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Pirates Finding It Harder To Crack New PC Games (engadget.com)
schnell writes: Engadget reports that a few recent top-tier video game releases using updated DRM technology have gone uncracked for more than a month and left DRM hackers stymied thus far. The games FIFA 16 and Just Cause 3, using an updated DRM system called Denuvo, have thus far frustrated experienced Chinese crackers' best efforts far longer than the usual 1-2 weeks it takes for most games to be cracked. Although the article is light on technical details about what makes the new DRM system harder to defeat, it does note that "Based on the current pace of encryption tech, 'in two years time I'm afraid there will be no free games to play in the world,' said one forlorn pirate."
Metal Gear Solid V.
Took forever to get a crack out, and when a crack did come out by 3DM it took a few more days for a version 2 to be playable. Only when you set your timezone to a chinese one were you able to play. Sometimes on a specific set of hardware you needed a new crack made. You had to skip certain chapters of the game because they crashed.
And after 5 days or so? Music started playing. Shifty crack, even in the pirate world, never fully working scene release even to this day.
As a pirate, I can only salute the guys who made Denuvo.
It's not currently possible to play pirated PS4 games.
The PS4's security does appear to have been at least partially compromised, however. A recent video appears to show Linux running on a PS4, along with a version of Pokemon. Note that we don't yet have independent verification of this, so there's a chance (albeit probably a slim one given the track record of the group in question) that this is a hoax.
It's still a long way from being able to play pirated games, although it is certainly a first step on that road. More to the point, however, it is even further from being able to make full use of pirated games, given the extent to which the full functionality of many PS4 games is tied to online features. History (e.g. the situation with the Xbox 360) suggests that console manufacturers are pretty good, over time, at detecting consoles running pirated software when they connect to online services and locking them out of said services. A PS4 which can't access the PSN is not much of a PS4.
As for pirated games on the PS3, it was possible. Sort of. There was a specific firmware version which, if you didn't update past it, could be tricked into running pirated games (via a USB dongle, if I recall). However, you should note that firmware updates on the PS3 were mandatory both to use online services and to play games released after that firmware version was issued. So in other words, if you had an old PS3 you kept at the right firmware version and never tried to use it online, you could play pirated games which did not require a more recent firmware version. So it was of limited use for most people and was only ever really a proof of concept.
Requires the stolen object to be missing.
Pirating is copyright infringement. Why does the government even protect copyright?
Many people would rather live in a world without copyright.
In that sense I think anarchy would be great. Those who want copyright can live in a city where those monopolies are protected.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
Piracy getting harder? That's not a problem.
Videogame abundance and the mass-move towards indie-development makes pirating obsolete anyway.
I get all my Games for 10 Euros or less out of the bargain bin. The occasional totally DRM-free 15 Euro download for Shadowrun Hong Kong (Kickstarter Project / Indie Game) adds to that. I'm OK giving 15 Euros for a very neat DRM-free game to an indie studio. It's still dirt-cheap.
Currently I'm playing Deus Ex:Human Revolution for XBox 360. Cost me 9.99 for an original mint copy of the directory cut special edition. Awesome game, pricepoint is a steal.
No one needs piracy or the triple-a publishers in a time where Gamedevs are going indie left, right and center (Hideo Kojima anyone?) and games drop hard off the 60 dollar benchmark as soon as they're published on non-current gen platforms or mobile or the novelty effect has worn off.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca