3DM

3DMGAME
Type of site
Game Localization, Cracked Games
Available inSimplified Chinese
HeadquartersFengtai District, Beijing, China
OwnerBeijing Sandingmeng Software Service Co., Ltd.
Created bySu, Feifei
Liu, Yan
CommercialYes
Launched2001 (2001)

3DM was a Chinese video game piracy group – a group of individuals specialized in cracking the digital rights management (DRM) applied to commercial PC video games. It was "one of the world's biggest" such groups in and around 2016, according to Kotaku.[1]

Their founder and leader is reported to be a woman using the pseudonym "Bird Sister" (Chinese: 不死鸟; pinyin: bù sǐ niǎo; lit. 'phoenix'). Unusual for piracy groups, 3DM's members have public profiles on the social network Sina Weibo, and use a blog to inform the public about their activities.[2]

History

3DM made gaming media headlines in January 2016 when Bird Sister wrote that she anticipated that in two years no more cracked games would be available, attributing this shift to new DRM technology by Denuvo, then being adopted by many games publishers.[3] The group also announced that it would quit cracking games for a year,[1] and later claimed it had defeated Denuvo's technology.[4]

In 2017, Japanese game developer Koei Tecmo won a lawsuit against 3DM in a Chinese court. 3DM was sentenced to $245,000 U.S. dollars in damages, and to cease distribution of pirated versions of Koei Tecmo's games.[5][6]

References

  1. ^ a b Plunkett, Luke (2 February 2016). "One Of The World's Biggest PC Piracy Groups Is Quitting The Game". Kotaku. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  2. ^ Klepek, Patrick (17 February 2016). "The Anti-Piracy Tech That's Giving Hackers Fits". Kotaku. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  3. ^ Purchese, Robert (8 January 2016). "Finally, tide turns in war with PC game crackers". Eurogamer. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  4. ^ "Hang on…..3DM Now Suggest They've Cracked Denuvo". TorrentFreak. 11 February 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  5. ^ Ashcraft, Brian (15 November 2017). "Tecmo Koei Defeats Major Chinese Piracy Group". Kotaku. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  6. ^ "Koei wins China lawsuit over pirated 'Three Kingdoms' games". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 2021-03-08.


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