Breakdown
- Denuvo's developer, Irdeto, unveils Tracemark to combat game leaks.
- Tracemark uses watermarks to track leaked materials.
- Tracemark's success might lead to more Denuvo usage, a concern for gamers.
Irdeto, the company known for its anti-piracy software, DRM, is making headlines again. This time, it's not about preventing piracy, but stopping leaks with their new technology: TraceMark for Games.
Denuvo DRM has been a thorn in the side of many gamers due to its performance hits and potential for breaking mods.
Tracemark, however, sounds less intrusive. It works by embedding watermarks, visible or invisible, into game data during development. These watermarks are supposedly traceable even after manipulations like cropping or compression.
Irdeto naturally recommends using Denuvo alongside Tracemark for a "one-click solution" against leaks. This is where things get dicey for gamers who dislike Denuvo. Widespread adoption of Tracemark likely means more Denuvo as well.
For game leakers, life is about to get tougher. Hidden watermarks will force them back to the dark ages of leak dissemination: blurry, grainy photos like those of Bigfoot sightings. It'll be a game of cat and mouse, with developers hiding watermarks and leakers resorting to increasingly obscure methods to avoid detection.
While some may scoff at developer efforts to control leaks, there's merit to their concerns. Major leaks can spoil surprises and disrupt marketing plans. Tracemark itself isn't inherently bad, but its potential ties to Denuvo raise concerns for PC gamers. We might have to say goodbye to early surprises such as the latest Valorant agent leak.
It's too early to say if TraceMark will completely shut down leaks. Determined leakers might find workarounds, like focusing on leaks closer to release or exploiting vulnerabilities in the watermarking system itself. However, TraceMark undeniably raises the bar for leakers, making it a more complex and risky endeavour.
In the end, this battle between developers and leakers could have unintended consequences. Gamers might have to choose between experiencing leaks or enduring the potential downsides of Denuvo.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is Denuvo's latest victim as you can get banned for trying to start a new game and get your copy completely bricked. That's not to mention all the optimization issues caused by Denuvo DRM.