Denuvo DRM, once infamous among pirates and crackers for its resilience against craking, seems to have fallen hard. Denuvo was once so terrifying to crack that China-based group 3DM famously proclaimed that it would be the death of piracy. Funny how these things work out huh?
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War isn’t the first major title even this year to be cracked at lightning speed. Mass Effect: Andromeda’s protection was cracked in 10 days earlier this year, while Sega’s recent Sonic Mania was cracked in eight. Resident Evil 7 held out for a little under a week, and Tequila Works’ Rime managed just five days.
It’s been common practice for at least a few months for publishers to remove the DRM once a crack has been widely distributed, citing issues that the complexity of Denuvo can cause with game performance. It remains to be seen what WB will do with Shadow of War.
Of course, Denuvo and the publishers they partner with are quick to hold out examples of the necessity of protection against piracy. Many games without protection or those that are cracked are often openly shared on release day. Proponents of DRM claim that these pirates have a long-standing and substantive affect on sales of games and other media. Although some research suggests that piracy doesn’t influence sales as much as is often claimed.
Although DRM may not kill piracy, the lack of revenue for site operators might. Infamous piracy platform The Pirate Bay is once again in hot water over its no opt-out usage of cryptocurrency mining scripts that run in visitors browsers. Although it’s being reported that some anti-malware and adblocking applications prevent these scripts from operating.
Whatever the future holds for piracy, it doesn’t look good for Denuvo.