Blizzard Says No to Console Cash-in Games

[PingoBlack]

Plenty of people LAN'd Diablo 2 back in the day. There's a thread full of them bitching @ this move when this "feature" was announced somewhere around here.

And it's not even for a good reason. It's to force DRM down your throat with no say in the matter, completely cut out the modding community, and force you into interacting with the Auction House, thus netting them more money out of your pocket through Fee's for using it.

So clueless ... it's really sad. And then people want gamers to be taken seriously.

Tell me, what is this LAN you are talking about? If you mean ability to connect between TCP/IP addresses? That's EXACTLY how the global internet works!

So calling for this so called LAN play, you don't actually realize it would work across the whole internet, not only until you reach first router? Your argument is so full of holes it can easily be turned against you, as you are basically demanding unlimited ability to connect across the internet with your unauthenticated client, which is ... you know ... terrible security issue.

Please people, think your arguments through, use some Wikipedia, whatever.

 

[Inkidu]

Oh God! No! Don't do that, Blizzard. I think I'll have to slash my wrists if you don't make a console port of Diablo III. What will I do? You can't do this to me.

Now I'm going to go have a good long cry, if it sounds like laughter it isn't. It's crying. Seriously. Crying.

-_-

Go ahead and do it. Blizzard has already downscaled Diablo 3 to the point of being an embarassment on any sort of a technical level. If you can afford a console, you can afford a PC that can run Diablo 3. Don't ask them to sacrifice the gameplay, too.

Sarcastic, I was being it.

I can think of how to do Diablo II on consoles so yeah, Diablo III is totally doable on consoles. You move and attack with one button, open your inventory and character sheet with another, and have buttons that will automatically scarf mana and health potions. Then devote some kind of favorites list to powers and do it very Dragon Age: Origins style and you've got it. It's not hard. It took me longer typing this than it did to think up a perfectly fine console solution.

Blizzard just can't force console players to be online all the time. Proof that Diablo III should have come out years ago really. Ten-plus years? No freaking way Blizzard. Who do you think you are, Raptor Jesus?

 

[Moromillas]

Wait, what?? "I'm not gonna buy the game, because: Always online, and no LAN" what the dick?

You guys do realize this is Diablo 3 we're talking about, right? Its core is as a multiplayer game, why complain that it doesn't have inferior features. Singleplayer? For Diablo? No, that makes no sense, it would be the same as the multiplayer, only no one is allowed to join. No you don't need a LAN option, you can do the exact same thing on bnet.

Because your way of playing the game is the only way of playing it.
/sarcasm

Plenty of people LAN'd Diablo 2 back in the day. There's a thread full of them bitching @ this move when this "feature" was announced somewhere around here.

And it's not even for a good reason. It's to force DRM down your throat with no say in the matter, completely cut out the modding community, and force you into interacting with the Auction House, thus netting them more money out of your pocket through Fee's for using it.


And this multiplayer thing you're so fond of? Expect to get destroyed repeatedly by a kid wielding the most powerful weapon of all: Mommy's Credit Card! Cause buying power in a game that has PvP is ALWAYS a good idea (as long as it makes Blizzard more money.) That's the Diablo 3 experience you're so anxious for.

No, everyone used bnet, because it was the exact same thing as a LAN connection. Only, you could get more players in if you wanted to, you could jump in and out of the game you have going and start trading items, if you wanted.

Connecting to a service like bnet, is not DRM. Bnet has been around for a long time, it's not there to check on what's going on with your RAM or look through your processes, it connects players to games and serves stuff up for you, so you don't have to do it externally, that's it, and for free. That's what bnet is. In fact, a lot of multiplayer games have a similar matchmaking system to bnet nowadays.

Modding community? From what I remember, modding Diablo consisted of speed hacks, map visibility hacks, teleport hacks, and item dupes. What in Diablo 3 did you want to modify exactly?

Illegitimate item trading has always been in Diablo, only it used to come with scams. Now it's legit, so there's no scams, you know who you're trading with. How can you have a whinge about that.

 

[PingoBlack]

That may very well be how the internet works, but what Blizzard is doing is forcing everyone to play on their servers. Literally, in every sense of it. You do not host anything on the new Battle.net, and nobody's actually connecting to you. Playing in a game hosted by Timmy from Thailand you'll have the exact same ping as in a game hosted by Timmy next door. Aaand that's where the problem is. I'm sure people would handle it way better if Blizzard wasn't so damn restrictive.

