Denuvo Copy Protection: Leaked DRM cost for Crysis Remastered

Documents stolen by the Egregor hacker group show how much it costs a company to protect the license from Denuvo. The pricing structure is stated in the contract between the DRM provider and Crytek for Crysis Remastered (test). It shows that a half-life of the DRM system is in line with the market.

According to the documents, Denuvo charges a fee of 140,000 euros for the first twelve months after the game’s release, after which it is 2,000 euros per month. However, the licensee must announce this term extension in advance; it is not automatically extended. DRM protection appears to have a fixed duration.

If the game can reach more than 500,000 activations, an additional fee of 60,000 euros applies, so time is not limited. Compared to the prices leaked in 2016, fixed costs increase by 100 percent, but there are license fees of 15 cents per activation on Steam. In the case of Crysis, only 40 cents are charged per activation on the Chinese distribution platform WeGame. It is unclear, however, whether these conditions generally apply or are negotiated on a per-game basis.

A fixed fee of € 10,000 is required for each additional store in addition to the Epic Games Store where the product is offered with Denuvo. As Crysis can only be purchased from Epic at the moment, this point is not currently relevant.

Market-oriented offer

In this regard, it makes sense that the games, most recently Resident Evil 3, tacitly remove Denuvo after a certain number of months: a license is purchased which is valid for a limited time and protects the months with the highest sales in the life cycle. of a game. After that, it’s only worth keeping it to a limited extent because demand and purchase price, two important factors for the level of sales, decrease.

Removing copy protection is almost mandatory for economic reasons and rewards buyers with patience twice, because twelve months after launch the games are not only cheaper, corrected by updates, but also less invasive thanks to the elimination of Denuvo. This pricing structure also explains why the shooter’s temporary exclusivity – plus potential development grants or lower platform fees – makes sense in the Epic Games store: it avoids additional costs.