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Has PC games cracking finally been stopped ?

Serge85 said:
In Colombia, minimum wage is around 230 USD a month, many games on steam have regional pricing( MGSV launched at 33 USD), but others do not (for example, Fallout 4 costs about 77 USD on steam), and no regional pricing on windows 10 store.

Legally imported PS4,Wii U games cost about 80 USD.
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The W10 store should have regional pricing. Ironically, I know this because I remember lots of ppl on neogaf exploited a region loophole to get RotTR for ~$10 USD.
 
I doubt that DRM had anything to do with it.

Steam has been a competitive model to the pc game cracking world. Why illegally obtain Witcher 3 when it may not work perfectly because of DRM issues, until even further work is put into it (I have no idea if Witcher 3 has DRM I'm just using that as an example), with potentially no online connectivity, when you can buy it for 75% off on Steam.

Even if the game doesn't get a sale any time soon, all the games you bought on Steam already are in your backlog, so you have less motivation to go and find something to play.
 
Real_Madrid said:
If preservation is really a thing a lot of you on here are so concerned about and thus not buying games that maybe(!) won't work in 30 years, than you should never buy a game on a digital store like Steam and only buy on GOG and keep offline copies.
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Steam client DRM is so weak that you can bypass it without even touching the game itself by simply replacing steam dlls.

You can even do this to add more value to games that use Steamworks for multiplayer and play most of them on LAN with something like SmartSteamEmu.
 
Thrashinuva said:
I doubt that DRM had anything to do with it.

Steam has been a competitive model to the pc game cracking world. Why illegally obtain Witcher 3 when it may not work perfectly because of DRM issues, until even further work is put into it (I have no idea if Witcher 3 has DRM I'm just using that as an example), with potentially no online connectivity, when you can buy it for 75% off on Steam.

Even if the game doesn't get a sale any time soon, all the games you bought on Steam already are in your backlog, so you have less motivation to go and find something to play.
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Witcher 3 does not use any kind of DRM.
CDPR even put thank you cards into the physical PC versions.
 
Its 2016 and there are some great deals to be had on steam and whatnot. Even cdkeys gets some games below retail. Really is no reason for cracking games anymore.
 
nkarafo said:
Not weird at all. That's how i started PC gaming as a teen. Almost every friend i know started this way as kids (on home computers mostly). And now as adults we spend more money than we should because we were used to play a lot of games so now we buy a lot of stuff.
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I did the same thing but there was no humble, bundlestars, key selling sites, oh and Steam back then. Someone starting PC gaming now has a plethora of great and cheap games for them to play through.
 
wazoo said:
cracking is not piracy, you are missing this obvious fact. Everything GOG is doing is under editor approval, another fact.
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Doesn't matter, they use cracks that were distributed without approval in the first place. They literally wouldn't exist otherwise, and the games wouldn't be available on GOG.
 
hobblygobbly said:
Denuvo is the only thing that has delayed it, but games using it have been cracked just not as quickly as other games.

In any case, if you look at things like Steamspy with games that use Denuvo there really isn't any substantial difference in sales than other AAA games, I don't think the first week or two of sales that Denuvo manages to obtain is that beneficial. We don't know how much Denuvo costs the companies (and even if it's royalty based?), maybe it's worth it enough for them.

At least now companies that use it can't blame piracy for sales if their games do badly.
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I think it's a bit early for anyone to claim victory or infer much from the numbers . The really question will be how it impacts long term buying practices. I suspect it will increase purchases and reduce costs for pubs but really couldn't say.
 
horkrux said:
I don't think we have any data and even if we would, I never expected a noticable increase in sales across the board, because that would be pretty much impossible anyways. So many factors are at play here and even comparing Tomb Raider to its latest entry wouldn't yield any results regarding the impact of piracy.
It's just satisfying to know that the factor 'piracy' has been eliminated from these games in general and that their publishers won't be able to blame everyone of us for the actions of a few. And considering how many terrible DRM methods we've had to endure the past years, Denuvo sure seems like a godsend.

I know, it is a short-sighted opinion.
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That's one good point, that the publishers won't, at least not convincingly, blame piracy. But I don't want to trade even more of my ownership of my games for that, when I was already convinced about this outcome.

