We’ve seen quite a few complaints from gamers this past weekend, unable to load up and play games on the蒸汽platform. The problem wasn’t hackers, or DDoS attacks, or anything else. Rather, the issue is something bundled with the game by default designed to keep titles “secure” from tampering. When something simple is overlooked, the fallout can be significant and that’s what we’re going to dig into.

What is Digital Rights Management?

This is something generally designed to protect copyrighted works or certain types of hardware. You’ve almost certainly encountered it going about your daily business. If you bought MP3 files from a music store but were unable to copy the files to different drives, or they only used the store’s own music player? That’s DRM. If you tried to copy a DVD and were prevented? That too is DRM.

如果您试图盗用视频游戏，并且您的所有尝试都受到挫败？绝对是DRM。这些年来，游戏陆上有很多奇特的DRM战术。谁能忘记Monkey Island’s Dial-A-Pirate? With always-on internet, things aren’t quite so peculiar anymore. Everything is typically done with software and digital/hardware identity verification.

多种形式的DRM

There are many different types of DRM for video games. Some of them are called plain old DRM. Others may be anti-tamper, or anti-cheat. Some might be a combination of all three.

One company, Denuvo,doesn’t want to be seen as DRM, and emphasizes the anti-tamper approach. Eventually, everything gets cracked. It’s one of those inevitable happenings. At that point, the DRM/anti-tamper/anti-cheat people go back to the drawing board. They then come back with something designed to last a little longer. And on it goes.

Still, whether you call it DRM, or anti-tamper, or anything else: if something goes wrong, the game(s) may not work for a while. Sometimes there arehotly contested claims关于游戏性能，或退化某些类型的硬盘驱动器。无论您对自己的看法这些问题, if the game has something bundled in as DRM/anti-tamper, you’re stuck with it. Unless the developer relents and you don’t intend to sail the piracy high-seas, it’s a case of learning to live with the additions.

What happens when the additions fall over?

DRM additions to games have been in the news recently. Roughly 50 games broke on the new Alder Lake CPUs due to Denuvo technot being compatible。该软件看到了两种类型的内核，并认为它们来自不同的PC，而不是同一处理器。在这一点上，游戏将退出或崩溃，因为保护软件认为有人试图在两台PC上共享同一游戏密钥。

这绝对不是最佳的，只能通过解决方案和/或官方补丁来解决，所有这些都需要时间。但是，情况肯定会变得更糟。

When things get worse

曾经有多个报告游戏突然破裂，或者not being bootableon Sunday. The key factor between all the titles affected was that they used some form of Denuvo. For example, Back 4 Blood uses theanti-tamper system。So what happened to these games?

Expiration notice

好吧，绝对不是黑客或某种形式的恶作剧。

DRM or anti-tamper systems will usually validate the install of a game on a PC the first time it runs. It may also do something similar anytime the game or the operating system updates, or you install the game onto another PC. Some games will only allow you to install on a handful of systems simultaneously. They may go down a different route and grant you a certain number of installs. Once you use them all up, you might have to contact the game developer for a new batch of installs, or re authenticate your account.

Why did so many games apparently break at the weekend? Fingers are pointing at a域名注册混乱。似乎没有续订用于某种形式的身份验证的URL。它可能进入了一种宽限期，然后一旦通过，一切都按预期停止运行。

尽管存在这种状况，但许多游戏根本不再起作用。所讨论的游戏是单人游戏或多人游戏标题都没关系。现在已经更新了有关域，游戏再次工作，所以这是个好消息。那些神经紧张的人可能希望假装新的到期日期已经提前几年，而不是2022年。

可以possiblygo wrong…