Pirates Crack Microsoft’s UWP Protection, Five Layers of DRM Defeated

Megalith

Megalith

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Scene group CODEX is responsible for cracking the first Universal Windows Platform game, Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Animal Collection. The title contains five layers of DRM, which includes a Denuvo-like anti-tamper technology called Arxan that marketing considered undefeatable.

What is unclear at this stage is whether Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Animal Collection represents a typical UWP release, or if some particular flaw allowed CODEX to take it apart. The possibility of additional releases is certainly a tantalizing one for pirates, but how long they will have to wait is unknown.
 
You know, I'm not really a pirate sympathizer, but I have kids and have old discs of Viva Piñata, Zoo Tycoon and many others. They don't effing work (activation limits), and it pisses me off because there is nowhere to find them on PC anymore. So good for the pirates.
 
Boy, I wonder if 5 layers of DRM somehow impact performance.

homernoy said:
You know, I'm not really a pirate sympathizer, but I have kids and have old discs of Viva Piñata, Zoo Tycoon and many others. They don't effing work (activation limits), and it pisses me off because there is nowhere to find them on PC anymore. So good for the pirates.
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It's almost always been that way with DRM, the people who steal the games usually have a better experience than those who pay.
 
homernoy said:
You know, I'm not really a pirate sympathizer, but I have kids and have old discs of Viva Piñata, Zoo Tycoon and many others. They don't effing work (activation limits), and it pisses me off because there is nowhere to find them on PC anymore. So good for the pirates.
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Yeah that's exactly the problem. Most companies exercise NO responsibility for consumers being able to run their games after the fact, piracy has quite literally saved many games over history, since they're the only working copies left standing. If companies acted responsibly, it would be more of a black and white issue than it is now.
 
All I can say is that is some determination on their part. I just can't imagine spending that much time trying to crack something like that. I get the whole challenge of it thing, but dam that is some seriously tedious work.
 
Marketing considered undefeatable
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hahahaha, maybe you should leave your marketing team to marketing instead of making quotes for how secure things are. Fucking morons.
 
Derangel said:
Forza Horizon 3, Gears 4, Forza 7 and uhh...No, that's about it.
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I own all of those and they run phenomenally well.

4K/60+ is no problem maxed out (except gears of war, that hovers around 45+ at 4K) so it would seem that if these include as many “layers” of DRM as this Zoo game then they are not particularly performance impacting.

The biggest headache comes from the fact that I have to uninstall/install Sonic Dash practically every single day due to a really annoying issue with the games “crashing” on startup that is caused by the way the MS Store works. It’s widely a known issue and I’ve even personally reported it using the feedback app but MS has yet to issue a fix for it. From what I can gather it’s been a problem for well over half a year.
 
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I wonder how much money they could have saved by accepting the fact that it would inevitably be broken. Thus all that investment has now gone down the drain.

It would be interesting to see the numbers of total amount of total money lost due to useless DRM. How must could have been invested in a more productive manner.
"Last evening it became clear that the UWP system, previously believed to be uncrackable, had fallen to pirates."
Anyone who believes that does not belong in this industry
 
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tetris42 said:
Yeah that's exactly the problem. Most companies exercise NO responsibility for consumers being able to run their games after the fact, piracy has quite literally saved many games over history, since they're the only working copies left standing. If companies acted responsibly, it would be more of a black and white issue than it is now.
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Or another scenario: I have several old and rather rare games in my collection. I still want to play them once in a while. I'd also rather not risk damaging the discs, so I opt for using iso's. I'm sure it could be argued that this is piracy....
 
I have a ton of games I have purchased in he past - I got rid of my floppies (uggh!), but still have CD and DVD games. Some no longer work, scratched, or I lost. As an example, I bought Thief on Steam this weekend for under $1. I bought it years ago probably for $40-50 (?). Had I found an alternative source, I don't consider it piracy. (I'm more concerned about malware so .99 cents is ok.)
 
steakman1971 said:
I have a ton of games I have purchased in he past - I got rid of my floppies (uggh!), but still have CD and DVD games. Some no longer work, scratched, or I lost. As an example, I bought Thief on Steam this weekend for under $1. I bought it years ago probably for $40-50 (?). Had I found an alternative source, I don't consider it piracy. (I'm more concerned about malware so .99 cents is ok.)
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I still have my Thief CD laying around somewhere. I keep seeing it when I dig for things. It came with my Sound Blaster Live I think? As did Decent. Good times.
 