And I feel no satisfaction in that pirates can't play a game, because I simply don't care about what they do or don't. It's not my problem.

And we do have data, we have Steamspy. It's about estimates, but we can see that games without Denuvo didn't just magically sell better. Even if you say that you didn't expect a massive increase in sales, it's valuable to look at for the discussion.

And if we compare two currently PC exclusive strategy titles, and see that XCOM2 without Denuvo have so far sold better then Total War: Warhammer that have Denuvo.

XCOM2 have of course been out several months more then Total War: Warhammer, but it sold the majority of it's games during the first month. Even if Warhammer ends up surpassing XCOM2, it doesn't look at all that it will be able to do so with an amount that makes the useage of Denuvo.useful for that purpose.

That leaves the anti tamper measures in Denuvo, and how it battles cheating. Which is something I know very little of, and doesn't really impact me either, since I have never played the Total War games online, despite owning three of them + expansions on Steam.
 
Dennis said:
If true, has sales of PC games increased noticeably?

It should, since developers have been whining about piracy all my life.
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Actual sales trends rarely seem to factor into these discussions too heavily. There's been plenty of evidence about this topic over the years -- including the comparisons someone could make today between games with a DRM-free release and those without -- but somehow there's still this push to lock down games, generally for fairly dubious benefit.

Turin Turambar said:
I would say the data is inconclusive as the sample isn't big enough and the data is orientative
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This data is beyond useless for this purpose. You're comparing sales that are equal modulo margin of error and drawing conclusions on which one came out marginally, semi-randomly higher. That's putting aside all the problems with trying to accomplish this analysis with nothing but individual two-game comparisons like this.

samn said:
Most games have no creative, artistic or historic value, so not really seeing the big deal here.
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Why are you even here? I have trouble understanding how someone could believe this and actually be a game hobbyist.

zaldrizes said:
So piracy is good now to preserve videogames?
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Piracy has always been the most important de facto source for game preservation in an industry that doesn't care about its own older work, you'd have to be pretty ignorant of gaming history not to realize that.
 
charlequin said:
Why are you even here? I have trouble understanding how someone could believe this and actually be a game hobbyist.
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I disagree with this notion (value is intrinsic whether you believe it or not), but this kind of attitude is quite prevalent really. It is like comparing gaming to smoking. It is something they would love to continue to do yet it does not provide them any artistic merit.
 
hobblygobbly said:
Denuvo is the only thing that has delayed it, but games using it have been cracked just not as quickly as other games.

In any case, if you look at things like Steamspy with games that use Denuvo there really isn't any substantial difference in sales than other AAA games, I don't think the first week or two of sales that Denuvo manages to obtain is that beneficial. We don't know how much Denuvo costs the companies (and even if it's royalty based?), maybe it's worth it enough for them.

At least now companies that use it can't blame piracy for sales if their games do badly.
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500k+ unit game is $100k. 500k to 100k is $50k. Less than 100k is $10k or $2500 + 15 cents per unit.
 
charlequin said:
Why are you even here? I have trouble understanding how someone could believe this and actually be a game hobbyist.
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Firstly because games are alright to pass the time

secondly because a few of them are actually amazing and they end up being ported or re-released or un-DRMed anyway
 
I kinda feel like straight up comparing denuvo to other games is really just not a fair evaluation, because sales between different games are often very different to begin with. You'd have to have a deeper analysis than what people are doing to make a claim that it isn't helping sales.
 
There are so many great F2P games out now a lot of people just play those instead of pirating shit. Many pirates I knew play LoL, World of Tanks, etc. They were unlikely to buy much outside of CoD and the lie any ways.
 
Mobius and pet octopus said:
I kinda feel like straight up comparing denuvo to other games is really just not a fair evaluation, because sales between different games are often very different to begin with. You'd have to have a deeper analysis than what people are doing to make a claim that it isn't helping sales.
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Well, based on Steamspy we can see that none of the games with Denuvo have sold a suprising amount of copies. They seem to have sold well, all of them, but there isn't much sign of the mythical rise in sales that have been spoken about before.

But the real answer will of course be provided over a longer period of time.

Which unfortunately means that Denuvo isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
 
Short term it seems like great news. Long term it's kinda scary though..

