14 DAY TRIAL // A well known hacker group has released a cracked version of Battlefield 3, the latest first person shooter from developer DICE and publisher Electronic Arts, which does not need to use the Origin service in order to work.
The well known pirate collective known as Razor 1911 has managed to get into the executable and support files for Battlefield 3 and remove all the links to the Origin digital distribution service.
The group is also saying that it has done this because the Origin addition was working like a sort of trojan horse, which allowed Electronic Arts access to the computers of those gamers who were interested in playing the first person shooter.
The statement from the group which comes with the cracked release says, “This release is dedicated to our fans worldwide who bought this game on [sic] legal way and don't want to install the trojan from Electronic Arts to play online.”
The publisher has not reacted to the cracked release but the move will only reinforce the image that PC releases are affected by piracy and might no longer be profitable for companies.
EA is not the only company which links its games to a digital distribution service as for some time those developers who are using the Steamworks middleware suite from Valve require gamers to install and run Steam.
So far Battlefield 3 has not been launched on Steam because EA believes the terms of service to be too restrictive.
Battlefield 3 is the first big launch for the Origin service, which already has more than 6 million users and will get third party video games during November.
Electronic Arts has announced that during its first week on sale Battlefield 3 has managed to sell 5 million copies, which is a new record for the series, although the company has not said how many of those sales were linked to the PC or to Origin.