I'm surprised you're making a mistake as big as this all the while being hailed as the one sensible person in this thread.

No m8, you are not informed well.

Diablo 3 is a CORPG, server host everything. Your progression, your characters, your stats, your items. All of it.

I'm also sure people would NOT handle it better. It would be a security nightmare, but a playing field for all the semi legal entities that offer RMT transactions on side, like gold and item selling.

Please ... Look wider than your own perspective. Be constructive and informed. I know you feel like you are not getting what you expected, but you cannot just make up arguments to justify it.

BTW, consoles can do always online requirement very easily, they already do. I know you log into PSN and XBOX live, so exactly same thing as Battle.Net. Console online solutions though are proprietary and would probably not allow RMAH. So in case of Diablo 3 I don't think there is any chance of console version until console networks are more open for that kind of use.

 

[Sean951]

Sarcastic, I was being it.

I can think of how to do Diablo II on consoles so yeah, Diablo III is totally doable on consoles. You move and attack with one button, open your inventory and character sheet with another, and have buttons that will automatically scarf mana and health potions. Then devote some kind of favorites list to powers and do it very Dragon Age: Origins style and you've got it. It's not hard. It took me longer typing this than it did to think up a perfectly fine console solution.

Blizzard just can't force console players to be online all the time. Proof that Diablo III should have come out years ago really. Ten-plus years? No freaking way Blizzard. Who do you think you are, Raptor Jesus?

It's hard to tell, what with the hordes of actual people whining about D3 not coming out on consoles anytime soon.

Anyone can think of how to do Diablo 3 on consoles. Doing it anywhere near as good as it'll be on PCs is another thing entirely. I can pull up an old quote of mine detailing the various drawbacks of the console controller for you to try to spar against it if you so inquire. I call those drawbacks sacrificing gameplay.

It's not as much about forcing everyone online as it is a crystal clear paranoia about piracy. People who have credit cards and are eager to use them don't need anything more than a slight nudge in the form of a hint or a pop-up message.

Plenty of people LAN'd Diablo 2 back in the day. There's a thread full of them bitching @ this move when this "feature" was announced somewhere around here.

And it's not even for a good reason. It's to force DRM down your throat with no say in the matter, completely cut out the modding community, and force you into interacting with the Auction House, thus netting them more money out of your pocket through Fee's for using it.

So clueless ... it's really sad. And then people want gamers to be taken seriously.

Tell me, what is this LAN you are talking about? If you mean ability to connect between TCP/IP addresses? That's EXACTLY how the global internet works!

So calling for this so called LAN play, you don't actually realize it would work across the whole internet, not only until you reach first router? Your argument is so full of holes it can easily be turned against you, as you are basically demanding unlimited ability to connect across the internet with your unauthenticated client, which is ... you know ... terrible security issue.

Please people, think your arguments through, use some Wikipedia, whatever.

That may very well be how the internet works, but what Blizzard is doing is forcing everyone to play on their servers. Literally, in every sense of it. You do not host anything on the new Battle.net, and nobody's actually connecting to you. Playing in a game hosted by Timmy from Thailand you'll have the exact same ping as in a game hosted by Timmy next door. Aaand that's where the problem is. I'm sure people would handle it way better if Blizzard wasn't so damn restrictive.

I'm surprised you're making a mistake as big as this all the while being hailed as the one sensible person in this thread.

Times change, Blizzard decided to make Diablo 3 more multiplayer in nature. Seems simple enough, especially since we are 10 years from when Diablo 2 came out.

 

[Illithidae]

I like the direction Blizzard is going with this statement, and I agree with it all the way.

What I don't understand is all the complaints about the always-on DRM for Diablo 3 - if you don't like it for some reason, don't buy it. I don't have any problem with it, personally, since it's a little thing in the background that barely does anything and, if I remember correctly, doesn't want to eat up all your computer details for nefarious plots like Origin. Don't have a stable internet connection? Learn to save or, better yet, join us in the future of modern internet gaming!*

*In no means a personal attack on you, your mother or your dog. Honest.

 

[Kathinka]

The guy makes a great point. They are making PC games of high quality and their competition is not really taking PC market seriously. So they reign with very little serious competition.

