Denuvo/Irdeto "TraceMark for Gaming" Introduced at GDC 2024

erek

erek

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"The technology can incorporate both invisible and visible watermarking techniques. This dual approach allows for the embedding of undetectable identifiers directly into the game's content, ensuring that the original quality of the game remains intact. The ease of integration into existing development workflows makes this an attractive feature for game developers looking to secure their content without compromising on the player's experience.

A standout feature of TraceMark is its self-service detection portal, designed to empower developers and content owners with the ability to independently verify the presence of watermarks in their content. The detection is possible even when subjected to robustness attacks such as changes in luminance, blurring, compression and cropping. The watermarking technology can also be integrated with Denuvo's Anti-tamper product, making it a one click solution that will discourage content and game leaks.

Robust security across all stages
For game studios conducting playtests and closed beta tests, TraceMark significantly enhances security measures in the environment around game development. It enables precise tracing and authentication of individual users participating in these tests, providing developers with the ability to confidently trace any leaks back to their source. The solution can be used together with the Denuvo Anti-Piracy product (Anti-Tamper), to control distribution of pre-release content. This level of control is crucial during the sensitive phases of game development.

Finally, the technology addresses the unique security concerns associated with press events and the distribution of review copies. By marking review copies and press screeners with either visible or invisible watermarks, game developers can add an extra layer of security. This ensures that if any content is prematurely leaked before the stipulated review embargo periods, it can be accurately tracked back to the source, thereby maintaining the integrity of the game's official release.

"With the launch of TraceMark for Gaming, we are setting a new standard in anti-piracy for the gaming industry. This innovative solution not only marks a significant milestone for Irdeto but also represents a leap forward in protecting the creative and financial investments of game developers worldwide. At Irdeto, we understand the unique challenges faced by the gaming community, and TraceMark is our commitment to ensuring that these valuable assets are safeguarded throughout their lifecycle. We are excited to see the positive impact this will have on the industry," said Niels Haverkorn, SVP of New Markets, Irdeto."

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Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/320692/denuvo-irdeto-tracemark-for-gaming-introduced-at-gdc-2024
 
So basically another anti-modding software combined with spyware. WTF is nice about that?

I also believe the watermarking feature would clearly be illegal in most countries, but certainly in the EU. It's tracking cookies on steroids.

erek said:
without compromising on the player's experience
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Preventing cheating and modding in a single player game is literally compromising the player's experience.
 
M76 said:
So basically another anti-modding software combined with spyware. WTF is nice about that?

I also believe the watermarking feature would clearly be illegal in most countries, but certainly in the EU. It's tracking cookies on steroids.


Preventing cheating and modding in a single player game is literally compromising the player's experience.
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It isn't spyware, it's a watermark. The main purpose is to identify shared pictures containing leaks prerelease.

Preventing cheating and modding in a multiplayer game is literally improving the player's experience :).

It works nothing like spyware. It's like signing your work with a serial number and being able to read that if it gets stolen.
 
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GoldenTiger said:
It isn't spyware, it's a watermark. The main purpose is to identify shared pictures containing leaks prerelease.

Preventing cheating and modding in a multiplayer game is literally improving the player's experience :).

It works nothing like spyware. It's like signing your work with a serial number and being able to read that if it gets stolen.
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It also protects against assets being scraped and modified by 3'rd parties.
I could see it being useful in digital asset stores to protect and identify models and skins there from unauthorized reuse.
 
Lakados said:
It also protects against assets being scraped and modified by 3'rd parties.
I could see it being useful in digital asset stores to protect and identify models and skins there from unauthorized reuse.
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This is a very important point.
 
