Quick Jump Wrote:Nearly every games publisher builds an install limit into their games. Put simply, when you buy a game, you are authorized to install it on a certain number of machines before you hit the limit and have to buy a new copy. It'€™s a relatively fair way to ensure you'€™re not sharing the game with all your friends or up to some other nefarious purpose, and most gamers rarely encounter the install limits on their software.

Ubisoft, however, seems to have taken a different approach to the situation. It seems that their DRM is tuned to detect hardware changes in the system, which means if you upgrade the graphics card in your computer, the game you'€™re playing will consider the new card to be a second install. Once you'€™ve made a few upgrades to your computer, you'€™ll find your Ubisoft games unplayable as you will have '€œused'€ all of your available installs.


The issue was discovered by Guru3D, who was attempting to do graphics card comparisons on the new game Anno 2070. Once the game had been activated on three PCs (the install limit), it refused to boot up if the graphics cards in any of the PCs were switched, instead telling Guru3D that his install limit had been reached.


Thinking this block to be nothing more than an error, Guru3D contacted Ubisoft to let them know what was going on. The company's response was not encouraging:


'€œSorry to disappoint you - the game is indeed restricted to three hardware changes and there simply is no way to bypass that. We also do not have seven copies of the game for you."


So that'€™s that - if you want to play Ubisoft games, you are limited to three installs. Changing anything about your hardware setup could potentially count as an entirely separate install, and Ubisoft seems completely content to leave it that way.


What do you think of this limited DRM? Is Ubisoft about to end up on the wrong end of yet another DRM fight?

' Wrote:Ubisoft has always been a leader in ridiculously draconian and ineffective DRM schemes.