Denuvo by Irdeto has unveiled at GDC (Game Developers Conference) this past March 18th their brand new anti-piracy technology named "TraceMark", specifically tailored to make "leakers think twice".

This new technology is aimed towards the never-ending problem in the gaming industry of pre-release videogame leaks, be it press releases, distributed review copies or broken street dates. The watermark technology which Denuvo unveiled is apparently already trusted by Hollywood, paid-TV and sports leagues. Quoting Denuvo's own blogpost about the technology:

It introduces a deterrent effect by enabling the precise tracing of leaked content back to its source. This capability makes potential leakers think twice, knowing that any unauthorized distribution can be directly linked to them.

This brand new technology will be platform-agnostic, meaning it can be implemented in different systems as long as the game has the technology integrated into it, and so far it seems to be compatible with Xbox, iOS, Windows and Nintendo Switch . It aims to "incorporate both invisible and visible watermarking techniques".

Currently there's no set date on when this new technology will begin to be rolled out, but it's most likely that game developers will start getting access to this implementation soon.

Source

 

[Scarlet]

I don't see this as a bad thing for pre release copies of games at least, though I do imagine reviewers generally know better. Not sure what this'll be able to do against physical leaks where there's a cartridge in the wild. Should be interesting to follow if nothing else.

 

[ILuvGames]

"and Nintendo Switch', Oh-oh.

 

[Ryab]

View attachment 426669​

Denuvo by Irdeto has unveiled at GDC (Game Developers Conference) this past March 18th their brand new anti-piracy technology named "TraceMark", specifically tailored to make "leakers think twice".

This new technology is aimed towards the never-ending problem in the gaming industry of pre-release videogame leaks, be it press releases, distributed review copies or broken street dates. The watermark technology which Denuvo unveiled is apparently already trusted by Hollywood, paid-TV and sports leagues. Quoting Denuvo's own blogpost about the technology:



This brand new technology will be platform-agnostic, meaning it can be implemented in different systems as long as the game has the technology integrated into it, and so far it seems to be compatible with Xbox, iOS, Windows and Nintendo Switch . It aims to "incorporate both invisible and visible watermarking techniques".

Currently there's no set date on when this new technology will begin to be rolled out, but it's most likely that game developers will start getting access to this implementation soon.

Source

Now if they use this when sending out review copies and such then I say it's a good thing. However I do not want to see this in my final builds of games.

 

[RAHelllord]

I'm curious how they plan to implement and then actually utilize it legally. If the leak happens by a company employee that has access to a review copy and I can see it being actually possible. However with private individuals the publishers would have to either require a traceable user account with their own service, or get the console manufacturer to spill the beans on the finger printed console / user.
This doesn't seem like an actually useful approach but I'm confident this sounds incredibly cool and useful to whatever idiot in a suit makes the call to buy and implement this.

 

[SylverReZ]

This doesn't seem like a good idea at all, like, look how flawed the anti-cheat for Apex Legends is amongst other games that use Easy Anti-Cheat.

 

[linuxares]

Hmm... this seriously violates the GDPR. Not sure how it's applicable in Europe.

 

[Fugelmir]

I'd like to give denuvo a goldenshowermark for all the wonderful work it has accomplished

 

[Bladexdsl]

nintendo needs this 100%

 

[JaNDeRPeiCH]

Big Fat Tracemark with a big drm to get triple slow performance for any legit game with denuvo


Ohh you pirated game congratulations have ten sluggish perfomance for ous you friend Denuvo /s

 

[Marc_LFD]

Watermark games? God, this just makes me hate Denuvo even more.

 

[eyeliner]

Hehehehe... Watermark. It serves as a deterrent, ya'll.

Beware of the boogiecaca

 

[NakedFaerie]

Itll be removed just like the rest of their work.
Itll be a complete waste of time and money and effort. Itll punish legit gamers and pirates will never even know about it.

 

[Kioku]

Cool, guess I'll just stick to retro gaming and DRM-free. This weird war on piracy is already causing issues for paid gamers. Dunno why they want to add to the stress. In "theory" it makes sense, and I'm not against combating leakers.. but knowing Denuvo, this will have more adverse effects than they'll care to acknowledge.

 

[eyeliner]

Itll be removed just like the rest of their work.
Itll be a complete waste of time and money and effort. Itll punish legit gamers and pirates will never even know about it.

Dude... How are they able to "watermark" the game? To prevent streamers?
Let me get my hands on a game! Let's see the watermark punish me by playing my game offline.

This is only to convince idiotas to part with their moneys, daddy!

 

[SAIYAN48]

Denuvo and Easy-anti cheat can go fuck themselves!

 

[SylverReZ]

Hehehehe... Watermark. It serves as a deterrent, ya'll.

Beware of the boogiecaca

The term 'watermark' sounds more like marketing jargon than a supposed feature. Same could be said for SecuROM, while not containing a watermark it consists of purposely corrupted sectors.

 

[Quore]

Denuvo strikes again

I just wanted to know like, how much money they're making because DAYUM they're really tryharding their job

 

[fuyukaidesu]

My guess is that they will steganographically encode a unique identifier in the pattern of the multiple checks in the games code (like how far away they're spaced in the binary, or what part of the system do they check for), and maybe even replace random instructions with equivalent others, again, in a pattern that encodes an identifier. Could also be hidden in how data is compressed and so on.

 

[SylverReZ]

Denuvo strikes again
View attachment 426685


I just wanted to know like, how much money they're making because DAYUM they're really tryharding their job

I wonder what happened to their Switch port of Denuvo. Did they ever add their protection in first-party titles, or was it something they falsely admitted to drive up attention?