GoldenTiger said:
It isn't spyware, it's a watermark. The main purpose is to identify shared pictures containing leaks prerelease.
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And you think that's not a violation of privacy? Being able to pinpoint the exact user who made a screenshot of a game?
You're extremely naive if you think it will only ever be used in pre-release versions falling under an NDA.
GoldenTiger said:
Preventing cheating and modding in a multiplayer game is literally improving the player's experience :).
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We both know anti tamper software is excessively used for single player games as well. Also cheating and modding are not interchangeable. It is important to prevent cheating in competitive games, but not at the cost of all modding.
GoldenTiger said:
It works nothing like spyware. It's like signing your work with a serial number and being able to read that if it gets stolen.
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As I've said it is a privacy violation that can and probably will be abused.
Lakados said:
It also protects against assets being scraped and modified by 3'rd parties.
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That is literally how modding works. Oh, but we can't have actual fans make mods available for free, who would buy the official paywalled cosmetics and "boosters" otherwise? Any (single player) game that needs anti tamper doesn't deserve to exist in the first place.
Lakados said:
I could see it being useful in digital asset stores to protect and identify models and skins there from unauthorized reuse.
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Digital asset stores are a blight on gaming to begin with.

I will never understand why anyone would side with greedy corporations over the user's convenience and freedom from predatory monetization.
 
M76 said:
That is literally how modding works. Oh, but we can't have actual fans make mods available for free, who would buy the official paywalled cosmetics and "boosters" otherwise? Any (single player) game that needs anti tamper doesn't deserve to exist in the first place.
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That is not how modding works, I can't think of many cases where somebody has taken the assets from Game A "modded" them and released Game B as a completely separate title independent of Game A, and been called something other than a thief.
M76 said:
Digital asset stores are a blight on gaming to begin with.

I will never understand why anyone would side with greedy corporations over the user's convenience and freedom from predatory monetization.
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How are asset stores a blight?
Should every developer out there be required to build their own burnt-out Buick, Fire Hydrant, lamp post, and asphalt road texture from scratch? Some poor startup expected to spend 3 years just building debris for their game before they can even start on the game itself?
Digital artists are neither cheap nor abundant and few aspiring developers will have the time or resources to build an asset library from scratch, so what are their options?
 
Lakados said:
That is not how modding works, I can't think of many cases where somebody has taken the assets from Game A "modded" them and released Game B as a completely separate title independent of Game A, and been called something other than a thief.
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You don't hear of many now because companies keep doing shit like this, but that was a huge part of gaming that has been slowly taken away from gamers as the years have gone on.

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You get the drift.
 
Lakados said:
That is not how modding works, I can't think of many cases where somebody has taken the assets from Game A "modded" them and released Game B as a completely separate title independent of Game A, and been called something other than a thief.
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Then make it a policy that mods can't be sold. Take away the financial incentive and people won't do this. If you want a game to be fun, this is what you do. If you want a game to be a nightmare then do what Bethesda did and allow people to sell their mods. It's never enough to just sell a game, but now every aspect of it needs to be monetized, including assets you didn't help create.
How are asset stores a blight?
Should every developer out there be required to build their own burnt-out Buick, Fire Hydrant, lamp post, and asphalt road texture from scratch? Some poor startup expected to spend 3 years just building debris for their game before they can even start on the game itself?
Digital artists are neither cheap nor abundant and few aspiring developers will have the time or resources to build an asset library from scratch, so what are their options?
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As much as you want to say that, but Skyrim has so many mods that people have dedicated a weekly YouTube video just to cover them. Digital artists who get paid aren't cheap, but there are plenty of artists who do it for free, and big surprise they often do a better job. You can't do this to your game while staying in good terms with the companies policies. We used to in our games. Minecraft Java Edition still does, but not the Bedrock edition. It's a conflict of interest when companies sell you game assets while also denying you the ability to install your own. If game modders had to compete with over paid digital artists, the digital artists would be out of a job. More importantly, the bottom line of their company.

View: https://youtu.be/oCltOxPEKFs?si=678ADyv3WwYJxMmm

View: https://youtu.be/9J75hZFUZ5U?si=cOUAUb8Bvy7yKqGI
ZeroBarrier said:
You don't hear of many now because companies keep doing shit like this, but that was a huge part of gaming that has been slowly taken away from gamers as the years have gone on.

