EA's anti piracy screwing up PC Mass Effect.

[BenKenobi88]

NJ5 said:

shio said:

NJ5 said:
How does it detect that it's the same PC? Will it still assume it's the same PC if you reinstall the OS and/or change the hardware?

It detects hardware and internet connection changes. For the hardware is like this: when you activate the game on your PC, data of your PC's hardware is sent to EA, and every 10 days online authetication it'll check if the hardware is still the same (aka. if the PC is the same one). If there's a significant hardware change then your authentication is null and can't play anymore. Some guy from Bioware community forums stated that he had changed video card on his PC, and Mass Effect still authenticated his activation, so I guess it would require a big change in hardware for it to break (like change the motherboard).

I don't know how they're checking the internet connection though, but it might be just to see if the internet connection is still in the same IP.

OS reinstallation doesn't matter.

So let's say I buy the game, play it on my laptop, then buy a desktop a few months later and install the game there. From that point on, I can only upgrade my computer once before I'm left with a nice coaster saying "Mass Effect".

First of all, I'm not sure how this can be legal. Second of all, I'm not paying any money for a future coaster.

 

You can't install the game on multiple computers in the first place...this is true of most non-Steam games.  If you play it on your laptop and want to switch to a desktop, you uninstall the game.  Since they see that you uninstalled it, you're fine.