EA Infects Battlefield: Hardline with ghastly new DRM. UPDATE: it's Origin DRM

[qubit]

That's the headline from Guru3D who are really pissed off with this. Update: it's actually Origin DRM. See SaltyFish's post below.

Looks like this game is gonna give a hard time to hardware reviewers and gamers who swap machines or even just graphics cards too many times.

The best bit of course, is that EA didn't bother to make this DRM clear before purchase, tsk. I may not have bought it had I known it was there although I don't change my hardware especially often, I object to it on principle. Obviously, EA knew it would depress sales if they came clean about it, so they didn't and now it's blown up in their faces. Idiots.

Here's what EAs DRM is doing these days, EA does not just verify the number of PCs you work on slash use, no Sir .. they monitor hardware changes inside your PC now, which I am sure is a privacy breach on many levels. So once we insert new hardware CPU / mobo / graphics cards or even a system firmware flash the hardware id # hash changes and if that happens a couple of times EA will render your game activation invalid. From what we now have learned, you get to have 5 hardware changes per license. Use them up and access to the game will be blocked for 24 hours per activation.

Guru3D

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WCCFtech covered Guru3D's article and had this to say about it, which I fully agree with:

Origin page for Battlefield: Hardline doesn’t mention anything about this annoying digital rights management system. Many find this really besides the point, as one who legitimately pays hard-earned bucks for a game should be able to at least enjoy the freedom of playing it on any/multiple PCs. It is hard to see how this act will help EA make things easy for its fans, all it might do is annoy its PC consumer base.

This is a controversial and important subject, so please try not to get into flamewars or personal attacks against me or anyone else aka "don't give the mods anything to do".

 

[Steevo]

I guess I fail to understand the advantage of this DRM. For example Steam allows you to install to multiple PC's, but only one can be playing at a time on a game, unless you are in the offline mode, so I could play on my main rig, my laptop, an office computer, a friends computer to show them the game(s) and wherever else I want.

One could argue it prevents piracy in the same way that getting your car impounded for changing its tires or engine, or seats, or radio, or getting it painted would cause it to be impounded, which it doesn't result in at all, so normal life rules don't apply and the DRM is still shit.

 

[qubit]

Nice one, Steevo. Yes, Steam's DRM works well this way, so why did EA have to go full retard? You can imagine the team meetings when they were putting together the game, with the people who didn't want this DRM facepalming and banging their heads against a wall as the pro group got their way, likely their managers.

This game already has only average reviews, so it really doesn't need a shitty DRM scandal to depress sales further.

 

[SaltyFish]

Here's an update.

Yesterday, reports emerged suggesting that Battlefield Hardline contained an activation limit. Guru3D was the source of the story, who, in benchmarking Battlefield Hardline's graphics and performance, encountered this error message:

Guru3D assumed this was a specific DRM check by Battlefield Hardline—likening it to the hard activation limits once imposed by Ubisoft in games like Anno 2070. (Or of previous EA games like Spore.)
In fact, the error is the result of an Origin-wide activation check. An EA spokesperson told PC Gamer that, "Origin authentication allows players to install a game on up to five different PCs every 24 hours."

"Players looking to benchmark more than five hardware configurations in one 24 hour period can contact our Customer Support team who can help," the spokesperson said.

Is that better or worse? On the one hand, if the Origin client is responding to graphics card changes, that's hardly the same as "five different PCs". On the other hand, is such an activation limit something an average PC user is going to be affected by? Probably not.

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/battlefield-hardline-doesnt-have-an-activation-limit/

By the way, qubit, you seem to enjoy such news articles. Been on Ars Technica much lately? They've taken a heavy activist stance (to the detriment of their general credibility IMHO) and they're looking for folks in the UK.

 

[qubit]

Great update there, SF. I've now updated the thread title and my OP to reflect this.

I had wondered about this when I posted, but since this is a forum post and not a news article, I don't have to spend much time and effort to thoroughly fact check it, hehe. Amd yeah, controversial stories are the most interesting and grabby. Newspapers thrive on them after all.

I don't look at Ars all that much nowadays, but their hardcore stance sounds interesting and I may not necessarily agree with it. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

 

[manofthem]

EA sauce is incredibly weak! This is a terrible limitation, and while I don't ever see myself being affected by it, I don't see any benefit to it or the reasoning on how it prevents piracy, as @Steevo said.

Plus, BF Hardline is a real winner