Pirates attempting to crack the latest PC games are finding it more difficult than ever, according to a report from TorrentFreak, and it's causing some well-known cracking groups to consider giving up the effort.

Over the last 18 months in particular there were a number of releases that took an unusually long time to crack. It took pirates over a month to crack Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is much longer than the norm, while more recent games like FIFA 16 (released in September) and Just Cause 3 (released in December) haven't been cracked at all.

A member of Chinese cracking group 3DM, speaking to TorrentFreak, said that one member of the group nearly gave up trying to crack Just Cause 3 because the DRM technology implemented was too strong. The member added that "in two years time I'm afraid there will be no free games to play in the world" due to the increasing strength of encryption technology.

Just Cause 3 and the other aforementioned games use a technology known as Denuvo, which is a secondary encryption system designed to strengthen the existing DRM in many games. Unlike older DRM solutions, Denuvo is generally not obtrusive or annoying for legitimate paying customers, which makes it particularly valuable for game publishers.

If developers continue to use technologies such as Denuvo, we might never see the days where PC games were cracked at or even before launch again. This could make the PC a more attractive and profitable platform, which will only improve the experience for PC gamers in the long run.