📰 New article from TorrentFreak
Game Industry Asks U.S. to Flag Denuvo Cracker ‘voices38’ as Notorious Piracy Threat
### The Hunt for the Ghost in the Machine
Usually, when the U.S. government talks about “notorious piracy markets,” they’re pointing fingers at big, flashy torrent sites or shady streaming portals. But this year, the gaming industry is playing a different game entirely.
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is asking the U.S. to officially label a mysterious figure known as “voices38” as a major piracy threat. Unlike a website you can simply block, voices38 is an anonymous cracker—the “upstream” source that breaks Denuvo anti-tamper technology.
The logic is simple: without the crack, there is no product. By labeling the individual rather than just the sites that host the files, the ESA hopes to trigger a massive crackdown on the digital footprints, donation channels, and social media accounts that keep the operation running.
It’s not just a hunt for ghosts, though. The ESA is also throwing heat at:
- FitGirl: The massive repacking site that the industry claims has cost them over $1 billion in hypothetical losses.
- Emulation Handhelds: Labeling pre-loaded devices (like Anbernic) as “superfakes” because they arrive stuffed with pirated games.
- Cheat Sellers: Arguing that hardware like Cronus Zen belongs on a piracy list because it circumvents game protections.
Whether the USTR actually adds a “person” to a list of “markets” remains to be seen, but the industry is clearly tired of playing whack-a-mole.