Battlefield: Hardline DRM will lock your account if it registers too many hardware changes

[Achilleslastand]

http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015...rdware-changes

PC hardware site Guru3D has discovered DRM hidden within Battlefield: Hardline that kicks off if the game detects you changing your hardware multiple times, locking your account.
Site runner Hilbert Hagedoorn discovered the software after testing out Hardline's performance on multiple graphics cards. Understandably, he's not best pleased.



"Here's what EAs DRM is doing," Hagedoorn writes. "They don't just verify the number of PCs you work on slash use, nope .. they dare to monitor hardware changes now, which I am sure is a privacy breach on many levels. So once we insert new hardware (graphics cards) the hardware id # hash changes and if that happes a couple of times they are rendering your activation invalid."
The message reads; "Too many computers have accessed this account's version of Battlefield: Hardline Digital Deluxe Edition recently. Please try again later."
As Hagedoorn points out, this essentially renders the kind of performance testing that he specialises in impossible. At the time of his post Hagedoorn had been locked out of the game for around four hours, and the warning message he was issued with mentioned no set time period for the ban. It's also not clear just how many hardware changes are allowed before the DRM kicks in.Which is really besides the point. If you buy a game legitimately, surely you should be able to do whatever you want with the PC you're running it on? Hard to see how EA is going to do anything but annoy its PC consumer base with this move. Much like Ubisoft did when it put a similar system in Anno 2070

[gastovski]

Nothing surprising here, it's about "control" anyway.

[TheDarkKnight]

That's...different

This might be a flaw in an otherwise decent idea to prevent people from sharing accounts/games but this is definitely something that should be fixed.

[gastovski]

What is wrong with sharing. Do i have to pay everything to damn corporations all the time?.

Even Angry Joe ranted big time about this when Xbox1 announced.

[The Despondent Mind]

What if I travel a lot and play my game on different rigs?

I'm sorry I just have nothing but disgust for this.

[Destin Faroda]

A video game site was not very happy about this DRM. They used a test system and constantly switched hardware - especially the graphics card - to see if it works well on all kinds of hardware. Big fail! What else to expect from EA?

[Phier]

What is wrong with sharing. Do i have to pay everything to damn corporations all the time?.

Damn those people, wanting to get paid for their product!

[TheDarkKnight]

What is wrong with sharing. Do i have to pay everything to damn corporations all the time?.

Even Angry Joe ranted big time about this when Xbox1 announced.

Damn those people, wanting to get paid for their product!

This. The company loses money if some guy loans his account to friends so they can play it to completion, thereby not buying it on their own.

You cannot tell me you would not be upset if you were in the position of the game company.

[The Despondent Mind]

This. The company loses money if some guy loans his account to friends so they can play it to completion, thereby not buying it on their own.

You cannot tell me you would not be upset if you were in the position of the game company.

So should my car breakdown when my friend borrows it? Should my phone shutdown when somebody else touches it? Or the microwave or the hair dryer ?

[Wulfburk]

So should my car breakdown when my friend borrows it? Should my phone shutdown when somebody else touches it? Or the microwave or the hair dryer ?

Rep this guy people, even if he does not takes it!

[Manco]

And this whole thing's bogus.
It resets every 24 hours, so basically you can install it on 5 PC's every day, or replace parts 5 times a day that would change the hardware id hash.

While irritating for benchmark enthusiasts, hardly the draconic DRM it's made out to be

[IZob]

What is wrong with sharing. Do i have to pay everything to damn corporations all the time?.

Even Angry Joe ranted big time about this when Xbox1 announced.

Define sharing. Between 2 or 3 people? Will those people share the game as well?

What if its sharing with thousands of people? and then, they share as well.

Thus DRM.

[Hamata]

E.A are the fast food of the gaming industry crap games and overly priced