Back in 2012, Ubisoft was criticized for the DRM system used in Anno 2070; a really annoying DRM that locked the game whenever there was a certain number of hardware changes made to a computer (like changing your graphics cards). Obviously, this draconical DRM frustrated everyone and it appears that Visceral’s latest Battlefield game is plagued by a similar DRM.
As Guru3D discovered while it was benchmarking Battlefield: Hardline, the game packs a DRM system that completely locks the game.
“Here’s what EAs DRM is doing, 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 (CPU / mobo or graphics cards) the hardware id # hash changes and if that happens a couple of times they are rendering your activation invalid.”
This lock mechanism appeared after eight (or so) GPU replacements. Now while we are certain that this issue won’t affect most users (I mean, come on, will you change eight GPUs and still be playing Battlefield: Hardline?) we have to question the reasons behind this decision.
Bottom line is that this DRM decision won’t benefit EA or Visceral as it’s well known that most PC gamers do not welcome such ‘draconical’ DRM systems.
Our PC Performance Analysis article for Battlefield: Hardline will go live later today or tomorrow, so stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
Oh, EA. You never learn, do you?
Oh, EA. Just when I thought you had a relatively peaceful 2014 and that Ubisoft had become the new EA you go back to being like the old EA we all love and dearly missed.
They never change. Don’t believe their lies.
picture this, this game in 10 years or so will become absolute, unplayable because of this.
EA is like most other big game companies nowadays, they cater to the console market and their short attention spans by releasing the same crap every 1-2 years. Gone are the days of BF 1942 and BF2 where they would design the game around PC and give it the support and tools to sustain an active community for at least a decade.
Regardless, nobody will be playing this a year from now.
I will.
That’s the best thing. You won’t be. Because EA games are f’ing trash
I will be. Played BF3 and BF4 one year from release, Hardline will be no different.
Ea… is that you?
I find this totally acceptable and more then sure this would be worked out with a single phone call to customer support. If it helps against piracy or cheating/hacking then go ahead and see what hardware im running. It should also allow them to get a better idea of the machines most people play on (just like Steam does already).
Hardware monitoring, maybe, but locking you out for a certain number of changes? No, that’s BS.
Again, if it helps out with hacking/piracy/multi sharing that is not a bad thing. Please tell me what normal person changes the system 8 times within the lifespan of a game…. no one…
it wont help hacking. GTAV on current gen consoles filled with hackers. lots of MMOs and online only games like H1Z1 filled with hackers.
maybe someone likes to change his or her hardwares more than 8 time, he or she must be punished for that ? and what’s the lifespan of a game ? i’m still playing red alert 2 sometimes. so with your logic i should throw my games in garbage every few years or less and if i want to play them again i should pay for them again.
People who benchmark, people who have unknown faulty components and may be swapping them in and out to test, people who order components and then need to RMA for whatever reason, people who decide to switch GPU manufactures or want to try out RAM from other manufactures at other frequencies, people who don’t want to be denied a product they already fucking paid for because of EA’s nonsensical bullshit.
That’s a really bad argument. There is no reason to track hardware. You already have 1 account and can only log in in 1 place at the same time.
It’s just unnecessary. Plus Steam has already proven that to fight piracy you don’t need stricter DRM. To fight piracy you need competitive prices and good content.
Honestly 8 changes of the configuration with a game like Harldine are more than enough. I do not think that in 2-3 years we will have a lot of people playing this title. And probably EA, 6 months from now, we’ll issue a patch taking out this DRM. Sometimes they need it just to go through the first weeks of sale
“single phone call to customer support”
from where ? how can i call EA from middle east ? and how much more that will cost ? you people are just stupid, plain and simple
EA has simple to use web support…. cost nothing, you are already paying for internet. Mute point….
it’s still bad. DRM won’t stop hacking but it stops modding. in this case which you love, it take away your rights to own the game you bought. why the hell i should want EA’s support ? free or not, a healthy human mind don’t want to pay 60$ for a game and wait for the support and it don’t want a company like EA to spying on you with all sorts of online restrictions or spywares and such.
You are a very special sheep. Ea loves you
Reminds me of the 10 activation limits that DCS World is using even though it’s on Steam. From the Steam forum I noticed that the hardcore fans just shrug it off although I don’t like the idea of us have to tell the dev(deactivating the game) every time we’re moving the game to another PC.
It feels as if the dev don’t really trust us.
I believe that with DCS if you reach 0 activations remaining you then get 1 activation/month back up to 10 activations total. Combined with the 8(?) deactivations that means you can use 18 resets. I never upgrade my PC and build a new one every 2 years so the 18 reactivations is fine for me, but I can still see how these limits on activations of any game can be a real pain!
That’s the problem. It feels like your game is running on borrowed times even though we know we still have a lot of activations left.
I bought the retail version of A-10 before DCS World came to Steam and I burned through half of it’s activations in mere months. Granted it was my fault for buying and installing the game during a time when I was still upgrading a PC but that was just one part of the problem. The other part that caused me to use up a lot of activations was installing the game in both my PC and laptop. The DRM doesn’t like that so I’m limited to play it on one device.
I was hoping that DCS World’s appearance on Steam would mean that they would drop the limiting DRM and allow me to play their games across several of my devices. Unfortunately the DRM is still there.
it’s not just hardware changes. when i changed my gpu i couldn’t play DragonAgeI for days because of reasons, then i activated it again, now every weeks it asks me to activate DragonAge and it gives me an error unless i try 100times. i used a crack to be able to play a game that i was paid for. tbh i just don’t care anymore, i’m done with this bulls**t, EA/Ubisoft…
Trying to refund this POS game via Paypal because the 24h good game guarantee or whatever the hell it’s called wasn’t working for me, EA wouldn’t reply to any emails and their live chat was in an infinite queue every day that i tried it.
Of course! They got your money, they don’t give a crap!
Another reason for me not to buy this game. This game has to be the most underwelming Battlefield i’ve seen. Why dont publisher rest IPs for a few years between games and invest in new ones? Take a risk and the might hit a jackpot game franchise like Rockstar have with GTA. Rarely release new games, but when they do, they blow previous sale records out the water.
EA and Ubisoft playing tag.
And still the game sold well on the PC and consoles. 🙁
The DRM used is Denuvo Anti-Tamper according to the Battlefield Hardline EULA.
Denuvo DRM is also used on some other recent EA titles including Dragon Age: Inquisition, FIFA 14, and FIFA 15.
lol denuvo again …
It’s a crappy game anyway. I won’t play this game at all! Have you all seen the video reviews for this game? Single player is forgettable and multiplayer has exploits to level up fast. Multiplayer is lacking in content and they have the audacity to charge full price for this game!
A game can have multiple DRMs
I believe GTAV has Denuvo, too.
There are so many games and life is too short to take the aggravation of greedy idiots who think they can milk their own customers.
Some years age I simply stopped buying EA, Ubisoft and 2K games.
I never regretted it for a moment.
Wow! Unplayable after hardware changes? Thats the “best” idea ever! Keep up the “amazing” ideas EA! Your “awesome”!
Strange, been on steam for 11 years, and since then – I upgraded to a new PC about every 2-3 years or so. So, let’s say that I have at least completed 5 or 6 CPU changes, maybe 3 cases and probably close to a new Video Card every 2 years. So, Steam still works with no issues…. Another reason why I refused to purchase Dragon Age 3 or BFH. Will wait it out and pick them up in the bargain bin…
We all be pirates arggg 🙂