Battlefield 3’s online activation causes headaches

It’s always the risk when a game ships with internet-required DRM.

The launch of EA’s Battlefield 3 suffered a setback yesterday when the game’s use of DRM prevented many early adopters playing the title.

Before gamers are able to access the title, it must first authenticate itself via EA’s Origin service. However, so high were the numbers trying to access the servers that the whole system came crashing down.

The result? Some players were unable to play the game they had legally purchased.

It’s not the first problem experienced by the game, either, with the Xbox 360 servers going down for a number of hours shortly after the game’s US release.

Ubisoft underwent a torrent of abuse when it implemented a similar DRM system last year. So enraged was an element of the player base then that a number of deliberate attacks took down Ubisoft’s DRM servers, blocking access to some titles.