Just about a week ago, we told you that Bethesda had removed the Denuvo anti-tamper tech from its DOOM first-person shooter, but nobody knew exactly what prompted the company to make this decision. The fact that Bethesda was kind of tight-lipped about the whole situation didn’t help much either, but now it looks like Denuvo itself has stepped forward and shed some light on the matter. Apparently, the anti-tamper technology was removed simply because it had “accomplished its purpose by keeping the game safe from piracy during the initial sales window,” which is pretty much saying that once DOOM was finally cracked, Denuvo became unnecessary.
Admittedly, the solution did make the game uncrackable for months, which is not bad at all considering that we’re talking about a very appreciated triple A title. Moreover, Denuvo’s Robert Hernandez explained that there will be no special “refunds” for developers just because the game was cracked.
“We can’t comment on our deals with specific customers, but we do not have any deals in place that offer refunds if a game is cracked within a specific time frame. However, each publisher is of course free to remove our anti-tamper tech from their title once they feel the protection has achieved its purpose in protecting the initial sales window, or if they have other reasons for doing so, such as selling the title on DRM-free platforms.”
Yes, it’s clear now that publishers can remove Denuvo whenever they want for whatever reason, and in DOOM’s case, it certainly made sense to do so.
Respect.