14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that Electronic Arts' digital distribution platform Origin, required in order to play some of the company's games, can lock you out if you change your hardware configuration too often.
This was discovered by Guru 3D while undergoing some benchmarking tests for the recently released first-person shooter Battlefield Hardline, Visceral's cops and robbers twist on the traditionally military-themed action franchise.
It seems that if you change your hardware configuration (swap out graphics cards, etc.) more than five times during a single 24-hour period, Origin automatically locks you out of your game.
It turns out that Origin authentication enables users to install a video game on up to five different computers every 24 hours, and that players who are looking to benchmark more hardware configurations have to contact EA's customer support department.
This doesn't apply if you're installing the game on many systems over a longer period of time though, and although it may seem similar to Ubisoft's nefarious DRM practices, which restricted Anno 2070 to a certain number of installations, this time around the culprits might be the players.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
EA and DICE have long since been plagued by cheaters, and Battlefield 4 is infamous for the rampant use of third-party apps that can make you invincible or see to walls and aimbots.
The companies decided to ban players using their HWIDs (hardware IDs), so that they wouldn't be able to play the game they were banned from even if they did buy another copy, and the five different PCs per day rule has been instated in order to circumvent the use of tools assisting users in circumventing hardware bans, as reported by BF4Central.
It seems that, at least this one time, the DRM-related woes are not caused by the evil corporation behind Battlefield, but by the wicked members of its community. While some people might interpret this as yet another brazen step to alienate the PC community, other might see it as a necessary step in order to ensure a fair playing field for EA's customers.