How The New DRM Denuvo Might Be Damaging Your SSD

Asidcast says "the DRM might be causing hefty amounts of damage to your SSD(Even HDD) when you run a game with the said DRM."

[lelo2play]

We shouldn't trust everything we read on the internet, but, if this is true.... oh boy! My poor SSD.

I was going to purchase Dragon Age: Inquisition for PC in a few days, now I'll wait... or get later on the PS4 version (when it's much cheaper).

[SnakeCQC]

its true

[ATi_Elite]

1. Lords of the fallen has been CONFIRMED CRACKED! So there goes your fancy pants malware drm.

2. Awesome articles as it provides some great info yet AGAIN as to the damage DRM does to your Pc.

3. Drm is malware and I for one will not have malware on my precious SSD especially malware that will not only surpass the warranty but also lower life expectancy.

[anticlimax]

1. We shouldn't be happy about things being cracked. That my friend, is supporting piracy.

2. Damage Denuvo MIGHT do, the source is reddit. In the same reddit by the way, evidence is given that this is in fact bullshit.

Don't accept crappy journalism just because you want games for free. I haven't even noticed the DRM on Fifa, so if that keeps pirates at bay (pun intented), I'm totally fine with that.

[Razputin]

1. No its doesn't.

2. This DRM works exactly like that. You can test it out yourself. That is why people are complaining about performance issues.

3. DRM has never worked and has caused more issues to legit buyers than pirates. Know your facts.

Having 1300+ games on Steam alone and over 300 on disk for PC only I know what I am talking about. Tages, SecuRom, StarForce, all damaged many computers. Disk drives would get corrupted due to bad firmware. They wouldn't even read disks half the time.

Again DRM has never worked. I don't support nor care for piracy/piraters but this practice is harmful to the buying PC community.

[Volkama]

The way I see it publishers have every right to try and protect their products. It's just a shame that they have to.

If Denuvo or any other DRM cause problems then all the hate should be directed squarely at the pirates, as the publishers wouldn't have any need to try and fight back if the scumbags weren't so relentless in their efforts to steal.

[LightofDarkness]

@Volkama: no. If the publisher forces legitimate users to install this software onto their computers in order to use the product without advising the user explicitly prior to purchase that this software may harm their PC, then that publisher is in the wrong. If you're going to install malware onto someone's computer without their knowledge you are in breach of the law. It doesn't matter what the intention of the malware is: if someone installs this software without the user's explicit consent and it harms their hardware, particularly if it is known that it causes damage or that this someone should have known it causes damage, then that someone is liable for any damages incurred. If this turns out to be true, expect a full class action suit to follow.

[Volkama]

It sounds more dramatic when you call it malware, but that isn't really accurate. Malware serves a malicious purpose, it is designed to be harmful. DRM has a legitimate function.

Security always comes at the expense of convenience, and should always be designed to be as minimal as possible while being effective. But publishers have every right to secure their code, and it is an unfortunate reality that they will have to harm the user experience to achieve it. They obviously don't want to p*** off their customers with it, and they obviously don't want to be on the end of any lawsuit.

I'm not saying I'm glad to have DRM, I'm just saying that pirates should be the ones shouldering the blame for it. It is 100% a consequence of their actions.

[LightofDarkness]

It's calling a spade a spade. And this is not "at the expense of convenience," it's not merely inconvenient that your new game also happens to wear out your SSD long before its sell-by date because the publisher is paranoid about losing a tiny percentage of sales. Not to mention this measure will once again be broken in due course and once again it is only legitimate customers who lose out and pay the price. This is not the fault of pirates, and you know that. This is taking a sledgehammer to a nail and breaking the table. Who's at fault in that scenario: the table for breaking when it's hit too hard, the nail for being pointy or the crazy person who thought a sledgehammer would be the best tool for the job?

Time and time again it has been proven that piracy doesn't really affect the bottom line of publishers on PC any more than it does on other platforms. PC software sales are at an all-time high and will continue to soar. There is no need for publishers to go to this extreme to prevent something that is not really a problem, certainly not these days with Steam, GOG, Origin and Uplay all enjoying great success.

[Volkama]

I don't see encrypting and decrypting data as a sledgehammer, but I take your point. Stealing is wrong. Trying not to be stolen from is OK. Trying not to get stolen from but causing damage in the process is not OK.

Personally I still feel that it's the pirates that are the cause of the problem, even if publishers have taken some poor decisions in their attempts to counter it. Pirates deserve more hate from the legitimate paying community than publishers or DRM providers.