THRESHIN said:
Or another scenario: I have several old and rather rare games in my collection. I still want to play them once in a while. I'd also rather not risk damaging the discs, so I opt for using iso's. I'm sure it could be argued that this is piracy....
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As far as I know, for console games, as long as you own the original product, ripping it (lets be honest you're just downloading it off the net) to a rom compatible format, does not violate any actual terms. Same more or less went for emulators until you actually have a copy of the bios, which is not the same as ripping a game, and I believe is ruled to be illegal if a company like Nintendo wanted to chase you around. However for PC games, Due to the ease of digital distribution, I'm pretty sure you can only play the game in it's original form, with that media (cd/dvd/digital) and drm. However I can attest that the first thing I used to do after installing a game was download a no-cd patch so that I didn't have to dig around for the ::scratched:: discs when I wanted to load up my favorite shooter or rts.
 
A Little Teapot said:
UWP/the Microsoft store can go suck a dick. Just like Origin and Uplay. As far as I'm concerned if it isn't on Steam it isn't worth playing.
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While I am all in on steam like you and seriously evaluate purchases from other systems (vs buying on whim in steam)... I personally think your attitude doesn't do much good other then support "your preference".

We should all be advocating for as many options as possible and less exclusivity, steam or otherwise.
 
Time to bring back code wheels.

Pool+of+Radiance+Code+Wheel.jpg
 
dandirk said:
We should all be advocating for as many options as possible and less exclusivity, steam or otherwise.
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I take it you weren't around for GFWL then. Not all options are created equal. If MS had their way and windows 10's store had enough marketshare, there wouldn't even be any other option.

I think most gamers realize that, and combined with MS's seeming lack of interest in improving the store, it's not going anywhere and waiting for either another rebrand or for Nadella to pull the plug. It's the windows mobile of appstores/repositories at this point.
 
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DPI said:
The bad news is there are no UWP games worth pirating.
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The good news is this prevents publishers from getting a bright idea. With Denuvo being cracked I was fearing a lot of the publishers would warn up to the idea of making games Windows Store exclusive even if the backlash was strong. You may think it is dumb, but then you forget you're dealing with the video games industry.
 
dandirk said:
While I am all in on steam like you and seriously evaluate purchases from other systems (vs buying on whim in steam)... I personally think your attitude doesn't do much good other then support "your preference".

We should all be advocating for as many options as possible and less exclusivity, steam or otherwise.
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I take your point. If these other storefronts promoted actual choice , then I'd be in favour of them. As it is they simply serve to artificially fragment the games market. In short, I want true competition from digital services, not land grabs.
 
A Little Teapot said:
I take your point. If these other storefronts promoted actual choice , then I'd be in favour of them. As it is they simply serve to artificially fragment the games market. In short, I want true competition from digital services, not land grabs.
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The issue is, Steam started as a forced land grab, and that is all publishers will see. It's all the public justification they need for their own little fiefdoms.
 
odditory said:
I take it you weren't around for GFWL then. Not all options are created equal. If MS had their way and windows 10's store had enough marketshare, there wouldn't even be any other option.

I think most gamers realize that, and combined with MS's seeming lack of interest in improving the store, it's not going anywhere and waiting for either another rebrand or for Nadella to pull the plug. It's the windows mobile of appstores/repositories at this point.
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Sure the Microsoft Store has its problems but I think some tend to overanalyze it. I simply look at it as another software store and I've been using Steam, Origin, GoG and Uplay already for years. And I get there are those think everything should be on Steam but that's just not the case. There are plenty of apps I use from Microsoft Store like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify (though that's just a Centennial app), etc. There are instances where games are on Steam and also on the Microsoft Store and if it's on sale on the Microsoft Store and there's no multiplayer considers I'll get it from there. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a puzzle game Samsara from Steam instead of the Microsoft Store because it was on sale on Steam.
 
heatlesssun said:
Sure the Microsoft Store has its problems but I think some tend to overanalyze it. I simply look at it as another software store and I've been using Steam, Origin, GoG and Uplay already for years. And I get there are those think everything should be on Steam but that's just not the case. There are plenty of apps I use from Microsoft Store like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify (though that's just a Centennial app), etc. There are instances where games are on Steam and also on the Microsoft Store and if it's on sale on the Microsoft Store and there's no multiplayer considers I'll get it from there.
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Heh, always parroting the latest corporate branding. Except MS isn't fooling anyone by trying to normalize the Windows 10-only app store as the microsoft store. It's still a pseudo-mobile oriented appstore originally focused on devices MS has since abandoned, and shuts out the vast numbers of Windows 7/8 users. Trying to imply or frame the argument as people being critical of W10's store because "they want everything on Steam" is disingenuous.