Sooo... why exactly are they stuffing Diablo III with always online DRM? Eh, it'll still sell like hotcakes.
And if you truly have a philosophical reason why you dislike any form of DRM? Don't let any friend coerce you into buying it. Ubisoft still thinks their DRM method is good. Why? Well, it did not hurt their sales at all.

We don't NEED a PHILOSOPHICAL reason. DRM screws with a game. It's purpose is to stop pirates. It doesn't. It restricts how the game will operate on a machine, and stops it being used to its full purpose and potential. That is one reason why I do not like DRM
Another reason is that it locks me (A legitimate user!) out of my game because it is badly made half the time, or because my system just doesn't have God watching over it 24/7

Tell you what, before you froth and rage TOO much about how Blizzards crappy DRM prevents you from playing, lets examine 2 things.

1) Has Blizzard ever used always-on DRM before? Yes. It's called WoW. And has there been a great commotion or ruckus over all the time lost because of it? No. Server outages here and there, but extremely minor in the long run. WoW certainly isn't "screwed" as you so eloquently stated.

2) How's your internet connection? If you're still rocking a 56k modem, you might be due for an upgrade. If it's just a flaky connection, that's your ISPs fault, not blizzard. You should take it up with them.


P.S. DRM isn't to stop pirates. It's to limit them. slow them down a bit. No company has delusions of stopping game piracy 100%. They just need to make it less attractive than spending $50 to buy the game outright. "I could spend all night torrenting something that claims to be Diablo3, and scour the internet for a key, and hope neither of those are all virusy... or I can just spend the money and not worry about it.

WoW is an MMO, MMOs are uniformly multiplayer, thus REQUIRE an internet connection. Diablo is not an MMO, the online features are optional. My internet is shitty, why should I have to always be connected to the internet if I want to play a single player game? Some of us like single player games because they don't require an internet connection. Also, pulling the whole "myew myew, if you don't have a good internet connection that's your fault" shit is bogus, people aren't meant to be annoyed that a company they like makes a game unavailable to them because we don't all live in a North American major city where good internet is an option?

this! though my home internet connection is reasonable stable and very fast, i travel a lot, and i want to play games in the airplane too, for example. i want to play games i payd for with my hard earned money when i want. not when and under which circumstances our almighty blizzard-overlords mercyfully allow us to.

fortunately i live in a country where downloading copyrighted material is legal. i shall therefore proceed to pirate the everloving shit out of everything that has a DRM scheme of this caliber going. looking at you too, "you have to go online to activate the offline mode"-steam.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I'm not familiar with most of Blizzard's practices, so while I initially thought that Blizzard was doing some good by not making mediocre console ports of their games, it looks like some business with PC gaming has people saying otherwise.

But I'm not a PC gamer, so I can't really relate to those kind of problems, sadly. From an outside perspective, I guess it can be applauded that Blizzard isn't going to bother wasting its time porting their IPs to consoles because they know it wouldn't be as good as it would have been on a PC? I'm not quite sure, tbh, but that's what I'm getting from my viewpoint.

 

[PissOffRoth]

And you absolutely HAVE to change from horde to alliance on a different server with a new set of horns and every single mount/pet available to purchase. It's just not a full game unless you do all that like 20 times a year.

And who wants a legitimized value for gold when you can just let chinese farmers rake in thousands and exploit young people for 18 hours a day. That's imbalance and totally a cash grab move.

And who wants DRM when you can have people pirate the hell out of your game.

And who wants reason when you can be bitter and hateful.

Way to logic. No, you don't have to, but the guy's saying that the service fees are completely and utterly out of proportion with how much they actually cost Blizzard.

If anything, not banning gold farmers and such is what's going to encourage the sort of practices you seem to abhor. Not to mention encouraging gold farming is going do drive the value of gold down, not up.

Because pretty much all their games haven't (read: have) been some of the best selling on PC, Blizzard is barely scraping by. This is a company that's the most profitable in the whole industry creating services the most restrictive in the whole industry. No chain of logic.

Reason? Whatever. Start sporting it yourself before recommending it to others.

If you don't agree with the price of their service fees, don't partake in them. I guarantee they'll drop.

And banning gold farmers and all their advertisers has clearly worked like a dream with WoW. You go on any server and there's at least one or two people spewing out website names with a trial account. Banning isn't enough. People will still be able to farm gold, but it's the items that you put up for auction. It's much more involved than press a button, gold becomes money. It's a well thought out system that everyone has just demonized because they see it as money=gold. AND OMG THATS SO GHEY AND I HATE IT BLAH BLAH BLAH I CANT HEAR U

Misery troll is miserable.

