"Ghastly" EA new drm

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MorgothPl

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It looks like EA wants to keep up in being worst company and will not let Ubi take their place. According to Guru3d, they put activation limit. And yes, changing even one piece of hardware lowers your activation number. You put more memory, you are a pirate... And how dare you put new gpu in your system, you thief. Guru3d people write, that to properly test gpu setting on various cards, they would need 3 accounts. And imagine keeping this game as benchmark for hardware side...

Source: http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ea-infects-battlefield-hardline-with-new-ghastly-drm.html
 
Didn't bother with Anno mainly because of the DRM, won't look at EA titles with this DRM. Simple as that.
 
That is shitty. So what's the point in having multiple PCs in your home, and your games digital, if you can't play the game but on one PC? How is this type of DRM going to work if a person wants to play on a Nvidia Shield, on their living room HTPC, the gaming laptop they paid extra for when on business trips, and of course their gaming PC tower. People are getting more connected; not less!

EA is so damn backwards. Is the single player in that game so good that they would do some underhanded sneaky crap like this to their customers?
 
EA sure does like shooting themselves in the foot.

It's time for a full on boycott of their products.
 
I really thought we have moved away from this kind of crap. I suppose it's only destiny that EA or Ubisoft would be the ones bringing it back.
 
What's funny is people will keep buying their shit. So everyone here complaining about this is the minority.
 
OEM said:
What's funny is people will keep buying their shit. So everyone here complaining about this is the minority.
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Well... If that is the case then what you are saying is that EA is making the right choice. Could be, their sales will dictate what they do from here.
 
I wouldn't say they're making the right choice, but what I am saying is that its very likely this choice will barely influence their sales.
 
Wait, so if you upgrade your harddrive it counts towards activation limit?

Seriously, why should activations ever BE an issue now since you can only log in in 1 place at a time?

I am a little more open to DRM if it does not impede my gaming experiences in anyway, but even I find this to be exactly the same step backwards...

Anyone remember Red Alert 3 activation limit?
 
I don't get the surprise. That's one of the reasons they made origin and pulled their stuff from Steam. They wanted a bigger piece of the pie but they also wanted more control over the rentals you "purchased". Most company's wet dreams involve you paying every time you use the product or a monthly fee. EA is just salivating about Adobe and Autodesk having yearly/monthly fees to use their software, don't think they aren't trying to come up with a way to apply that towards games. The first steps are already here BTW, it's keywords are "cloud" and "stream". In a few years they are probably going to try to charge a monthly to access your account or extra features of your account to start. Kind of like PS+ on the PS3. The free account does most things in a basic capacity, but if you want anything else like matchmaking or faster downloads, you have to pay up. The idea will be to introduce those "features" slowly enough for you to begin to accept it without question, then slap on very low fees that they can then increase over time.
 
Yakk said:
Well... If that is the case then what you are saying is that EA is making the right choice. Could be, their sales will dictate what they do from here.
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Hasn't stopped them yet. They've been doing this shit for 6 years now and you keep buying their games. Obviously it isn't a big deal to the majority of you.
 
Climber said:
Hasn't stopped them yet. They've been doing this shit for 6 years now and you keep buying their games. Obviously it isn't a big deal to the majority of you.
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That's it.

You can post this in any DRM bitching thread that comes up because ultimately this is what happens.


I'll never understand why if a publisher is using Steam, Origin, or another service like that why anything else needs to be added to it past that. There is no point to it if you are already operating through a service like that.
 
Unless it's changed recently the limit is on changes per 24h. Reviewers ran into it with DA:I.

It's really only a problem for reviewers.
 
eloj said:
Unless it's changed recently the limit is on changes per 24h. Reviewers ran into it with DA:I.

It's really only a problem for reviewers.
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That's what it looks like. The idiot who wrote that article and to some extent the people in this thread can't seem to read the message provided right there in the picture in the article. It says nothing about having no more activations left, just that the copy has been accessed too many times on different PCs RECENTLY(read that word), and to TRY AGAIN LATER.

Are there issues with how they determine a "new" PC, yes, but theres nothing about a true activation limit here.
 
was considering buying the glorified dlc called Hardline this weekend after hearing how fun some of the new game modes are but this news just saved me $60 possibly $110 if you count the season pass bs for the whole game. Most people I have talked to say its a stopgap game anyways
 
eloj said:
Unless it's changed recently the limit is on changes per 24h. Reviewers ran into it with DA:I.

