Yesterday, we reported on DRM issues players reported in relation to Battlefield Hardline, which appear to track hardware changes.
Guru 3D reported that they received an error message when they attempted to use the game with multiple graphics cards for a performance analysis review.
In a statement issued to GameInformer, EA commented, “Origin authentication allows players to install a game on up to five different PCs every 24 hours. Players looking to benchmark more than five hardware configurations in one 24 hour period can contact our Customer Support team who can help.”
Origin's Terms of Service does not specifically mention a limit on the number of systems which can be activated within a 24 our period. On the issue of privacy, EA's policy says that data is collected through several methods for numerous reasons:
“EA uses personal and non-personal information, both individually and combined together, to better enhance your user experience, improve our products and services, understand the behavior and preferences of our customers, to troubleshoot technical problems, to serve advertising, for authentication purposes, to enforce our Terms of Service, to ensure proper functioning of our products and services as well as to help improve them."
Players have the choice to opt-out of data collection, “You can opt out of sharing hardware specifications and crash reports at any time,” EA's FAQ reads. “Sharing of system interaction data can be limited and made anonymous, but not completely disabled.”
However, it seems that you can only make data collection anonymous, rather than completely opt-out.
Regardless, DRM issues are not related to specific games, but is instead the result of a system-wide policy.
