Game developers have been trying to figure out how to paddle their way through pirate-infested waters for decades. DRM, “glitches” designed to thwart pirates, and more DRM have done little to stem the tide. Seeing this, a handful of developers took less combative approaches, putting their games on sites like the…
On torrent site The Pirate Bay, typically the domain of illegal rips of media, one username among dozens uploading the horror game Darkwood stands out: the game’s publisher. Today, the Poland-based Acid Wizard Studio uploaded their own game for free with “no catch, no added pirate hats for characters,” their torrent…
Manga pirates have operated in the internet’s shadows for decades, hiding from furious publishers whose translation efforts, pirates say, are shoddy, too slow or nonexistent. Now, as more pirates realize the potential value of their translation skills, they’re poking their heads out from the underground and asking for…
Anti-piracy protection software Denuvo is getting cracked faster and faster on more games, with certain games made free by hackers in as short as a week. Denuvo says that the protection is meant to protect games during “the initial sales window” but is that even the case anymore?
A week after release, much of the discussion surrounding Rime isn’t about the ruins or the mystery, but rather piracy. Players claim anti-piracy software slows the game down. Pirates say the newly cracked version of the game fixes that problem. Rime’s producers seem unsure if DRM caused performance hits, but Denuvo…
Rime, the indie game caught halfway between Ico and Journey was released last week. With Denuvo DRM. Like a lot of games. But that made some players angry, and prompted the developer, Tequila Works, to state that once the Denuvo DRM is broken, which it eventually always is, the company will release a DRM-free version…
Spacewar is a game that draws thousands of players every day. If you search for it on the Steam store, though, you’ll never find it.
With Legend of Zelda Amiibo figures perpetually sold out and fetching prohibitively high prices on eBay, many fans are turning to bootlegged “Amiibo cards” instead. Many sellers of these cards see themselves not as mere pirates, but as modern-day Robin Hoods, providing fans with the in-game content that Nintendo won’t…
Many fans were happy to hear about Kaldaien’s “FAR mod,” a patch that fixes Nier: Automata’s technical issues on PC. Some people who downloaded the mod were surprised to find that it checks whether or not you’ve pirated the game, and the modder’s decision to include such a feature has proven controversial.
In 2013, voxel exploration game Cube World blew up, amassing millions of views on YouTube and video game sites. Despite the hype, Cube World’s creators became infamous for going radio silent, while the paid alpha for the game hasn’t updated since July 2013. Many fans have probably asked themselves, “What happened to …
In 2008, I brought my laptop over to my friend Amanda’s house to pirate Spore. Her boyfriend Nate, who worked at the local GameStop, told me to. It’s the shit, he said, and everyone’s downloading it for free. I connected my laptop to her internet and opened Limewire, 2008’s file-sharing software du jour. It was my…
The Pirate Bay is about to turn 13, and in honour of the site becoming a teenager, folks like Torrentfreak are checking out the oldest content that has been continuously available since its launch back in 2003.
For the last week, the Zelda fandom has become a minefield of spoilers, as various Breath of the Wild related images, screenshots, and videos have leaked ahead of the official release. It’s only gotten worse today. (Some spoilers ahead.)
In the never-ending battle between pirates and DRM makers, there are no easy victories. Or at least, that was the case with notorious anti-tamper tech Denuvo until, well, yesterday.
Pirates say they’ve already cracked Resident Evil 7's PC version and have found a way to disable the game’s anti-piracy measures less than a week after release.
Freeshop is homebrew software touted as a tool used to download 3DS games that you already own. Most people, however, know Freeshop as a thing you can use to download entire 3DS games, free of charge (hence the name). Today, Freeshop’s main distribution source was hit with a DMCA notice.
Denuvo, once the iron-clad terror of pirates everywhere, was recently removed from two high-profile games, Doom and Inside. Why? After more than a week of speculation, Denuvo’s decided to clarify things.
A couple weeks ago, Playdead removed Denuvo’s anti-piracy tech from the Steam version of Inside. They did so in typical Playdead fashion, which is to say without using words to explain any of it. Now id Software’s done the same with Doom. Sadly, they didn’t make the announcement with heavy metal.
Nowadays, most talk of DRM revolves around titles that add the “anti-tamper” tech known as Denuvo, thus preventing piracy of those games. That’s what makes the latest update to side-scrolling puzzle game Inside so unusual: the developers have chosen to do away with Denuvo.
Given the amount of information that’s floating around, seemingly the entire internet downloaded Pokémon Sun and Moon before release. Well, it seems that the ban hammer is finally coming down on those pirates.
