Presented by Denuvo by Irdeto
It might be the biggest game studio hack to date: the theft of an entire playable build of Insomniac’s Wolverine title, years before its planned release date, along with confidential studio documents and developers’ private data and more. It was also one of a long line of cyberattacks on game studios, in a world where the barrier to cybercrimes has been lowered, thanks to generative AI.
Hackers have access to a whole new generation of technology, and they’re busy pirating games, looking for ways to cheat or defraud players, holding proprietary data hostage and of course, leaking details or even whole games before the title is even released. Every attack is disastrous — security-wise, from a PR perspective and for the bottom line.
“Pirates have become smarter and more efficient, and the technology has become more sophisticated,” says Reinhard Blaukovitsch, founder and managing director of Denuvo by Irdeto. “You want to protect your reputation and your IP, make sure the game is fair and safe for players — and ensure there’s a return on your investment, so you have money to develop the next game.”
360-degree protection from attacks, fraud and cheating is critical to keeping games safe after they’re released, and that entails leveraging anti-tampering and anti-cheat solutions. But piracy protection needs to start even before a game is released.
The impact of pre-release pirating
According to research by Denuvo by Irdeto, up to 59% of a game’s revenue is re racked up within the first 14 days of its release; however, 1 in 3 gamers are happily playing pirated games rather than buying them, which negatively affects a studio’s return on investment. Tools like Denuvo by Irdeto’s Anti-Tamper technology can help combat hackers to secure the critical initial sales window.
However, protection has to start even earlier than launch day. In a crowded market, standing out from the competition means getting a head start on positioning titles and finding enthusiastic players ready to jump on board long before a release date is set — and that’s where pirating is becoming a mounting challenge.
“The closer you get to the release date, the more you want to make sure that anti-piracy measures are implemented, to prevent an early release,” Blaukovitsch says. “Leaks happen in organizations of every size, social engineering from bad actors is always a danger, and even beta testers and journalists can accidently release an early build.”
Plus, hunting down the source of a leak can take many hundreds of hours of work in an environment where crunch time is a way of life.
“That loss of developer hours is exactly what we aim to fix, to ease the pain of a leak and minimize the hours lost in case of an incident,” says Blaukovitsch. “Part of that is convincing developers that games should be protected even before they’re released.”
Getting the upper hand: Protecting game integrity before launch
Invisible watermarking technology like Irdeto’s, which is currently used by Hollywood studios, sports leagues and pay-per-view producers, should also be a critical part of a game studio’s beginning-to-end security strategy, Blaukovitsch says. The company designed Irdeto’s TraceMark for Gaming for more than just copy protection; it enables a fast and easy identification of a gameplay video or build’s source, if it should pop up unauthorized in the wild.
“Once the alarm bell rings and a leak is identified, the watermark helps prove that it’s clear-cut IP infringement,” Blaukovitsch says. “We have industry-leading IP infringement takedown capabilities, as well as automated and manual crawling for any kind of leaks online.”
It’s a platform-agnostic solution that seamlessly integrates into the entire content lifecycle of a game, from its initial development stages to its final release and distribution, to provide consistent and reliable security measures to protect gaming content. It uses both visible watermarks and undetectable, invisible identifiers embedded directly into the game’s content, in order to ensure that playback isn’t impacted. It’s also resistant to common work-around techniques such as changes in luminance, blurring and cropping. And it offers a self-service detection portal that lets developers independently verify the presence of watermarks in their content.
Build-based watermarking helps developers control access throughout the development process, so each build that’s sent out for testing, whether to an internal department or external organization, can be tracked. With an in-depth look at how and where leaks happen, developers can also build better security processes. When it comes to review copies and press screeners, watermarks add an extra layer of security, allowing developers to trace leaks back to the source.
“Education and awareness are very important when dealing with leaks, whether tracking them down or ensuring they don’t happen again,” Blaukovitsch adds. “Watermarking is an important part of that process, and a crucial, easily integrated part of our overall solution — a one-stop shop for 360-degree game security.”
To learn more about TraceMark for Gaming and the future of gaming security, visit https://irdeto.com/denuvo/tracemark.
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