Ubisoft BlueByte Changes Anno 2070 DRM

If making a fuss keeps working, it's only going to encourage us. In the last week we've - among others - reported on the extremely peculiar choice in Ubisoft's chosen DRM for Anno 2070, to have it use up an activation every time you do something so simple as change a graphics card in your PC. Assuming this was a mistake we contacted Ubi, who genuinely surprised us by coming back to say it was completely intentional, wasn't a problem, and that was that.

Well, after attention was brought their way, co-developers BlueByte got in touch with Hilbert Hagedoorn at Guru3D - who first brought the issue into light - and gave him more activations for the game. And now it's just been reported that they've changed the DRM such that the game will no longer spit up if you switch a PCIe slot.

Bluebyte got in touch with Guru3D to say,

"Just wanted to let you know, that we now remove the graphics hardware from the hash used to identify the PC. That means everyone should now be able to switch the GFX as many times as he/she wants."

Which is splendid news. Although obviously something that never should have been an issue in the first place. Bluebyte are owned by Ubisoft, so in some sense this is the publisher responding too. But they've issued no public statement, nor followed up on the "tough luck" statement they sent to us. Which doesn't seem the best way forward for public relations.

So there you go. You, the legitimate customer, are now allowed to change hardware in your machine and still play the game you purchased! It's a new dawn for consumer rights.

Oh, and that means you can finally read Guru3D's test of the game