Doom Eternal accidentally ships without Denuvo DRM, making pirates’ job easier

Master_shake_

Master_shake_

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Bethesda did not remember to remove the Denuvo-less .EXE from the game’s package.





As players were anxiously waiting for Doom Eternal to unlock, a few noticed something particularly strange in the game’s files. The install folder had the usual, main .EXE file, but also another one untouched by the Denuvo DRM.


The unmodified file, for some reason, was left in the downloaded package, under a folder called “original” no less. As I am sure you know by now, the whole point of Denuvo DRM is to thwart piracy at launch, but that doesn’t work if anyone could freely access the game without said DRM.


Resetera forum members discovered the oopsie in the Bethesda Launcher version of the game, with the Steam version seemingly unaffected. Shortly after Doom Eternal went live, a patch was released to remove the unmodified .EXE file, but not before pirates took notice.
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https://www.vg247.com/2020/03/20/doom-eternal-denuvo-free-exe/

hahaha!

since when were develeopers in the cracking scene?

if it still sells well and it will, they will see the DRM is more of a nuisance and a cost that's unneeded.
 
LurkerLito said:
Well at least now you will be able to get real comparisons between Denuvo vs DRM-Free benchmarks. ROFL Scene Group is Bethesda :facepalm:
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Except there have been no shortage of real comparisons available to bench previously. Including the last DOOM. And there was zero *reproducible* difference for the couple shady YouTube vids that did try to claim a difference in a game.

It's never been easier for pirates or a gaming YouTuber or site to prove the DeNuvO kIlLZ PeRfOrMaNce mantra - the protected and unprotected files are both in the same folder structure here, FFS. But you're not going to see that comparison talked about because when performance proves identical, it doesn't fit the narrative and so they stay silent rather than admit it.
 
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it seems to be a good game and if it's at least based on vulkan i'd give them my dollars even though i don't care for some of Bethesda's practices. so usually when it's on sale.
 
odditory said:
Except there have been no shortage of real comparisons available to bench previously. Including the last DOOM. And there was zero *reproducible* difference for the couple shady YouTube vids that did try to claim a difference in a game.

It's never been easier for pirates or a gaming YouTuber or site to prove the DeNuvO kIlLZ PeRfOrMaNce mantra - the protected and unprotected files are both in the same folder structure here, FFS. But you're not going to see that comparison talked about because when performance proves identical, it doesn't fit the narrative and so they stay silent rather than admit it.
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Not sure about performance but Doom 2016 used to start REALLY SLOW until they removed this spyware. Don't why they even bother with it. Pirate will pirate no matter what
 
odditory said:
Except there have been no shortage of real comparisons available to bench previously. Including the last DOOM. And there was zero *reproducible* difference for the couple shady YouTube vids that did try to claim a difference in a game.

It's never been easier for pirates or a gaming YouTuber or site to prove the DeNuvO kIlLZ PeRfOrMaNce mantra - the protected and unprotected files are both in the same folder structure here, FFS. But you're not going to see that comparison talked about because when performance proves identical, it doesn't fit the narrative and so they stay silent rather than admit it.
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Outside of loading, Doom doesn't show difference but there are other games were there have been significant performance differences. It seems to be a game-by-game thing depending entirely upon how Denuvo is implemented in the game itself.
 
Derangel said:
Outside of loading, Doom doesn't show difference but there are other games were there have been significant performance differences. It seems to be a game-by-game thing depending entirely upon how Denuvo is implemented in the game itself.
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Yep, there's several different levels of protection that publishers can choose from and it's constantly evolving to stay try to stay ahead of the crackers.

Most denuvo cracks also don't actually remove it but instead just bypass it so any performance hits are still present, the few that have had it completely removed show anywhere from a fairly major performance impact to an almost negligible one.
 
Based on screenshots, looks like holding out for a high texture pack and RTX will be good.

But man, that gameplay looks go fuckin' good.
 
This is like, a damn good reason to make a stand and buy the game with the non-DRM executable in it.

Get those rookie numbers up, eclipse the DRM-only versions.

M76 said:
Wanna bet on that?
No they won't. They had plenty of opportunities to see. DRM is like placebo for these publishers. It is more likely to hurt sales, but they believe in it.
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More like their shareholders IMHO. Typically at least.
 
Master_shake_ said:
i'd buy the DRM free version.,

i don't want Denuvo shitware on my pc

still haven't bought anything with it yet.
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It should be noted that Denuvo is not "installed" on your PC when you install a game with it. It exists in the game's exe and that's it. This is why Denuvo can be completely removed from a game if you have access to a "clean" exe, like with FFXV or this.
 
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Derangel said:
It should be noted that Denuvo is not "installed" on your PC when you install a game with it. It exists in the game's exe and that's it. This is why Denuvo can be completely removed from a game if you have access to a "clean" exe, like with FFXV or this.
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Did I say installed? Point stands
 
Ah Bethesda,the scumbags who pulled their games from geforce now because they want users to buy their game twice. This couldn't have happened to a nicer publisher. Hmm guess I'll be checking out this really fit girls website later today.
 
Proof is in the pudding, just like I said pirates always invent excuses for taking without paying.
 
This is a good thing. Doom 2016 was fricking awesome and I will gladly buy Doom Eternal from Steam once the human malware pandemic chills down and I am certain money can be spent on luxuries again. But I will stay far away from Bethesdas storefront, I refuse to make yet another account into yet another storefront, especially from a company that has proven to be very incompetent when it comes to things like handling personal information etc...
 
Copy>Paste=Kriminal.

Shut the hell up with that crap. It's called a demo. If you like the game you buy it.

I've never met a shareware user (pirate?!?!, pfffft) that sold any software for profit.

Being able to try out software before you buy it is a good thing and is a fringe benefit of being an adept computer user.

Kudos though to the Doom guys to include the DRM free .exe.
 
dgz said:
Valve: Pirates Are Just Underserved Customers. They should know, built an empire thanks to offering a better experience
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Exactly, piracy is a service problem. You need to sell what people want and deliver it how they want it, that's the key to ending piracy, not denuvo or any other protection.

Hey, you don't want to buy our games? How about if we put it in a cage you can't take it out of, and you have to have an online connection to start the game, and you are not allowed to modify it in any way, will you buy it then?

Yeah, that should do it!
 
I just pay the Russian price for the vast majority of my games.

79 CAD + 13% tax is too damn much. Given that our dollar is tanking right now, I wouldn't be surprised to see games bumped up to 89 CAD in the very near future.
 
i just bought it , game is super fun, starts out easy.
Was afraid it was going to be over fast. But soon it gets crazy hard when new monsters start rolling out.
runs great on my RTX 2070 super
mine is from bathesda kinda wish i got on steam as i did for doom 2016.
last time was cdkey for doom 2016.

i really want animal crossing but silly nintendo locks down 1 island per console.
 
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Already reports of 1 group (maybe person) that is new to the scene releasing it with malware/trojan in the setup. So far other groups have been clean though.


Judge all you want but I tend to go for the free "demo" of single player games and buy the ones that I bother to play more than an hour of when the price drops. Still better than those that buy keys off grey markets, even if it's not fully moral lol.
 
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