Steam doesn't discriminate your OS choice - Windows 7, 8.x, 10, Linux, MacOS - all supported. Windows 10's store is limited to Windows 10.
Valve doesn't go out of their way to keep titles off of other digital stores. Microsoft does.
Steam doesn't require DRM on titles - it's left up to publishers to enable it. Microsoft mandates DRM on everything in the W10 store, even freeware.
Steam doesn't obfuscate game files inside a petty UWP/DRM wrapper to lock out mods and third party utilities, or disallow backups of game files. Microsoft does.

The list goes on, and most of what can be said of Steam is also true for GOG, UPlay, Origin, etc which are also great options... The Windows 10 store is cancer. It's trying to be a me-too 'Store' for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully most people realize it since its universally ignored.

heatlesssun said:
A couple of weeks ago I picked up a puzzle game Samsara from Steam instead of the Microsoft Store because it was on sale on Steam.
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I hope you don't get in trouble.
 
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Flogger23m said:
The good news is this prevents publishers from getting a bright idea. With Denuvo being cracked I was fearing a lot of the publishers would warn up to the idea of making games Windows Store exclusive even if the backlash was strong. You may think it is dumb, but then you forget you're dealing with the video games industry.
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Videogame publishers can seem boneheaded at times, but they're not suicidial. Making games exclusive to windows 10's store and shutting out the vast majority of gamers on previous Windows versions would be financial suicide. Videogame publishers want to sell videogames, not a new operating system.

Latest Steam survey show Windows 10 share has fallen to a pathetic 35%. Windows 10 defenders are quick to blame this on "chinese PUBG players" as if they're not real or somehow don't count -- they're still realworld gaming PC's, and it still highlights a sad corollary truth: when users have a choice, many will choose to avoid windows 10.

upload_2018-2-19_12-59-19.png
 
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DPI said:
Heh, always parroting the latest corporate branding. Except MS isn't fooling anyone by trying to normalize the Windows 10-only app store as the microsoft store. It's still a pseudo-mobile oriented appstore originally focused on devices MS has since abandoned, and shuts out the vast numbers of Windows 7/8 users. Trying to imply or frame the argument as people being critical of W10's store because "they want everything on Steam" is disingenuous.
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A Little Teapot said:
UWP/the Microsoft store can go suck a dick. Just like Origin and Uplay. As far as I'm concerned if it isn't on Steam it isn't worth playing.
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Nothing disingenuous about what I said as people constantly make the remark about Steam being their one stop shop.
​
DPI said:
Steam doesn't discriminate your OS choice - Windows 7, 8.x, 10, Linux, MacOS - all supported. Windows 10's store is limited to Windows 10.
Valve doesn't go out of their way to keep titles off of other digital stores. Microsoft does.
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At this point in Windows 7's lifecycle, Microsoft just isn't going to put in the effort to update a 9 year old OS that's officially less the two years away from end of extended support. Nothing new here as Microsoft has always degraded support for older Windows versions.

DPI said:
The list goes on, and most of what can be said of Steam is also true for GOG, UPlay, Origin, etc which are also great options... The Windows 10 store is cancer. It's trying to be a me-too 'Store' for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully most people realize it since its universally ignored.
​
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All of this preaching over people using things like a Netflix app?​

DPI said:
I hope you don't get in trouble.
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LOL! I guess this is the thing I find funniest about all of this. All of the FUD being spread about the Microsoft Store and how Microsoft is trying to lock out Steam, etc. But hey, when Microsoft worked with Steam to support Windows MR headsets with Steam VR, that was lock out as well? It's just crazy how people freak out about all of this stuff and make it out to be something that's just practical reality for typical users.
 
DPI said:
Videogame publishers can seem boneheaded at times, but they're not suicidial. Making games exclusive to windows 10's store and shutting out the vast majority of gamers on previous Windows versions would be financial suicide. Videogame publishers want to sell videogames, not a new operating system.
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Nothing new here though. It was many years after the release of Windows 7 that game developers continued to support Windows XP because it would have been "suicide".
 
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