I honestly never worry about game services going down cause I know somehow I'll be able to get my games.. this though makes me rethink that.
 
samn said:
Firstly because games are alright to pass the time

secondly because a few of them are actually amazing and they end up being ported or re-released or un-DRMed anyway
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Yeah, that's never a certainty. Panzer Dragoon Saga for example was a cult classic that's still praised today but it can't receive any official rerelease because Sega lost the source code. Piracy is the only safety net for preserving titles when developers or publishers don't do their part.

Edit: And that's not even taking into account that what has "artistic value" varies wildly from person to person. I don't think anything should off the table for preservation.
 
For now, the "sales increase" of Denuvo seems to be within margin of error, which means statistically null.

I fully expect publishers to make the argument that pirates would buy their games at full price if there were NO pirated games at all.
Without managing to acknowledge the existance of F2P games
 
Yes, it has mostly been stopped. Looking forward to quadrupled games sales now that the "stealing" has stopped, according to the projections of losses that the gaming industry sometimes entertain us with. Meanwhile, kids not being able to afford real games is an unfortunate side effect, but I am sure they will abandon free to play shit and return as paying customers when they are able to afford games at the age 21.
 
AlanOC91 said:
Agreed. The only people I knew who ever pirated were my friends when we were all like 13/14 and had no money for anything. The majority of new games wouldn't work on the crappy computers we all had back then anyway.

Different these days where we are all grown up with disposable income.
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Pretty much my situation, as well... although, even back then, I bought most of the games I played. Now? I'll throw money at whatever games I want and not particularly care. But if a developer wants to bullshit me and put DRM like this on there, I'm not buying it solely because of that.

And whoever said that this'll be a bad thing in 20-30 years -- dunno if I'd say that. It'll more likely be a bad thing in 5-10 years, tops. I look at games like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory or Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, and the DRM schemes rendered the retail versions inoperable within only a few years. It's been known to happen pretty quickly. Now, assume that there's not a crack for it, and yeah... not a good thing.
 
wazoo said:
so you will end up paying 240 out of 5000 RM of average salary. It seems to me that the price is fair comparing to 60E to whatever is the average Euro monthly salary.
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That's 5% of their monthly income for one game. If an American person making $60,000 per year had to pay that, their games would cost $240. Which is waaaay too much.
 
Aureon said:
For now, the "sales increase" of Denuvo seems to be within margin of error, which means statistically null.

I fully expect publishers to make the argument that pirates would buy their games at full price if there were NO pirated games at all.
Without managing to acknowledge the existance of F2P games
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And why do you think that?
 
d00d3n said:
Yes, it has mostly been stopped. Looking forward to quadrupled games sales now that the "stealing" has stopped, according to the projections of losses that the gaming industry sometimes entertain us with. Meanwhile, kids not being able to afford real games is an unfortunate side effect, but I am sure they will abandon free to play shit and return as paying customers when they are able to afford games at the age 21.
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Yeah, kids nowadays cannot play real games. :(
 
Hollow victory. All this proved was that piracy != massive lost sales.

Personally I believe Steam has done a lot more to curb piracy than Denuvo ever will.
 
Chezzymann said:
That's 5% of their monthly income for one game. If an American person making $60,000 per year had to pay that, their games would cost $240. Which is waaaay too much.
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Malaysia is one of the wealthier third world countries. Also, you're taking average salary. In some of those countries it's the minimum salary that's an injustice and is literally impossible to live on.
 
Daredevil.shark said:
I understand preservation. But who will want to play that game thirty years later? Plus not everything has to survive and not everything will survive. My collected physical games might rot in a garage. Digital games might be lost. Having fun with games at present should be gamers main priority.
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Well... look at the market for Super Nintendo games today. There is a hell of a lot of demand for old games.
 
Short term it might or might not be helpful for devs we have no real data just yet.

Long term it's bad for anyone that cares about this hobby. Imagine not being able to play DOOM in 30 years.
 
denuvo is certainly responsible, none of the debuggers like ollydbg have a working 64bit version so the cracks are a long time away imo, these cracks are important for preservation for sure but i just think this is a temporary lull, most will be cracked in the end

mod friendly games just won't ever use it though imo, bethedsa just used it on doom but imagine if skyrim special edition comes out with it, there'd be shitstorm but i don't think that'd ever happen
 
wazoo said:
Cracking a game is not illegal. Distributing the crack without he editor approbation, whereas the game is still on sale is illegal.