View attachment 643246View attachment 643248 View attachment 643247

You get the drift.
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People forget that a lot of big games we still play today were just a Quake or Half Life mods, because those games didn't prevent you from doing so. Look what the community can do with Dark Souls 3. That's probably better than any Dark Souls DLC, and it's free.

View: https://youtu.be/IghLmgNz7Cg?si=He2T2_-CqPdk2hbo
 
Lakados said:
That is not how modding works, I can't think of many cases where somebody has taken the assets from Game A "modded" them and released Game B as a completely separate title independent of Game A, and been called something other than a thief.
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There are literally thousands of mods out there that take assets from game A and port it into game B.

Stealing assets to create a completely new game for profit is entirely another thing, and I don't think that happens very often, and even if it did, nobody could get away with it, anyway, So there is no need for invasive spyware preventing all modding to fight that non-existent threat.
Lakados said:
How are asset stores a blight?
Should every developer out there be required to build their own burnt-out Buick, Fire Hydrant, lamp post, and asphalt road texture from scratch? Some poor startup expected to spend 3 years just building debris for their game before they can even start on the game itself?
Digital artists are neither cheap nor abundant and few aspiring developers will have the time or resources to build an asset library from scratch, so what are their options?
Click to expand...
I meant in-game asset stores that sell stuff to the player for real money.
This software is meant for games, ie put a watermark on the displayed image, not on developer assets themselves, how would that even work?
 
M76 said:
IDK where you got that from, I don't see it in the article. Can you quote the specific part that says that?
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It's right at the beginning:
erek said:
The technology can incorporate both invisible and visible watermarking techniques. This dual approach allows for the embedding of undetectable identifiers directly into the game's content
Click to expand...

Game content such as textures.
 
M76 said:
I meant in-game asset stores that sell stuff to the player for real money.
This software is meant for games, ie put a watermark on the displayed image, not on developer assets themselves, how would that even work?
Click to expand...
I am specifically referring to asset stores that sell pre-made objects, textures, and such to developers so they can use those models to incorporate into their projects instead of spending time building their own. Epic operates a huge one for example, as does Tencent. It's like iStock but for game developers.
 
Lakados said:
I am specifically referring to asset stores that sell pre-made objects, textures, and such to developers so they can use those models to incorporate into their projects instead of spending time building their own. Epic operates a huge one for example, as does Tencent. It's like iStock but for game developers.
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Thank you but I know what a marketplace is. What IDK is why bring it up as they are pitching this to game devs not asset creators and asset marketplaces.

I'd have zero issue if this was pitched to asset creators to detect unauthorized use of their assets in published games. It is obvious that this tech will again be used to inconvenience and spy on gamers and stifle modding.
 
DukenukemX said:
Did he mention Denuvo in the video?
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It's literally in the first 10 seconds of the video. But technically he didn't mention denuvo he just referred to it as "bull**** DRM". And that they had to buy multiple copies of the game to be able to test it on different configurations, and that some of their accounts got banned.
And that the game is so CPU bound that it runs the same on a 4070 as a 4090 in 4K no less.
 
M76 said:
It's literally in the first 10 seconds of the video. But technically he didn't mention denuvo he just referred to it as "bull**** DRM". And that they had to buy multiple copies of the game to be able to test it on different configurations, and that some of their accounts got banned.
And that the game is so CPU bound that it runs the same on a 4070 as a 4090 in 4K no less.
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Thats some horseshit right there.
 
Capcom has been releasing pretty solid PC ports the past few year. I can't believe how much they drop the ball on thjs.
 
vegeta535 said:
Capcom has been releasing pretty solid PC ports the past few year. I can't believe how much they drop the ball on thjs.
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Recently they have been going all out on "tamper protection" ie anti modding, even in single player games, so much so that they started adding that crap retroactively in updates to games that never had it. This goes way beyond just fighting piracy, in fact I'd go as far to say it has nothing to do with piracy. I'll certainly not buy any capcom product until they reverse course.
 
