Anno 2070 DRM grudgingly altered as little as possible
It's hard to watch Ubisoft's abusive relationship with PC gamers, but here's another example of the publisher delivering a box of chocolates to the hospital room. Economics and ecology simulator Anno 2070 has some pretty strict DRM, allowing only three installs per copy, which is restrictive but not unusual for the publisher. The crazy part occurred when Guru3D discovered that changing graphics cards on the PC counted as an installation.
The situation hit DEFCON "facepalm" when Rock Paper Shotgun followed up with the publisher to ask if the bug would be fixed, to which Ubisoft responded that the DRM was working as intended. The publisher continued, "On the rare occasion when a customer does need additional activations, Ubisoft customer service is available to quickly resolve the situation, and we encourage those customers to contact us directly so that we can ensure they are able to continue to enjoy their game."
Anno 2070 developer BlueByte has since gotten in contact with Guru3D to say it has removed the graphics hardware from "the hash used to identify the PC." Customers who legally purchased the game can now switch graphics cards as many times as they want, putting them in parity with those who pirated the game.