It's really only a problem for reviewers.
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It's pointless and redundant. For the people who own multiple PC in their home and have a gaming laptop for "business" it's fine for them to be SOL? There is no justification for it being there in the first place. This is the digital age and EA is treating their paying customers as criminals while thieves can do what they want as always. I see them in the same shoes as the recording labels; trying to hang on to the old ways when the world has sped off in a new direction. Pissing off reviewers is the last thing that EA should want.
 
xIronCrossx said:
That's what it looks like. The idiot who wrote that article and to some extent the people in this thread can't seem to read the message provided right there in the picture in the article. It says nothing about having no more activations left, just that the copy has been accessed too many times on different PCs RECENTLY(read that word), and to TRY AGAIN LATER.

Are there issues with how they determine a "new" PC, yes, but theres nothing about a true activation limit here.
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So is it fine that we have to login to an Origin account to authenticate that we own this library of games, but when we launch a game it says that we are thieves because we played it on multiple PCs during the day? Then what is the point in Origin if we're stuck at CD authentication practices?

All the system SHOULD do is send you an authentication code to your email or cellphone to verify that it's you on multiple PCs if the system thinks your Origin account is stolen. What the EA system is doing is telling the consumer that they are account sharing so here is a 24 hour timeout. Bad consumer! Slap on the wrist!

It's a blame the customer system. What happened to the old adage "The customer is always right." in retail? When are companies going to realize that they can get better press and mind share from catering to their customer's ever changing needs rather than slapping handcuffs on them?

Maybe I'm one of those not so smart people that is blind to the consumer benefits of this practice. Could someone please explain how getting locked out of a game for changing my hardware in the "Must authenticate / sign into a digital service to play" digital downloads era is beneficial to me?
 
xIronCrossx said:
That's what it looks like. The idiot who wrote that article and to some extent the people in this thread can't seem to read the message provided right there in the picture in the article. It says nothing about having no more activations left, just that the copy has been accessed too many times on different PCs RECENTLY(read that word), and to TRY AGAIN LATER.

Are there issues with how they determine a "new" PC, yes, but theres nothing about a true activation limit here.
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Its still stupidly pointless to have any kind of limit when the game is run through something like steam or origin. There is absolutely no reason for this. Its just a hassle for people that are testing systems or those that preload the software on multiple systems.
 
cageymaru said:
So is it fine that we have to login to an Origin account to authenticate that we own this library of games, but when we launch a game it says that we are thieves because we played it on multiple PCs during the day? Then what is the point in Origin if we're stuck at CD authentication practices?

All the system SHOULD do is send you an authentication code to your email or cellphone to verify that it's you on multiple PCs if the system thinks your Origin account is stolen. What the EA system is doing is telling the consumer that they are account sharing so here is a 24 hour timeout. Bad consumer! Slap on the wrist!

It's a blame the customer system. What happened to the old adage "The customer is always right." in retail? When are companies going to realize that they can get better press and mind share from catering to their customer's ever changing needs rather than slapping handcuffs on them?

Maybe I'm one of those not so smart people that is blind to the consumer benefits of this practice. Could someone please explain how getting locked out of a game for changing my hardware in the "Must authenticate / sign into a digital service to play" digital downloads era is beneficial to me?
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Exactly. There is no legit reason to defend EA or any other company for this crap.
 
cageymaru said:
It's pointless and redundant. For the people who own multiple PC in their home and have a gaming laptop for "business" it's fine for them to be SOL? There is no justification for it being there in the first place. This is the digital age and EA is treating their paying customers as criminals while thieves can do what they want as always. I see them in the same shoes as the recording labels; trying to hang on to the old ways when the world has sped off in a new direction. Pissing off reviewers is the last thing that EA should want.
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Switching between my laptop and desktop 8 times within 24 hours is not a very realistic usage scenario.

But it's true, usually drm annoys the crap out of legitimate users while pirates enjoy the game hassle-free.
 
cageymaru said:
It's pointless and redundant. For the people who own multiple PC in their home and have a gaming laptop for "business" it's fine for them to be SOL?
Click to expand...