M76 said:
Recently they have been going all out on "tamper protection" ie anti modding, even in single player games, so much so that they started adding that crap retroactively in updates to games that never had it. This goes way beyond just fighting piracy, in fact I'd go as far to say it has nothing to do with piracy. I'll certainly not buy any capcom product until they reverse course.
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Pretty sure all their games have included Denuvo. Japanese developers love to use it.
 
vegeta535 said:
Pretty sure all their games have included Denuvo. Japanese developers love to use it.
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It’s an insurance/funding thing.
Release a game with no tamper protection and it ends up on pirate sites day 2 and your sales tank investors will be up your ass.
Now sales could have tanked because the game is a steaming pile of garbage and they won’t care it will be because you didn’t protect it and you let it get stolen. No developer would counter with no actually it’s not selling because the games shit and we should have never released it. They are just going to hang their heads in shame and be all yeah piracy did it.
So their options are either add Denuvo and stay safe from a lawsuit, or don’t and hope for the best.
 
Lakados said:
It’s an insurance/funding thing.
Release a game with no tamper protection and it ends up on pirate sites day 2 and your sales tank investors will be up your ass.
Now sales could have tanked because the game is a steaming pile of garbage and they won’t care it will be because you didn’t protect it and you let it get stolen. No developer would counter with no actually it’s not selling because the games shit and we should have never released it. They are just going to hang their heads in shame and be all yeah piracy did it.
So their options are either add Denuvo and stay safe from a lawsuit, or don’t and hope for the best.
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How does that work for the devs & publishers that opt-in for minimal to no DRM? It sure makes customers happy over some game hating investor.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
How does that work for the devs & publishers that opt-in for minimal to no DRM? It sure makes customers happy over some game hating investor.
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It depends on funding models, putting up your own money for a project is very different than putting up somebody else’s.

99% of PC customers don’t care about the DRM and for console players it’s a non issue. The people who were going to buy the game at launch are still extremely likely to buy the game at launch regardless of what DRM is involved and 4-6 months down the road the DRM is usually pulled anyways when it’s job is done and the people who were going to wait buy it anyways.

We can bitch and moan about DRM, but sales figures and statistics don’t lie, the addition of DRM to a well reviewed game has no measurable impact on sales.

DRM in a bad game gets flack for causing the game to perform bad and it gets to be a great scapegoat while they work to fix the issues the game shouldn’t have had to begin with but that’s a whole toxic development cycle issue and DRM just there to watch.

Tools like Denuvo are a shitty solution to a shitty problem, that’s about it.
 
vegeta535 said:
Pretty sure all their games have included Denuvo. Japanese developers love to use it.
Click to expand...
Even if that were true, it always being there doesn't excuse it. The RE2 and RE3 remakes definitely didn't have it, they added it to RE4 though. I think Village was the first in the series to have it. And it had all kinds of performance issues upon release.
 
M76 said:
Even if that were true, it always being there doesn't excuse it. The RE2 and RE3 remakes definitely didn't have it, they added it to RE4 though. I think Village was the first in the series to have it. And it had all kinds of performance issues upon release.
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They did have it on release. They eventually removed it.
 
Lakados said:
We can bitch and moan about DRM, but sales figures and statistics don’t lie, the addition of DRM to a well reviewed game has no measurable impact on sales.
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What numbers? How do you even measure it? You can't release the same game with and without DRM, and comparing different games is meaningless.
Shouldn't it improve sales compared to no DRM anyway? If it doesn't what is even the point?
 
M76 said:
What numbers? How do you even measure it? You can't release the same game with and without DRM, and comparing different games is meaningless.
Shouldn't it improve sales compared to no DRM anyway? If it doesn't what is even the point?
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No need to test it that way, sales models are scary accurate, they are able to determine sales figures within a few percent and the number of people who would be pushed away by adding DRM are statistically insignificant.

So the addition of DRM might cost you a few hundred sales, but it may be what lets the developer secure funding to actually produce the game. And those few sales are usually converted later when the DRM is removed and the game is put on sale so overall very minor on something expected to sell millions of units.
 
