Denuvo Developer Says Its New Anti-Piracy Watermark Will Make Leakers “Think Twice” – Cross Talk India

New anti-piracy software has been announced by Denuvo developer Irdeto, giving developers tools to help track down leaks of their games. Called TraceMark for Games, the software was announced at the Game Developers Conference this week and allows for watermarks to to be used within builds of games. Developers can choose to apply visible or invisible watermarks, giving users a “dual approach” to precisely track leaked content back to its source during the pre-release phase of a game’s development.

“This capability makes potential leakers think twice, knowing that any unauthorized distribution can be directly linked to them,” Irdeto said in a press release, describing the software as a platform-agnostic tool for integration in a game. “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.”

Irdeto added that TraceMark includes a self-service detection portal, which is designed to “empower developers and content owners with the ability to independently verify” if watermarks are detected in their work. The company says this detection is possible even when subjected to “robustness attacks” such as changes in luminance, blurring, compression, and cropping to spot or get around watermarks.

Irdeto’s Denuvo anti-piracy program has been regularly criticized for negatively impacting the performance of games on PC despite the company’s efforts to prove otherwise. Notable recent examples include Doom Eternal and Resident Evil Village, with the developers behind those games removing Denuvo shortly after launch following fan complaints about performance dives.

Just a week before its release, Payday 3 developer Starbreeze dropped Denuvo from the PC version of the game, although the company didn’t reveal the exact reasons behind the move at the time.