Piracy has never been equal to cracking a game. It is consequence.
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It actually is illegal to crack a game. DMCA Section 1201a1 (IIRC) is the provision that states that circumvention of a technological measure designed to prevent access to a work is illegal. IE: cracking.
 
v1perz53 said:
I used to think the whole "piracy and cracking is essential for preserving games" argument was ridiculous and a silly justification, but lately I've become more and more worried about how things will turn out. I've had a ton of fun recently playing the DRM free versions of awesome old PC games from GOG like RollerCoasterTycoon and POD, and I definitely don't want a future where I can't play my favorite games 20 years from now because a DRM company doesn't exist anymore and my game can't authenticate with some random servers. But I guess there isn't much you can do about it, and there aren't many PC exclusives these days so I guess there are always physical copies on consoles for future-proofing...

To be clear, I definitely think piracy and cracking is wrong, but I also worry for the future now that it seems to have been solidly combatted.
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My god. You'll guys be fine. I'm sure in 20 years there will be ways to play the games again... it's not like all the sudden Mirrors Edge is going to be some long lost gem we only hear about in myths.

Piracy dying is great, people have to stop acting like it's some unjust thing. All it does is make the PC a much more attractive platform to release games on, instead of feeling like you are just releasing your game into the wild west to who the fuck knows who.

Tagyhag said:
Short term it might or might not be helpful for devs we have no real data just yet.

Long term it's bad for anyone that cares about this hobby. Imagine not being able to play DOOM in 30 years.
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Omg, I thought about that. And started crying! Imagine that!!!

Are you guys serious...
 
Chezzymann said:
That's 5% of their monthly income for one game. If an American person making $60,000 per year had to pay that, their games would cost $240. Which is waaaay too much.
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There's even worse out there. In some eastern/SE EU countries a full priced game can cost as much as 10-12% of the average salary. Which in turn would translate to roughly 500$ per game in the US. A lot of people have no idea about the relative buying power and cost of living outside of their backyard.
 
sammyCYBORG said:
Of course it is. Dozens of the best games of all time I've only been able to play via piracy as nobody sells them anymore.
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Literally DOZENS!

Because they were old shit games not released digitally? And have been lost to time? We are in a technological digital age now, it's not equivalent at all. Whatever, you guys all have your minds set on, "Piracy is good for all! It saves children!". If it's not "preserving the legacy" it's going to be some other nonsense.
 
It's absolutely true that cracking games is often a pivotal factor in game preservation, but the games coming out now that haven't yet been cracked will be readily available legally for many years going forward, and there's no "plus" to getting them cracked right now other than piracy.
 
Micael said:
For the people that say that if you have a pc you should also have money for games, that is such a privileged position, I live in a first world country and when I was a young child, I certainly didn't have money to throw around in games, I had a console, and an old ass computer (bought second hand).
I could maybe buy a couple of discounted games per year, and even that was a sacrifice for my parents, and there are certainly a ton of people in far worse situations, whose only means to enjoy gaming is piracy, people that have computers or consoles because someone offered it to them, but they don't have any actual means of buying them, or people that just simply don't have access to the same services we in developed countries enjoy.

But even if we discount this, the way I see it games have a cultural value, the bigger the amount of barriers there are between their access and people the poorer we are as a society, and as pieces of culture some can certainly lose value as they get older (and as such become more accessible).
How many developers can honestly say that they aren't better developers because they had access to a wide range and quantity of games, even not so long ago the tools required for developers to do their jobs (and to learn) were crazy expensive, now obviously things are far better these days, but lets not pretend that there is still not a wealth of gaming media that is all around pretty expensive for people with less financial means.



Would it be that bad for people that don't have money to buy games to play them? Because in that specific case one could argue that no one is getting hurt, no value is being lost, but value is in fact being added, by having 1 more person that has played the game and can talk about it.
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Ugh, that attitude is gross
 
Considering progress on the Doom crack is being posted daily I'm pretty sure all of this will eventually be cracked.
 
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