Battlefield: Hardline DRM Locks You Out For Hardware Changes

[Metalrocks]

have to admit that changing your hardware 8 times in a row is not very common but locking down an account is ridicules. good thing i had no issues when my pc had an sudden crash because my older gpu broke on me and after installing my new gpu, i had no issues what so ever playing all my games i have on origin.

 

[TheEmissary]

Do we really know what counts as a hardware change? In the past things like updating drivers or updating to service pack have triggered issues like this in other DRM systems. Do we even know what pieces of hardware other than CPU and GPU that are used to generate the hashes? So don't be so quick to think this is a non-issue.

EA/Origin already has a perfectly fine account-based drm solution and little need for this. As long as the account is only being used by the owner and on one machine at a time I don't see why EA would care enough to implement this.

 

[Kameburger]

Considering it is 8 changes and it will be ok in a few hours, I don't think there is too much to complain about it. Probably the people who are effected most by it would be journalists reporting on it. At least that's my feeling. That being said it's just representative of the philosophy of companies who employ DRM these days that would rather deal with a little back lash from over stepping a bit, rather than take the time to find an acceptable alternative before hand. In EA's case of course they've torched whole franchises to so how invasive they could make DRM. See who buys the next SimCity if one ever gets made.

 

[Lightknight]

If it does work again after awhile then this is pretty much a non-issue and is actually an interesting non-invasive way to stop mass distribution.

To what end? I can install and run my Steam games on as many PC's as I want in as short a period of time as I want. Hasn't hurt Valve's or anyone elses business any. So it seems like a solution to a problem that either doesn't exist or is so miniscule it's not worth worrying about.

Have you ever installed and played a game on as many as 8 machines in, let's say, one day?

The idea is this, one copy distributed in mass would trigger the flag. One copy distributed to a handful of people wouldn't. So this doesn't even stop minor pirates but it does stop major piracy and the ingenuity of the DRM is not reliant on the game code so it may be one of the first cases of DRM that isn't going to get cracked as fast as the previous ones for a number of reasons unless someone figures out a way to increment the versions of their copy so the server thinks they're different copies. That's also assuming they didn't account for that as well and have created a range of acceptable licenses.

I'm sorry if just the notion that you can't run around and install it on every machine you know about is some kind of evil DRM even if you're not going to ever do that but this is one of the very few times that EA is being really smart and non-invasive in a way we should find acceptable. That is, of course, assuming that the period of time is limited and not done in years or actually eternal.

Don't get me wrong, I hate EA, but this is a significantly positive step in making sure their DRM only harms non-customers in the vast majority of scenarios. You read the article, just to test this they had to create multiple accounts and actually work on making this happen. This isn't the same DRM of old that made me swear off all EA games and especially those specific to Origin. A swear that I am still holding to. For example, still haven't played ME3. Won't unless it drops the Origin requirement. Want to play the game, but not going to deal with their shit.

 

[Lightknight]

Do we really know what counts as a hardware change? In the past things like updating drivers or updating to service pack have triggered issues like this in other DRM systems. Do we even know what pieces of hardware other than CPU and GPU that are used to generate the hashes? So don't be so quick to think this is a non-issue.

EA/Origin already has a perfectly fine account-based drm solution and little need for this. As long as the account is only being used by the owner and on one machine at a time I don't see why EA would care enough to implement this.

Could just be MAC address. To know for sure I'd need to test it with VMs where I've spoofed the MAC to match. But, I don't really want to...

Considering it is 8 changes and it will be ok in a few hours, I don't think there is too much to complain about it. Probably the people who are effected most by it would be journalists reporting on it. At least that's my feeling. That being said it's just representative of the philosophy of companies who employ DRM these days that would rather deal with a little back lash from over stepping a bit, rather than take the time to find an acceptable alternative before hand. In EA's case of course they've torched whole franchises to so how invasive they could make DRM. See who buys the next SimCity if one ever gets made.

This simply isn't the sort of DRM we've been upset with in the past. For once, this only impacts rapid installations of the game across multiple machines. It finally doesn't impact single customers that maybe install it on three machines (computer 1, computer 2, gaming laptop).

I get that we've all pitchforked EA on the regular and they have generally been the scummiest of scum. But this simply isn't anything to make a fuss about. Had they limited it to two computers? Sure. But 8? No, that stops mass production. Even journalists shouldn't be affected by that. They send out review copies to various journalists, any one of those journalists shouldn't be handing the copy around to 8 machines or more.

So try again. Who does this actually harm? How does 8 simultaneous machines not more than constitute fair license use? I think we may finally have one of the least invasive forms of DRM that actually does something useful. It took those assholes awhile to get there, but I just hope this is where it ends. This is a really smart way to force two factor authentication. If it's just an MAC spoofing problem then there's an easy work around for techs like me but the average joe just downloading a pirated copy isn't going to have the expertise to spoof their MAC. So this is a long time coming brilliant solution, eloquent even. It's done in a way that doesn't harm people like me. You know, people that actually spend money on games. So this hits all the requirements I've had for DRM to coexist peacefully. Doesn't hinder my ability to play the game and actually serves a purpose that isn't easily crackable.

 

[gridsleep]

Trip Hawkins was to Electronic Arts what Jack Tramiel was to Commodore Business Machines. When he left the company, the company just turned to crap and it has been that way ever since. Jack Tramiel might have made sure we would all be using Amigas today and that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would have been footnotes.

 

[superline51]

This system is implemented to combat cheating, not piracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2EeN1JJ5lw

 

[StorkV]

So.... Overpriced expansion is worst than expected? Ha ha!

 

[Schlorgan]

Nice job on the journalism guys, The Know's Adam Kovic and Bruce Greene did a better job of investigating this.
https://youtu.be/T2EeN1JJ5lw

 

[Belated]

"EA LOCKS USERS OUT FOR CHANGING HARDWARE!!!!!"

"but only after 8 times or so in a short period of time"

"oh and then it works again after a while"

Jesus, what happened to you guys?

I know right? These article titles are getting more and more misleading, and now they're just talking up an issue that very few people are likely to experience. Look I get that tech bloggers and games journalists or whatever need a lot of machines to test, but besides them, who else owns eight computers? Even an advanced user only usually has up to four. Most end-users are only really interested in testing a game until they get it to work. I'm not saying what EA is doing is right, but let's try not to bait people into an unnecessary rage.

 

[Signa]

I would like to know the time limit before I judge, but this seems reasonable. The only thing I can gripe about is wondering how much money they spent on adding this system to the game when it's obviously not going to thwart piracy.