Denuvo TraceMark - Coded Anti-Piracy watermark system targeting game leakers

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Denuvo has announced a new Anti-Piracy tool called TraceMark that is starting to target anyone who dares to leak prerelease builds of games on the internet before they are even released, meaning that the Hollywood CAP Code system used to identify prints of movies is now going to take place on all major game publishers moving forward this decade.

 

This will now reduce the leaks of major games coming out this decade, meaning Warez groups are going to have a hard time trying to stay relevant while trying to remove the watermark system from prerelease builds.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this new watermark system would also be applied to pre-made 3D assets and stock photos/textures to identify the companies that made them, and for physical retail and digital-only games that get released to track down which retailer or digital distribution platform sold that copy of said game so that major game publishers can easily take that copy down. If this technology is applied to pre-made 3D assets and textures, then asset flips will be history once it becomes standard to all major game publishers adopt the technology for quality control for their assets.

 

I know every PC player despises Denuvo DRM solutions for Performance issues, but now their targeting leakers with watermarks to track them down.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

27 minutes ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Denuvo

What someone needs to do is call in a bomb threat to their headquarters. Then, after everyone is evacuated, bomb their headquarters. The building will only collapse at 15fps with all the Denuvo and everything in it, so nobody in the surrounding area should get hurt.

[Li'l devil]

I support this. Piracy and leaking pre-release builds costs publishers a lot of money, and as we all know, major publishers like Ubisoft and EA are already doing very poorly and can't afford to lose any money to piracy!

[mrthejoshmon]

5 minutes ago, Li'l devil said:

I support this. Piracy and leaking pre-release builds costs publishers a lot of money, and as we all know, major publishers like Ubisoft and EA are already doing very poorly and can't afford to lose any money to piracy!

Personally I always found shrimp to be the better option when fishing in saltwater.

[dasho]

Man if only people voted with their wallets and never bought anything integrating DRM practices they don't support.

[maxmanium]

I'm sure people will find a way around it.

[Novaseer]

i give it 4 days until someone conveniently forgets to include the watermark system in a build of their game

[Kroc]

Totally won't be used against whistleblowers leaking industry abuses, no sireee.

[OpenRift]

2 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

What someone needs to do is call in a bomb threat to their headquarters. Then, after everyone is evacuated, bomb their headquarters. The building will only collapse at 15fps with all the Denuvo and everything in it, so nobody in the surrounding area should get hurt.

This sounds way more based than I think you meant it to lmao

[PsychEyeball]

No protection system is foolproof. I give this new DRM less than a month before it gets cracked.

 

Maybe one day publishers will realize that the money they waste on DRM schemes would be better used on you know, making sure the developers finish the game and release it in a good shape.

[roadworx]

4 hours ago, dasho said:

Man if only people voted with their wallets and never bought anything integrating DRM practices they don't support.

"voting with your wallet" doesn't work when the millions of people who buy these games aren't educated about these things, or just don't care and will buy it anyways.

[Wo0p]

4 minutes ago, roadworx said:

"voting with your wallet" doesn't work when the millions of people who buy these games aren't educated about these things, or just don't care and will buy it anyways.

 

That's why his remark was wishful thinking. "If only-..." 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think @dasho was trying to convince anyone in here.

[Roebloz]

I honestly don't think that this will do much in practice. While it will make leakers easier to identify, it won't remove the games from the internet. (And of course, if the leakers are from say, China or Russia or something, this will literally do nothing since there won't be any enforcement possible)

3 hours ago, Novaseer said:

i give it 4 days until someone conveniently forgets to include the watermark system in a build of their game

Bethesda?

[dasho]

19 minutes ago, Wo0p said:

 

That's why his remark was wishful thinking. "If only-..." 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think @dasho was trying to convince anyone in here.

No, you're right, although it's less wishful and more knowing that the number of people complaining about Denuvo pales in comparison to those who couldn't care less

[roadworx]

i was mistaken then. apologies :p

[dasho]

3 minutes ago, roadworx said:

i was mistaken then. apologies :p

 

Nah, it's fine, I was giving a cynical take anyway. I just feel like the "consumer rights vs. consumer convenience" fight was lost a long time ago. (This also extends to stuff like always-online requirements, etc)

Edited March 21 by dasho

[inkoalawetrust]

There's two ways this'll go. Either it'll be cracked in like a month and lead to a method to scrub off these watermarks. Or it'll make it basically impossible to use any type of media anymore. Looking forward to all the random innocent people getting flagged by this stupid thing as leakers when they buy a release version of some movie or game though !

[Wadmodder Shalton]

6 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

Looking forward to all the random innocent people getting flagged by this stupid thing as leakers when they buy a release version of some movie or game though !

That's what the Movie industry has been doing for the last couple of decades, using watermarks to track down prints of a film that was recorded with a camcorder to identify what theater that pirated copy was made. As seen in this example:

Now it seems that the gaming industry will follow suit this decade thanks to Denuvo's new TraceMark technology to prevent leaks from happening with major game publishers.

[Daytime Waitress]

Quote

For additional security measures, Irdeto confirmed that TraceMark could be combined with Denuvo's Anti-temper product, allowing studios "to control distribution" of content ahead of its release date.

 

"anti-temper" lol

 

While this development seems to be targeting co-parasitic entities like the press and influencers before a product hits the shelves, I have the utmost faith in Denuvo's capability to somehow fuck over the regular consumers who still purchase products that carry their bloated garbagewater.

 

[Mr. Freeze]

Good thing I don't play any of these AAA games so y'all can suffer in my place lmao 

[Kinsie]

14 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

I wouldn't be surprised if this new watermark system would also be applied to pre-made 3D assets and stock photos/textures to identify the companies that made them, and for physical retail and digital-only games that get released to track down which retailer or digital distribution platform sold that copy of said game so that major game publishers can easily take that copy down. If this technology is applied to pre-made 3D assets and textures, then asset flips will be history once it becomes standard to all major game publishers adopt the technology for quality control for their assets.

Dogg, asset flips use commercially-produced assets sold on the open market. They're supposed to be used by other developers.

 

14 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

I know every PC player despises Denuvo DRM solutions for Performance issues, but now their targeting leakers with watermarks to track them down.

They've been doing this for literal decades, my man. From simple text strings in Magic Carpet 1 through to elaborate steganography patterns subtly overlaid over the screen in private beta builds of World of Warcraft through to just overlaying the player's username over the screen in constantly changing places in the Skate 4 internal builds. And even a few more creative ways, like private betas of the Xbox 360 dashboard overhaul...

 

 

  Basically, this is an extremely common practice already, and some middleware to automate the process isn't going to make it any less common.

[mrthejoshmon]

Shoutout to my boy, common colour printers, printing basically invisible watermarks known as MIC.

 

Shit's everywhere son.

[Aaron Blain]

All the more reason to ignore corporate "Game-Style Entertainment Product" and play community games instead.