Oh EA, you big silly. One step forward, two steps back as always. At least, that's what we heard via a guru3d.com posting earlier today. According to the linked article, Battlefield Hardline has a particularly odious piece of DRM that...locks you out if you change your GPU.

Yep.

Do we really need to say more at this point? Well, I'm going to anyway. First of all, I'd like to caution people not to go jumping to conclusions and breaking out the pitchforks. One has to understand the perspective of a developer in these matters. DRM will always be a thing. Heavyhanded DRM, will always be a thing. And we will always hate it. But whether this is acting as its supposed to, or is simply an unexpected side effect...yeah, I know, I know, my money is on the former as well. But benefit of doubt and all that. We don't know for certain at this point. But when we do, we will certainly update y'all.

Until then, just be extremely wary about changing components in your rig if you want to continue your involvement in this new Battlefield.

Update: Our colleagues at PC Gamer have the full skinny on this. As it transpires, there is, indeed, an activation limit. However, it is not permanent and resets every 24 hours. Allowing the average, end user, five activations within said 24 hour period. However, for people intending to do multiple benchmark comparisons, EA have stated they will make special dispensation (remove the limit) for you if you go to them first.

That...actually isn't so bad. I mean, it's still irritating I'm sure. But, uhm, dude? Why would you want to have a game on six computers at a time anyway?