My motherboard died in the fight against Battlefield 6 cheating. Just turn on Secure Boot, they said. Just follow directions, they said. It’s easy, they said. You just, y’know, push a button. Click on something and it works, no problems. Watch YouTube videos. It’s easy!
I am one of the hundreds (if not thousands) of people whose PC suffered as a result of EA and DICE’s quest to crush cheating in Battlefield 6. I understand why they want to do this: It negatively impacts the experience of hundreds (or possibly thousands) of PC players, and Battlefield 6 is looking to be a return to form for the franchise, and EA doesn’t want anything getting in the way of that narrative. Therefore, EA requires PC players to run their PCs with Secure Boot enabled when playing Battlefield 6 – even in the beta. But forcing all players to enable Secure Boot shifts the responsibility onto the players. This is EA’s problem to solve, not the players. And since this is their problem for the game they decided to develop so that we can buy and enjoy, they should be responsible for what happens to the machines of those who play their games.
According to Microsoft, Secure Boot is a security feature that is “designed to prevent malicious software from loading when your PC starts up (boots).” In very simplistic terms, cheating software is not, by default, malicious software. It’s the EA Javelin anti-cheat’s job to, basically, tell the PC that cheating software is malicious, and to disable it while the game is active. On paper, activating it should not have been complicated. For many players, it was not. Open the BIOS, enable Secure Boot. Done. But for others, it was much more complicated and had devastating effects.
I bought a pre-built PC just before Secure Boot was enabled by default. I had my PC installed with the Gigabyte Aorus X299 Gaming 3 Pro. It served my needs as a content creator and, at the time, mid-range gaming. I didn’t need the fanciest of graphics, just good framerate, lots of RAM, and the ability to connect my different cards into the PCIE slots. I have had zero problems with it until this year, when the PSU failed (easy fix), and then with Battlefield 6.
Before this pre-built PC, I built my first PC, but I didn’t mess with the BIOS much. I didn’t need to. It functioned well, everything worked, and games didn’t require me to fiddle with internal settings. I wasn’t interested in overclocking, and I sold it to a friend before any problems arose so I could get a PC more suitable for gaming and streaming. After I bought my pre-built, I didn’t need to mess with those BIOS settings, either. It wasn’t until this year that I wanted to upgrade my PC to Windows 11 that I had to make a change in my BIOS.
For months, I couldn’t upgrade to Windows 11 even though I met the system requirements. Eventually, I decided to look up why. I needed to activate TPM 2.0–Trusted Platform Module. I knew how to access the BIOS, but I didn’t know where to look for the TPM setting. After watching a few YouTube videos, I successfully activated TPM 2.0 and upgraded my OS to Windows 11. Simple enough.
Fast-forward to the Battlefield 6 beta. Like many people, I wanted to mess around with the Battlefield 6 settings before the beta’s launch. Also, like many others, I received the message that I needed to enable Secure Boot to open Battlefield 6. Back to the BIOS! I looked up more YouTube videos, and what I discovered between enabling TPM and now looking into Secure Boot, there were no videos that navigated my specific motherboard’s BIOS. The previous videos I used to activate TPM forced me to make educated guesses based on other Gigabyte BIOS menus, but none were exactly the same as my menu setup. I realized this was going to be much more involved.
I checked my system information. Indeed, Secure Boot was not activated. No worries. I entered the BIOS and navigated the menus searching for Secure Boot. I didn’t see it. After some Reddit sleuthing, Gigabyte users commented on how to make the option appear by disabling the CSM. And it worked. According to a video of a Gigabyte user, it was as simple as enabling it, ignoring the message that popped up, saving, and then restarting the computer. Secure Boot enabled! I checked the system information and Secure Boot was not enabled. Weird.
I re-entered the BIOS and found the Secure Boot option again; sure enough, Secure Boot was not enabled. Odd. I enabled it again. This time, I read the message that popped up when I chose to enable it. The message mentioned a specific Platform Key that needed to be enabled. No one mentioned anything about Platform Keys on YouTube and Reddit. I conducted more research, but didn’t find much about my specific situation. I found the menu that contained the Platform Keys and activated the specific Platform Key that the pop-up message requested. I saved and restarted the computer, and, like many other people, I encountered a blank screen on boot.
After hours of troubleshooting, including removing the CMOS battery and tripping the CMOS Reset pins, I noticed the VGA indicator was on. After getting a diagnostic at a repair shop, it was discovered that both PCIE x16 slots were dead, and therefore, so was my motherboard.
