddenly stand up and say "this is unacceptable" to something they've poured collective billions of dollars into to make a household name.

            The average person wants to pay, get their content, watch it and - if they "bought" it - keep that for a significant length of time that you'd at least expect the average DVD to last. And that's exactly what they get. People bought into music and TV stores that turned off (one of the BBC ones, for example), and when they closed there were murmurings, not uproar, and people bought things on bigger services instead. That's the average guy's reaction.

            What the media companies have to do with are not the outliers like you... they have to deal with the average guy who doesn't even understand what DRM is and just goes "Oh, what? I have to buy it again? Oh, alright then" and has been doing just that since the days of vinyl. The time, effort and inconvenience of not having access to fairly inconsequential media is far greater than just paying a bit of their disposable income.

            Kids today are on YouTube, yes. Traditional broadcast TV will absolutely die in time. But catchup / pay-per-view and monthly subscriptions took over. Those kids all have Netflix at home and use it on their devices too. Then doing the equivalent of American amateur cable TV shows between themselves doesn't affect the mass media consumption at all.

            Hey, I'm an open-source guy. I'm totally understanding your viewpoint. But I also have Netflix, HDMI devices, a Steam account (15 years old), and all kinds of other stuff ON TOP of my Bluray/DVD player, GoG account, etc.

            Because, when it comes to media and entertainment and things to do after work, I'd rather pay and suffer zero daily hassle than have to faff about just to watch a DVD. An hour of my time is worth more than a movie, and an hour of my leisure time is worth MUCH MORE than a movie. I don't support those that are abusive of DRM, but equally if I can pay and then just watch the movie, I'm happy. Even if, in ten years, I have to pay again. It's literally a cost-value tradeoff that I can take even as someone who is perfectly capable of doing all these things and sourcing media, equipment and software to bypass this stuff. So, the average Joe who struggles to do that? Yeah, he's just going to pay. So long as his money isn't an immediate and total loss, he's going to continue doing that for the foreseeable future.

            DRM is something you are willing to go out of your way to avoid. 99% of people, that's just not true.

            P.S. I did stop buying Disney DVDs because they made them basically unworkable on a PC and then made 10 minutes of ads unskippable, which is the very last thing you want when a kid is saying "Can I just watch...". They lost that through their own fault. They took it too far. But does it stop my kid watching Disney in other ways? Nope.

            • (Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday November 21 2018, @08:57PM

              by edIII (791) on Wednesday November 21 2018, @08:57PM (#764948)

              Because, when it comes to media and entertainment and things to do after work, I'd rather pay and suffer zero daily hassle than have to faff about just to watch a DVD. An hour of my time is worth more than a movie, and an hour of my leisure time is worth MUCH MORE than a movie. I don't support those that are abusive of DRM, but equally if I can pay and then just watch the movie, I'm happy. Even if, in ten years, I have to pay again. It's literally a cost-value tradeoff that I can take even as someone who is perfectly capable of doing all these things and sourcing media, equipment and software to bypass this stuff. So, the average Joe who struggles to do that? Yeah, he's just going to pay. So long as his money isn't an immediate and total loss, he's going to continue doing that for the foreseeable future.

              DRM is something you are willing to go out of your way to avoid. 99% of people, that's just not true.

              How much hassle do you think I go through? That's the part I got rid of. No more set-top box, No more cable bill, no guides informing me about times I can view, no DVRs to take my control of time back, etc. Until it got shutdown, there was even a box that automated this stuff and made it easy for the average joe. Which also made them aware of it. Not so much of an outlier when had hundreds of thousands of people (at least) get used to a box that just showed you want you wanted to watch. Especially when that box never told them that they couldn't fast forward through the ads, or "turn ads off" for TV shows, or have their devices crippled later on because Big Ag had a shitfit over commercial skipping technology...

              In my case, if I see a movie I like, I check Netflix first. That part is true. Netflix is easier than piracy, by a small margin. That margin being keyboard clicks and mouse movements. If it is not on Netflix, I check Redbox. They're next to the grocery store, and convenient enough that I can pay a $1. I don't pick up the movie and keep it. Whether or not it is on Redbox, I then move on to piracy.

              Piracy for me is as simple as checking RSS feeds for the shows and movies I like. One click, and it's on its way to an incoming folder that I can access from my devices anywhere. There are even guides for the private trackers I frequent that allow me to search through them just like Netflix. On many of these private trackers, I can make requests if it isn't there. Rest of the time, I check the thrift stores. You can build an amazing catalog on the cheap there, simply by replacing the damaged media with a pirate copy. Anything that I really like I can set up a RSS rule to download it automatically once available.

              My favorite shows? They're on my devices generally before you can watch them on TV (West coast sees East Coast first). I sit down at night and check out what my automated system has already delivered to me. I'm not spending all that much effort at all in fact, and most of the time I'm legal because I believe First Sale Doctrine is sacrosanct.

