PC video gaming piracy has troubled publishers for years, but they have redoubled their efforts to thwart the menace with anti-tamper technology from Denuvo. Far Cry Primal - the tenth instalment in the series - will utilise Denuvo to protect the game from cracking groups, reveals the game's end-user licence agreement on Steam.
Under section 3 'Access to the product' the EULA reads: "THE PRODUCT IS PROTECTED BY DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE ("DRM SOFTWARE") AND DENUVO ANTI-TAMPER PROTECTION TECHNOLOGY ("ANTI-TAMPER TECHNOLOGY")."
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And in addition to the usual requirements of the DRM (digital rights management) software keeping a check on the number of installs and requiring an online connection to verify your purchase on first run, it also mentions:
"CERTAIN FILES OF THE ANTI-TAMPER TECHNOLOGY MAY REMAIN EVEN AFTER THE PRODUCT IS UNINSTALLED FROM YOUR COMPUTER."
Rise of the Tomb Raider - sequel to 2013's Lara Croft reboot - is set to arrive on Microsoft Windows this week, and will reportedly also come with Denuvo's anti-tamper tech, according to users on user-curated social news website Reddit. Square Enix's Just Cause 3 released last month with Denuvo and has been a thorn for pirates, so it makes sense the publisher would use it with all its future PC releases.
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Chinese cracking group 3DM said this month that the development of anti-piracy tech is threatening to run their operations into the ground, and there may be no pirated "free" games in a couple of years.
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