I am shocked at the number of people who have had similar problems and even more shocked at the number of people who blame the PC owners. They comment as if they bought a car and understand how the whole thing works. Most people buy cars to drive around, not tinker with the insides. Imagine a car maker sending a message to everyone saying they needed to activate an engine filtering system that would further reduce carbon emissions to meet current regulations (hypothetical here), but it would risk rendering your car inoperable. People would be all over the car manufacturer for even suggesting that anyone try to do that themselves. Act like it’s a recall and have the manufacturer do it for free. If you, car manufacturer, want this feature turned on, it’s your responsibility. And yet, when EA asks a bunch of people who bought their PCs just to play their games and have no idea how to even navigate their BIOS, it’s a user error.
I found EA’s guide to enabling Secure Boot. Interestingly, it has this message:
We live in an age where if there is a problem, you can Google it, go to Reddit, and search YouTube. Heck, maybe even Twitter has answers. I wonder how many people saw this page or even this warning. Strangely, this is called a “Heads-up” with a small exclamation point. Eh, nothing too big here. Just a chance you could brick your PC if you do this wrong. No worries. No, this should be a “Warning” with big red cautionary symbols. This is not an urgent warning; it’s casual. That’s exactly how EA treated this situation.
I checked the official Battlefield Twitter account, which has 1.5 million followers. There is no mention of Secure Boot. You’ll find messages encouraging players to activate 2FA and making sure their EA accounts are linked correctly. There are also plenty of help and support messages if you’re having trouble with your linked accounts. There’s even a “Before you unlink your account…” message.
I perused the EA Help Twitter account, which has around 750,000 followers. There are messages about linking accounts to Twitch, 2FA, and troubleshooting if you’re having trouble logging in. Again, nothing about Secure Boot. Their YouTube channels offer nothing, as well. The EA Help channel doesn’t have anything related to Battlefield 6, shockingly.
EA made sure everything else was squared away, but when it came to Secure Boot, they treated it as an insignificant problem. Potentially ruining your PC and not being able to play the beta somehow does not hold the same weight as not being able to play the beta because your account is linked incorrectly.
The sheer number of variables required to make a game run on a variety of PCs is tough for developers to navigate, even for professionals. And you’re asking non-tech-savvy people to dig into their systems and give the most general instructions when you know the variability of certain processes. That’s irresponsible.
Riot Games also did this to their Valorant players. Their anti-cheat, Vanguard, forced players to enable Secure Boot. That led to similar situations like mine. All that headache just because they wanted to play a game.
I am not absolving myself from all responsibility. I’m the one who wanted to play the beta on PC, and I’m the one who entered my BIOS and nervously tried to activate Secure Boot. I am aware EA did not make me do this. What I am saying is that EA did not adequately communicate the risks associated with enabling Secure Boot, and they undermined their own warning by providing their own guide, suggesting that changing this setting is, after all, not complicated.
If EA truly wanted to do a solid by the community, their message should have been given after the Secure Boot notification when launching the game, on all their social media channels and shared multiple times a day, and the message should have been “We are asking you to enable Secure Boot so that we can ensure we are able to eliminate as many cheaters as possible. If you are not confident in navigating your BIOS to enable Secure Boot, we highly encourage you to call your manufacturer’s support team. Please do not attempt this on your own.” That’s a message that is supportive, mindful, and does not provide their own general solution that undermines the warning. I would absolutely absolve EA of any responsibility with a message like that, with frequent communication.
More and more people are enjoying PC games than in the past, which has led to the rise of pre-built PCs. People realize that getting the best graphics and framerate comes with PC gaming, but many do not have the expertise or confidence to build their own PC or tinker with inner software, so pre-built PCs are a great option. Since around 2018, pre-built PCs have come with Secure Boot enabled, and for many people, switching it from disabled to enabled is the only option. But for others, that is not the case. EA knows this, and all they did was post a help page, hoping that people would Google it instead of plastering help everywhere, demonstrating care about the community that plays their games.
It’s not about whether Secure Boot should be on or not; it’s the fact that we’re in an era where people are running perfectly fine PCs and are now experiencing issues because EA is set on fighting cheaters in the most extreme way. Activision will do the same with the next Call of Duty. It is assumed that enabling Secure Boot will become the norm for competitive PC games in the future, and then it will be Activision’s responsibility to let their players know in no uncertain terms that it could be risky. EA says they are not responsible. They are. Because when their game doesn’t sell, it’s their fault. They didn’t communicate. They didn’t market the game effectively. It’s all about communication, and they did not communicate this Secure Boot problem effectively.
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