[donciclon]

@Volkama In all these debates, no one has ever been able to explain or justify why it is that legitimate buyers, like myself, have to be punished with bad performance and now with threats to our really expensive hardware. And don't give me that crap about developers having to protect their products, its going on 20 years now that its been shown, time and time again, that these DRM measures do absolutely nothing to deter pirates. I do not blame the pirates, they're not the ones writing the code that could potentially ruin my machine. Now EA and Bioware have put someone like me in the position where despite having the means and desire to buy their game (I've even bought games with no intentions of playing them, just to support developers), but won't because of even a slight risk of damaging my hardware. And then they blame pirates for loss of sale. They're doing way more damage than pirates have or ever could have done. So spare me the moral crap.

[Psychotica]

Source of the Lords of the Fallen crack? I can't seem to find any article that says that it has.

[Lon3wolf]

@Psychotica

It hasn't neither has Fifa 15.

[Lon3wolf]

Out of interest which group has cracked LoTF?

OT

So less than 10% more HDD activity with denuvo, is this an issue?

[TonyPT]

It is not a DRM solution! It's Anti-tamper code that protects DRM solutions!! It's be said just a few thousand times already...

Anyway, I'll do my own tests after I get one game with this code, Can't believe everything they say in the media now a days.

[Sevic]

DRM isn't just copy protection you know and doesn't actually have to incorporate such technology, it's a more broad term encompassing controlling the user's access to your content which includes things such as viewing or modifying it. And what is Denuvo's goal? As you indicated it is to prevent alteration of the content, specifically its executable code. So while it may not do any copy protection itself it still exists to control access to the content and is thus still a DRM solution.

[avatarair]

> Lords of the fallen has been CONFIRMED CRACKED!

Where?

[Psychotica]

I wonder if true how much problem this really is for standard HD's? I mean hard drives are being written and read to all the time by various applications and services running on your PC. Hell even the HD in my Tivo's are constantly being written to, 24/7, that's why it allows you to rewind live tv.

[Razputin]

PC read/write compared to TiVo is miniscule. You aren't writing HDTV programming on a hard drive 24/7.

And you aren't reading and writing on a PC constantly either. Most of the load stays on the RAM. Very minor things stay cached on the HDD/SSD.

It's why when you forcibly shut down a lot of things get lost and gives the warning with the exception of some very small files.

[Psychotica]

Actually you could be writing HDTV programming 24/7 if you left the Tivo on an HD channel.

[Roccetarius]

Wow, good thing i haven't played those games yet on my PC. This is pretty crazy numbers. It's just more proof of DRM doing more harm than good for consumers. Denuvo was made by the same creators of Securom as well.

[traumadisaster]

I can tell you as soon as legitimate articles start to prove the practice of damaging my property for a stupid game I WILL take action. I have 10 lifetimes of games and don't need to buy 1 more.

Of course I have that backlog cause I'm addicted, so if it's a game I must have, I guess I could buy a cheap drive just to know it will be a throwaway down the line...ridiculous what addicts will do

[TonyPT]

It is not a DRM solution, but rather, Denuvo Anti-tamper protects DRM solutions!! It's be said just a few thousand times already...

[DragonBall89]

Well, here are some facts about piracy:
- Tom Clancy's HAWX was pirated in a few days total sells 1.14 Million copies, for PC 0.04 M
- Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 took a lot longer and still sold just 0.88 M copies, for pc 0.05 M

on the other hand a gem like skyrim sold 17.5 M copies, for pc 3.55 M even though it was cracked practically by the next day.

about this article, i don't know what to say, in romania the game is available from today (21) and the reason i didn't bought it is cuz on all the other platforms the deluxe version is available except for pc so i wanted to buy it from bioware's website and while writing in google DA:I i somehow find this article and some similar ones.
You can call me paranoid or whatnot but until bioware makes an official statement that this thingy is 100% safe i will not buy this product and if the game will be cracked i will play it that way.
I bought watch dogs on day one and couldn't play it normally for 2 or 3 days due to server problems or whatever and the guys from the torrent page i usually use were angry about fps drops while driving, heck i couldn't even get there even though i bought the game. Even though uplay bothers me especially when a game is just released i don't really mind it, let them protect their game, i usually don't even notice it's running so it's kind of OK as long as it doesn't harm my computer.
So, i really want to support the developers with buying the deluxe version, and i will, but not before they prove this rumor wrong by an official statement, if they won't then it's obvious that it could harm your system.
yeah, and almost forgot about this one:
Witcher II assassins of kings sold copies pc 0.86 M - xbox 360 0.76 M
Who will pirate will pirate either way said so the developers of Witcher II. So then why washing up the floor with the customers while those who pirate have it easy, true enough, no multiplayer but still no drm no harm no headache. To be perfectly honest i expect nothing less from EA who made more than 20 expansions for sims 3.