M76 said:
Even if that were true, it always being there doesn't excuse it. The RE2 and RE3 remakes definitely didn't have it, they added it to RE4 though. I think Village was the first in the series to have it. And it had all kinds of performance issues upon release.
Click to expand...

Capcom removes Denuvo after 2 years typically. With RE Village they added their own DRM which caused performance issues. They did patch it out but left Denuvo in. Denuvo was eventually removed. Ubisoft typically uses Denuvo, VM Protect and some other Ubisoft specific DRM.

A lot of companies use multiple DRM solutions and that is often where conflict and performance issues arise.

For Dragon's Dogma I assume the performance issues are more related to the game than Denuvo.
 
Lakados said:
No need to test it that way, sales models are scary accurate, they are able to determine sales figures within a few percent and the number of people who would be pushed away by adding DRM are statistically insignificant.
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You are joking right? Then how do we get the infamous "sales fell short of expectations" press releases, if they can predict sales so accurately? Where is this info coming from?
Lakados said:
So the addition of DRM might cost you a few hundred sales, but it may be what lets the developer secure funding to actually produce the game. And those few sales are usually converted later when the DRM is removed and the game is put on sale so overall very minor on something expected to sell millions of units.
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Do you have a single source to back up that this is commonplace that investors make their investment dependent on a specific DRM?
 
Flogger23m said:
Capcom removes Denuvo after 2 years typically. With RE Village they added their own DRM which caused performance issues. They did patch it out but left Denuvo in. Denuvo was eventually removed. Ubisoft typically uses Denuvo, VM Protect and some other Ubisoft specific DRM.
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Village is still listed on steam as containing denuvo, there seems to be no clear pattern to what they are doing.
Flogger23m said:
A lot of companies use multiple DRM solutions and that is often where conflict and performance issues arise.
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That is no excuse especially for outright spying proposed by the tech here.
Flogger23m said:
For Dragon's Dogma I assume the performance issues are more related to the game than Denuvo.
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Dragon's Dogma has many issues, denuvo is just one of them. It is unlikely to be solely responsible for the terrible performance, but it certainly doesn't help.
 
M76 said:
You are joking right? Then how do we get the infamous "sales fell short of expectations" press releases, if they can predict sales so accurately? Where is this info coming from?

Do you have a single source to back up that this is commonplace that investors make their investment dependent on a specific DRM?
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Not a specific DRM, but DRM in some form, that is why there are so many different DRM companies and platforms that offer basic anti-tamper to full-on content and sales protection going after fake domains and online accounts.
It's why Microsoft bought PlayFab and later teamed up with Adobes Magneto so they could roll out the Azure Media Services (It's a DRM platform), Apple and Google operate a joint mobile DRM platform Google calls it Widevine and Apple calls it FairPlay, but its the same thing, Amazon was running one but shuttered it and went to Microsoft, then there is Denuvo, Redpoints, Steamworks, long list.

Furthermore, numerous scholarly articles going back as far as 2005 comparing digital media sales and DRM and how it impacted estimated or known piracy, show it at the very least doesn't hurt game sales and does hinder piracy in developed countries while doing a lot in developing countries where they have seen an almost 100% increase in sales going from 1 in 5 being pirated games to 1 in 10. It also has a strong impact on in-game stores and serves well in protecting them from 3'rd party unlocks.

And for every "sales fell short" or "sales exceeded" expectations there are numerous "sold exactly as expected", they are accurate when the product is as expected, games that are utter garbage though like Dragons Dogma 2 should land in the fell short category (greatly exceeding though), has absolutely nothing to do with DRM however and everything to do with how much of a steaming pile the game is.
 
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Mr. Bluntman said:
Tracemark sounds like fucking cancer. As if Denuvo wasn't malignant enough on it's own...

Way to be, punishing the legitimate customer.

Sounds like this could be abused to take down "Let's Play" or fair use video uploaders as well.
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Research into other DRM methods out there Tracemark is Denuvo playing catchup to the functionality found in most of the other lesser known DRM solutions from their competitors.
 
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