              There will always be technology to help enable this, and Kodi was just the beginning. That's not so much avoiding DRM, as just choosing a superior product. A product that happens to excel in avoiding DRM :)

              --
              Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:13PM (7 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:13PM (#764222) Homepage

    Simple solution:

    Stop buying games until the DRM is removed from them.

    This kills all the first-day sales.
    Means they expend all their money on something that actually costs them customers.
    And they'll have a clear up-surge in purchases on the date the DRM is removed.

    Until that happens, pretty much the average gamer is sending the message "I'm fine with all this DRM, so long as I get my game first".

    It's a stupid thing to do, but there it is... that's what the consumers are telling these people.

    Until consumers STOP telling them that, with their purchasing habits, it will continue no matter how pointless it all is.

    P.S. Same applies to anything "Rare / Limited Edition", "Pre-release", designer-branded, etc.

    For all the time I've been alive people have been paying for stupid things - like early access to games that aren't even finished yet. I can't really blame the companies involved for perpetuating it, or capitalising on it, even in the face of evidence that the technical measures are pointless.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:24PM (1 child)

      by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:24PM (#764270)

      While I agree with you in principle, it simply will not work.
      The vast majority of purchasers are completely ignorant of what DRM is and even those who are aware of it's existance most won't consider it a downside unless they get stung. Even those that get stung will go on to buy the next DRM'ed game/movie/coffee maker. It's not like they advertise their DRM, it's just there, and not a consideration for the vast majority of consumers.

      --
      Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:34PM

        by Freeman (732) on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:34PM (#764757) Journal

        While I agree with you on certain points, the simple fact is there is a growing market for DRM free games. Case in point: https://www.gog.com/ [gog.com] DRM is anti-consumer, it's literally treating all of your customers like they are criminals or potential criminals. While, I do use Steam and have quite a collection there and have other DRM protected games. I also, have a nice collection of games through GOG, which I treat as my game archive / vault. I like a game enough, I'm definitely going to be getting it on GOG. You can download your entire collection and back it up on physical media. So, in the event the site goes bust, you're still golden. Also, you're not treated like a parasite, if you don't want to be online while playing your games or for whatever reason can't be online. One system treats you like a normal human being and the other treats you like a criminal. Guess which one I like the best. Oh, and I'm not buying Fallout 76. I'm tired of every publisher wanting their own platform, so they screw the middle man. Guess what, the middle man is Useful, because we don't want to keep track of 50 different publishers and their requisite logins.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:24PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:24PM (#764353) Journal

      Here's where I plug the wonderful site GoG which used to stand for Good old Games, but they settled on just the acronym for their name GOG. Since, they also host new games. https://www.gog.com/ [gog.com] They are 99.999% DRM free, with the occasional exception of needing to register with a 3rd party for multiplayer, if that counts as DRM. They've got some great classic and/or new games/series like Roller Coaster Tycoon, Ultima, Witcher, Fallout, X-COM, Civilization, Terraria, and Mount and Blade. There's just tons of good stuff there. All generally DRM free. They even resurrected multiplayer support on some titles. One in particular I remember had relied on gamespy and thus no longer worked since gamespy folded.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:32PM (3 children)

      by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @08:32PM (#764388) Homepage

      Don't worry about it, DRM is a losing battle. Microtransactions and always-online is the future.

      --
      Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:54PM (2 children)

        by Freeman (732) on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:54PM (#764772) Journal

        Always-online for single-player reeks of DRM. Microtransactions are purely out and out a cash grab. It's not a sustainable business model. Eventually, people will wise up, or perhaps my faith in people is largely misplaced. Then again, perhaps it will be like gambling, people know they're 99.999% of the time going to lose, but do it anyway. I can only hope that microtransactions will end up regulated by the government like gambling and unceremoniously killed as the target user base is kids. Sure, you can say there's lots of adults that play video games, but I'll also point to the large number of kids that spout crap in FPS games. Kids are going to be more easily drawn to "F2P" (free-to-play) games than an adult with disposable income. I've been quite happy that indie developers have taken up the slack from big game studios. At this point it seems the big game studios are focusing on pump and dump. In addition to marketing towards the average 12 year old for titles such as Fortnite, PUBG, and Overwatch. I sincerely hope that they crash and burn in their nose dive towards the bottom. Whereas studios that produce gems like Terraria and Mount and Blade, I sincerely hope for the best.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday November 21 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)

          by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday November 21 2018, @07:21PM (#764904) Homepage

          > Always-online for single-player reeks of DRM

          I consider DRM to be malware that runs on your hardware. Always-online is different; the important bits are on the server. You're not buying the game, you're buying a game client to access the game server. DRM is fundamentally bypassable since you have physical access to the hardware, but you can't exploit a remote game server this way. Worst case, you gain access for a few weeks before getting banned. That's why always-online is the future; eventually AAA companies will fully realize this and start using always-online instead of DRM to fight piracy.

          > Microtransactions are purely out and out a cash grab.

          No shit, the entire point is to make money.

          > It's not a sustainable business model.

