James Batchelor UK Editor Thursday 23rd August 2018 Share this article Share

Denuvo has quietly announced it is expanding into anti-cheat technology as well as anti-piracy.

The company behind the divisive DRM of the same name said this software is "soon to be launched" and will "prevent hackers in multiplayer games from manipulating and distorting data and code to gain an advantage over other gamers."

There are no details yet on how it will accomplish this, but Denuvo promises publishers and developers that it will also stop players from bypassing in-game microtransactions and "prevent dilution of the value of the game for the user and the game studio."

The news is somewhat buried in the announcement that Denuvo has joined the Esports Integrity Coalition, an organisation dedicated to clamping down on cheating and corruption within professional competitive tournaments.

Denuvo parent Irdeto, which acquired the firm earlier this year, revealed that more than half of games in the UK and Germany - 61 per cent in each territory - have suffered at the hands of cheating in multiplayer games. Even more respondents - 74 per cent in the UK, 68 per cent in Germany - said there were likely to stop playing an online game if they felt other players had an advantage via cheating.

The company's DRM software is already notorious among PC gaming communities, who believe the measures taken to protect piracy actually hinder a game's performance, with some individuals finding workarounds to bypass the software. Denuvo was recently involved in an investigation concerning one such individual, which led to an arrest.