Crash 4's DRM Broken in One Day

PC gaming is often considered to be one of the best ways to play, but it does have its drawbacks. For one, a high-quality PC gaming rig tends to be a lot more expensive than getting a console. Secondly, bad PC ports continue to plague many games, despite being an issue you’d think we’d have solved by now. And finally: DRM, or anti-pirating software, continues to be used by developers despite the fact they never, ever work.

In theory, DRM is a way to prevent players from pirating a game. In practice, all it does is create roadblocks and annoyances for players who do buy the game legally, and do nothing to stop actual pirates. Case in point: it was just revealed the other day that the PC port of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time’s DRM, which was added in spite of fan protest, was cracked after one day. Just one day. Blizzard probably spent a lot of money and time on that DRM, only to have it cracked in one day. Just one, 24-hour period.

Even worse, the hacker who produced the crack, Empress, went on to basically say that the only reason they bothered breaking the game was because Activision-Blizzard tried to stop them with the player-unfriendly DRM.
 

"this is just the RESULT of the philosophies everyone was making fun of. This is what happens when I 'Execute' and 'Apply' them on my cracking. I hope this release makes people smile."

Activision-Blizzard is no stranger to being total jerks, so while I’m happy to see a fan pull one over them, I very much doubt they’ll learn anything from this. And frankly, of all the lessons they should have learned over the years, “Don’t introduce crappy DRM” is probably the least consequential.

But we take what we can get around here, I guess.