          It's very sustainable, the mobile game with microtransaction model sector is booming.

          > perhaps it will be like gambling

          Microtransactions don't have to use the gambling/gacha model. Often it's for cosmetic elements like skins, bought directly. You get what you pay for, as advertised.

          > as the target user base is kids

          No it's not. I realize there are shady games with this business model (where that business model is relying on kids not realizing that that colorful button is spending real money), but most legitimate games target adults with a lot of spare income.

          Most of the profit comes from whales. These are the small proportion of the playerbase that spend hundreds, thousands and up dollars every week/month on the game and make up most of the profit. These are definitely not kids.

          Try searching for mobage and whale for some articles.

          --
          Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
          • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 26 2018, @04:46PM

            by Freeman (732) on Monday November 26 2018, @04:46PM (#766483) Journal

            Generally, always online single-player games just check-in with a server to make sure you're online and that's it. No other reason for the online requirement, thus why I included it as DRM ala Assassins Creed. Yes, the target user base for a lot of games is kids. Including Free to Play games and including microtransactions is a good way to exploit them. It's a scummy business practice in my book. Yes, there are "whales" that spend stupid amounts of money, but there's plenty of counter examples of kids spending their parents money on these things. Microtransactions are anathema to Gaming. They suck the soul out of games and turn the focus from "Fun Gameplay" to "Show Me the Money." In which case, generally a game is doomed from the start. What you'll be left with is paying $$$ of money per month for stupid things that have no meaning and will go poof the moment they stop making money on the "Free to Play" game. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have labors of love like Terraria which has had 0 DLC, with 0 Microtransactions, but to this day is still being updated. The original game was tons of fun. Subsequent updates have introduced so much extra Free content that it's almost a crime that I only paid $10 for 4 copies of the game when it was on a Steam sale. Games like Terraria get the heart and soul of gaming. Games like Overwatch, where you bought the game, then get to pay tons of money, if you want specific cosmetics, are the corruption feeding off the blood life of gamers. I do realize that Overwatch isn't anywhere near as bad as some, but the whole idea of it is horrible. The fact that Blizzard a stupendously rich gaming studio is doing that to their Marks (Not customers), is a travesty, and they are already paying for it. Just look at their recent announcement about the new mobile Diablo game. Blizzard has enjoyed a cult following of fans, they are just barely getting a taste of what it will be like, if they pander after the masses instead of focusing on their loyal fan base. Quality games are hard to come by, but loyal fans are like gold.

            --
            Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:14PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:14PM (#764224)

    meanwhile, dongles and network licenses are widely used for all kinds of commercial software, just say'n

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @01:57PM (#764236)

      It's not like those can't be cracked, or in most cases just NOP:ed out of existence since all they mostly do or did was just check to see if something was there or not and not actually doing any advanced checking. Mostly old dongles are just a massive pain for the user as if the dongle is lost or breaks the entire product becomes worthless.

      If one wants to one could technically say that a lot of these new Steam or always connected game protections are a form of network license to -- after all you have to be online, connected to steam to buy and run the software. A few rare once allow you to run it in offline mode. Yet those get removed all the time, worthless resource hogs that they are.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:45PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:45PM (#764287)

      quit saying "commercial" when you mean "closed source". Free Software can be commercial too. Acting like something has to be closed source to be commercial is either ignorance or propaganda for digital slave traders.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @05:03PM (#764294)

        "Commercial" in this context usually refers to "software aimed at businesses, not at home users". A company will often buy a site license of some kind in order to get access to all of their employees at a location with a minimum of hassle.

        It's just buying in bulk, typically for software intended to do something specific for the company. (Inventory tracking, order management, data movement, at company/enterprise-scale. Not something you'd TYPICALLY find useful for the average household consumer.)

        Open Source "commercial" software exists. Closed Source "commercial" software exists. One is not a prerequisite for the other.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jasassin on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:12PM

      by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 20 2018, @07:12PM (#764346) Homepage Journal

      meanwhile, dongles and network licenses are widely used for all kinds of commercial software, just say'n

      I know someone who had 3D Studio Max with a crack to bypass the dongle. Dongles don't work either.

      --
      jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 21 2018, @04:53AM

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday November 21 2018, @04:53AM (#764590) Homepage Journal

    Sad to see what's happening to Denuvo. Because they did something so dumb. They said, "oh, let's save money. By not having Systemd. And our cyber will be just as safe as the other guys'." Well, it wasn't safe. Because they got hacked very badly. And it could have been China, could have been Russia, could have been a fat guy on his bed. He eats too much, he exercises too much, he's seriously overweight, this guy is a TOTAL SLOB. And he's having trouble sleeping. So he hacked them four ways to Sunday.

    It's happening to so many of our Companies. Very sad situation. So I'm very proud that I signed -- and it was a beautiful signature, believe me -- the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act. Otherwise known as CISA Act. Creating our Cyber Space Force. Beautiful new agency, separate but equal. Very strong move to protect our incredible cyber. 100%!!!!

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