A hot potato: Denuvo has thus far offered one of the most widely recognized and effective DRM solutions against piracy and unauthorized game copies. Now, Irdeto, the parent company of Denuvo, is launching a new product: watermarking technology designed to easily identify those who are leaking "premium" content onto the internet.
Denuvo announced TraceMark for Games during the Game Developers Conference. The company, best known for its stringent anti-copy technology, has developed a watermarking solution specifically designed to protect gaming development in the pre-release stage. This includes securing internal playtest sessions, closed beta programs, or review copies and press screeners sent to third-party organizations.
According to Denuvo, TraceMark can inject both visible and invisible unique game watermarks into each game build without impacting the build's quality. The technology provides an API for generating and detecting game watermarks, and these watermarks can be flexible to adapt to a developer's specific requirements. Moreover, TraceMark is platform-agnostic, functioning on essentially every major gaming platform available today, including PC, console, and mobile.
Denuvo states that TraceMark can work in conjunction with its Anti-tamper technology, offering a "one-click solution" to deter unauthorized game copies and discourage content leaks. The watermarks address unique security concerns associated with press events and review copy distribution.
According to Irdeto SVP Niels Haverkorn, TraceMark will set a new standard in anti-piracy for the gaming industry. The technology represents a significant milestone for Irdeto and a leap forward for companies seeking to protect their creative and financial investments in game development. Haverkorn believes that unique watermarks will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the industry.
Denuvo boasts its ability to protect PC and mobile games against piracy, safeguarding developers' code from tampering, cracking, cheating, reverse engineering, and debugging by malicious third parties. The DRM technology has a track record of effectively protecting AAA PC games against piracy, especially now that the only "professional" code cracker known to target Denuvo (Empress) seems to be inactive.
While Denuvo can indeed protect games against piracy, gamers have long debated its impact on performance and user-friendliness. Irdeto has attempted to dispel rumors and untrustworthy reports about Denuvo's alleged negative effects, but gamers and "pirates" are likely to continue criticizing one of the most prominent DRM technologies to emerge in recent years.