piracy
Does Assassin’s Creed: Origins Mark The End Of Piracy?
This year had seen a drastic increase in piracy with every major game being cracked within days, if not hours. However, there’s one game that has been deviously elusive – Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Protected by the latest version of Denuvo and then with VMProtect on top of it, Assassin’s Creed: Origins has turned out to be a tough game to crack. Ever since then, every other major release has remained uncracked. This same version of Denuvo is also being used to protect Sonic Forces, Injustice 2, Football Manager 2018, Need For Speed Payback and Star Wars Battlefront 2. As of writing this article, none of these games have been cracked. After the beating they took earlier this year, it seems like Denuvo has finally stepped up their game. Does this mark the end of pirac...
Piracy Doubles Even After Multiple Sites Get Blocked
With many organizations clamping down on torrent and pirating websites, one would expect to see a decline in piracy. However, it seems like new websites keep cropping up, while people keep finding workarounds for any obstacles thrown their way. In fact, in Russia where thousands of websites were blocked for illegally distributing software via torrents ans such, the ‘market’ for piracy has doubled. Ad revenue generated by these websites have also gone up, some earning over a million/year. This brings into question the effectiveness of blocking these sites in the first place. Maybe it’s a Russia specific issues, since UK and US have seen piracy go down with legislation and site blocking. However, even here in India, piracy is still an issue. One thing that is promising is t...
Do Pirates Actually Love Denuvo?
Denuvo became the most hated anti-piracy tool soon after its release, but it’s not hard to see its downfall. With games getting cracked left and right (um, Wolfenstein II got cracked BEFORE it even released), we have to wonder: deep down, do pirates actually love Denuvo? Let’s face it, piracy has been a huge thing ever since the beginning. Whether it was copying a cassette-based game using a recorder, or finding a workaround for Hyper Loaders, pirates have always welcomed these challenges with enthusiasm. Subverting these mechanisms became an achievement in itself, along with the thrill that came with it. So much so, that someone dumped the 1983 International Soccer for the Commodore 64 (that originally came on a cartridge) onto a cassette tape, along with a modification that h...
Why Is There Such Rampant Piracy Among Gamers In India?
The Video Game Culture has grown significantly in India over the past couple of decades. In fact, India houses thousands of gamers among its diverse population. Strangely, even after housing such a large number of gamers, it isn’t a significant market for game developers and hence, they do not focus on the needs and requirements of the Indian market. The reason, you ask? ‘Piracy’. If you’re a gamer in India, you’ll know that this place is a hotbed for piracy. I’m pretty sure that most of us started our gaming lives with Piracy as a base. Even I pirate games seldom in the present day. But is lack of money or resources the main reason why there is such a rampant in piracy? I believe not. The main reason is our mentality and attitude towards the gaming industry. Needless to ...
Top 5 Dumb Reasons Gamers Give For Piracy In India
We’ve all indulged in piracy at some point in our lives, even me. And we’ve always had some dumb reason to justify it. It’s either having no money to buy games, or pretending to take a stand against greedy publishers by pirating their games. No matter what the logic, here are some of the dumb reasons gamers give for piracy in India. No Money You know what, India may not be the richest country. But we still manage to have money for movies, eating out, building a powerful PC, upgrading to the latest smartphone annually, and buying consoles. We only run out of money when it comes to actually buying games. Weird!? Slow Internet Wait, how is that even a reas- Oh, so you’re buying bootleg CDs from Palika? Couldn’t you instead buy legit physical copies from a store? ...
Study Held From Public For Two Years Reveals No Relation Between Piracy & Video Game Sales
Back in 2013, a research study was initiated to assess the relation between piracy and sales of digital software including, video games, movies and so on. The research was entrusted to the company Ecorys Nederland BV in 2013, the report was finished by May 2015, but the EU Commission never made it available to the public. The study had concluded that there’s no significant co-relation between piracy and sales. A German politician, Julia Reda, had access to the report and the German site netzpolitik.org has published it. You can read the full report here, and we have quoted a brief summary below: In 2014, on average 51 per cent of the adults and 72 per cent of the minors in the EU have illegally downloaded or streamed any form of creative content, with higher piracy rates in Poland an...
“We Don’t Believe in DRM” – Shadow Warrior 2 Developer
According to Kotaku, the devs behind Shadow Warrior 2 believe that anti-piracy technology will actually end up making their game worse. When asked about the new game’s lack of anti-piracy measures, this is what they wrote: “We don’t believe in DRM, and we don’t like DRM.” “We don’t believe it works.Nor that it’s good for the players,” said Artur Maskara and Tadeusz Zielinski, both of whom manage PR for the game’s studio, Flying Wild Hog. Recently, their colleague Krzysztof “KriS” Narkowicz had stated that the studio chose not to go for Denuvo, because it would make their game worse for the players. This is what Kris said when a game asked about the game’s protective measures against piracy on launch, “We don’t support piracy, but currently th...
The Witness Being Pirated Heavily On PC
Jonathan Blow’s latest game, The Witness, has been out for a few days now, and is being showered with praises and glowing reviews. However, none of that seems to stop thousands of PC users from pirating the game instead of paying for what seems to be a worthy purchase. Blow tweeted today that “It seems The Witness is the #1 game on a certain popular torrent site. Unfortunately this will not help us afford to make another game!” The independent developer then continued to lament the potential impact of his game being stolen: “I’m glad that a lot more people will be experiencing the game! But I also want to be able to make another comparable game next! Just sayin’.” For Blow’s hit game Braid, which some would argue was a catalyst for the indie ...
Pirates Giving Up Against Tough Security Measures In Games?
Popular torrent site, TorrentFreak, recently translated comments by the founder of infamous Chinese forum 3DM who goes by the name of ‘Bird Sister’, who said that they are apparently still struggling to break the Denuvo security used for recent release Just Cause 3. As the site explains, the length of time it tacks groups to ‘crack’ a new game has been steadily increasing, and instances of pirated versions of games being available to download before they’re officially released is now increasingly rare. An earlier version of Denuvo meant it was a month before 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was cracked and it’s kept FIFA 16 safe for coming on four months now. “Recently, many people have asked about cracks for Just Cause 3, so here is a centralized answer to this question. The las...