I'm no fan of DRM, but if you're going to argue against it, at least argue about what's real, not strawmen.
 
eloj said:
I'm no fan of DRM, but if you're going to argue against it, at least argue about what's real, not strawmen.
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Since the game has to be played through Origin, what possible reason could there be for this except to annoy people with multiple systems into buying multiple copies on different accounts. I honestly can not think of any reason that Origin doesn't already take care of.
 
lol - Hardforum should be called Knee Jerk Forum..

this type of DRM has been around for a long time and wasn't first used in Hardline -

my Mass effect 1 had activation limits that reactivated on hardware changes

Mirrors Edge has activation limits and hardware change re-activation

infact that was a SecureRom 7 feature

SecureRom7 said:
SecuROM v7.x (activation based)

# Authentication: Once your game has been installed it needs to authenticate online before you can play the game.
# Re-authentication: The game needs to be re-authenticated when you download online content, game patches, or when significant changes to hardware take place. Upgrading or replacing, hard drives, graphics cards, CPU's, etc.. This also includes hard drive reformatting and bios updating, but not OS updates.
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This is nothing new and the [H] should know better than to click bait this one
 
eloj said:
I'm no fan of DRM, but if you're going to argue against it, at least argue about what's real, not strawmen.
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Well as a PC enthusiast I own a HTPC in my living room mainly for watching Twitch.tv, not one but 2 laptops, and of course a gaming PC. I am the only PC user in my home. I don't think that I'm a unique snowflake. I could only imagine if I had a couple of kids how many more devices I would have.

I can't find the hay in my statement. :D
 
H-street said:
lol - Hardforum should be called Knee Jerk Forum..

this type of DRM has been around for a long time and wasn't first used in Hardline -

my Mass effect 1 had activation limits that reactivated on hardware changes

Mirrors Edge has activation limits and hardware change re-activation

infact that was a SecureRom 7 feature



This is nothing new and the [H] should know better than to click bait this one
Click to expand...

Of course we know about Securom. It one of the reasons I have yet to play Crysis 1 that I purchased on Origin years ago. It keeps asking me for a fucking CD Rom. Origin support told me finally to ask the retailer I purchased it from for a refund after years of me pestering them for a fix.

How in the hell am I supposed to get a refund for a game I bought at least 3 or 4 years ago? Fuck Securom! No, I don't want to download some hack tools to remove it as sometimes they open backdoors on your PC.

Lastly, why does it exist when we have to authenticate Origin to even see what games we own in our Origin library?
 
H-street said:
lol - Hardforum should be called Knee Jerk Forum..

this type of DRM has been around for a long time and wasn't first used in Hardline -

my Mass effect 1 had activation limits that reactivated on hardware changes

Mirrors Edge has activation limits and hardware change re-activation

infact that was a SecureRom 7 feature



This is nothing new and the [H] should know better than to click bait this one
Click to expand...

Securom is utter garbage. While I've never hit an activation limit with ME1 or Mirror's Edge, I did hit one with Arkham City pre-Steamworks.

That said, I was under the assumption that most companies removed Securom and other 3rd Party DRM in favor of systems offered by their own distribution platforms (after all, why the fuck would you have Origin and Uplay when Steam does the same), but I guess I was wrong. If EA wants to keep drilling their users in the ass with a Thor dildo, that's their own prerogative, but it isn't "clickbait" at all to call them out on the bullshit of using a system that was already proven to be a mistake.
 
I'm not really bothered by this because I don't use Origin and have not purchased a EA game for years now. It is wonderful. Don't touch the poop.
 
A general comment about disdain towards DRM. A second comment about money. A third comment using tough talk and ultimatums.
 
Bought it on steam now, giving Steam the benefit of doubt on this one.

But, I am probably going to give my TW3 pre-purchase to GoG now, to even the scores a bit :p
 
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I know these methods have been used in the past but I thought digital services like Origin were supposed to eliminate this crap by tying your licences to your account. So as long as you're logged in it doesn't matter what you play on.
 
demingo said:
I know these methods have been used in the past but I thought digital services like Origin were supposed to eliminate this crap by tying your licences to your account. So as long as you're logged in it doesn't matter what you play on.
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Which is why this move is crap.

I can only use my Steam account on one computer at a time. My games are protected by Steam DRM (yes, Steam is DRM--just very good DRM that doesn't get in anyone's way). Therefore, I can conclude that Steam prevents piracy or account sharing by limiting access to one session.

So why, if EA has Origin that acts like Steam, limiting legitimate accounts to one session, do they need this additional step?

They don't.
 
EA doesn't care. People are going to buy the game and find out the hard way after several hardware changes, the game doesn't work anymore. EA is COUNTING on people being dumb and not reading the fine print.
 
I remember a few years back games would have activation limits...Crysis: Warhead and Bioshock 1 come to mind...there was a tool you could use to 'reset' your activations...eventually they eliminated the activations after the game was in the wild for a certain number of months
 
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