Crytek spent a lot of time and effort trying to future proof Crysis Remastered. Most of that effort was spent making the game look as visually stunning as possible (to the point where only the most modern of graphics cards can even hope to play the game at max settings), but no small amount was also spent trying to prevent Crysis from getting hacked.
And then Crysis Remastered got hacked anyway. A hacker group calling themselves Egregor actually got ransomware into Crytek's systems and made off with untold gigabytes of data. Some of that data related to Crytek's business dealings with Denuvo, a company that's become synonymous with invasive anti-tamper and digital rights management software.
According to the documents leaked on Reddit, Crytek will spend about €140,000 for 12 months of Denuvo's protection. The pricing structure is set up such that most of the cost is paid upfront, with a drastic drop in price after the first few months of release. Most of that €140,000--about €126 000, in fact--will be paid before March 31, 2021, just six months after Crysis Remastered released.
After 12 months of Denuvo protection, monthly fees bottom out at €2,000 per month. These low fees likely represent how little value Denuvo will provide developers as few games remain uncracked a year after their release. Some, such as Doom Eternal, get cracked just a few months following their launch dates.
The Reddit post also shows how much of a departure Denuvo's current pricing structure is compared to just a few years ago. Back in 2016, Denuvo charged developers and publishers a lump-sum for AAA games selling over 500,000 units on PC, and a smaller sum for smaller indie games. There was also a per-unit approach where Denuvo charged per each game sold on Steam.
Clearly, neither structure represented long-term stability for Denuvo, so they switched to a subscription-based model with a rapidly decreasing subscription cost.
In the same hack, Watch Dogs Legion saw its entire sourcecode released on the dark web. We haven’t heard similar reports about Crysis Remastered, but there’s no telling what data Egregor still has in its data stores.
Source: Reddit