 

[PingoBlack]

I'm not informed? Point me to what part of my post is factually wrong, then.

Here.

1. WoW is not Diablo. It's a persistent world MMO.

Persistence has nothing to do with it. Diablo 3 uses exactly same data model as WoW where all your data, items, characters and your progression ... are ONLY stored remotely. And as far as I know, it is not easy to dupe WoW items or access authenticated servers without an account, but you still say "coded in a shitty manner".

I'd say those things are factually wrong or at least factually weak.

 

[Aeonknight]

Plenty of people LAN'd Diablo 2 back in the day. There's a thread full of them bitching @ this move when this "feature" was announced somewhere around here.

And it's not even for a good reason. It's to force DRM down your throat with no say in the matter, completely cut out the modding community, and force you into interacting with the Auction House, thus netting them more money out of your pocket through Fee's for using it.

So clueless ... it's really sad. And then people want gamers to be taken seriously.

Tell me, what is this LAN you are talking about? If you mean ability to connect between TCP/IP addresses? That's EXACTLY how the global internet works!

So calling for this so called LAN play, you don't actually realize it would work across the whole internet, not only until you reach first router? Your argument is so full of holes it can easily be turned against you, as you are basically demanding unlimited ability to connect across the internet with your unauthenticated client, which is ... you know ... terrible security issue.

Please people, think your arguments through, use some Wikipedia, whatever.

Nice job trying to refute my arguement by deflecting it onto a side arguement of semantics. I was more or less using LAN as slang for refering to when people get together and play Diablo 2 in the same room on multiple machines (same thing you'd see happen at an internet cafe.)

Now instead of being a twat about it, by all means try arguing this time.

 

[Aeonknight]

Wait, what?? "I'm not gonna buy the game, because: Always online, and no LAN" what the dick?

You guys do realize this is Diablo 3 we're talking about, right? Its core is as a multiplayer game, why complain that it doesn't have inferior features. Singleplayer? For Diablo? No, that makes no sense, it would be the same as the multiplayer, only no one is allowed to join. No you don't need a LAN option, you can do the exact same thing on bnet.

Because your way of playing the game is the only way of playing it.
/sarcasm

Plenty of people LAN'd Diablo 2 back in the day. There's a thread full of them bitching @ this move when this "feature" was announced somewhere around here.

And it's not even for a good reason. It's to force DRM down your throat with no say in the matter, completely cut out the modding community, and force you into interacting with the Auction House, thus netting them more money out of your pocket through Fee's for using it.


And this multiplayer thing you're so fond of? Expect to get destroyed repeatedly by a kid wielding the most powerful weapon of all: Mommy's Credit Card! Cause buying power in a game that has PvP is ALWAYS a good idea (as long as it makes Blizzard more money.) That's the Diablo 3 experience you're so anxious for.

No, everyone used bnet, because it was the exact same thing as a LAN connection. Only, you could get more players in if you wanted to, you could jump in and out of the game you have going and start trading items, if you wanted.

Connecting to a service like bnet, is not DRM. Bnet has been around for a long time, it's not there to check on what's going on with your RAM or look through your processes, it connects players to games and serves stuff up for you, so you don't have to do it externally, that's it, and for free. That's what bnet is. In fact, a lot of multiplayer games have a similar matchmaking system to bnet nowadays.

Modding community? From what I remember, modding Diablo consisted of speed hacks, map visibility hacks, teleport hacks, and item dupes. What in Diablo 3 did you want to modify exactly?

Illegitimate item trading has always been in Diablo, only it used to come with scams. Now it's legit, so there's no scams, you know who you're trading with. How can you have a whinge about that.

I guess I have to say it again.
No, not everyone wanted to use battle.net. Especially considering how it was seperated into East/West.

Got a buddy on East when you play West? enjoy remaking your character.

TCP/IP option didn't have this issue. Wasn't the most secure thing in the world, but it was an option of play that people were free to choose. Now, the choice is gone.

Just because you were only aware of the mods that allowed you to cheat (they were prominant to be fair) doesn't mean others didn't mod it in different ways. Hell a google search could come up with probably a dozen mods.

As for the item black market, my "whinge" comes from the idea that you no longer have to play the game to build your character. All it takes is your credit card and grinding levels to create a top tier character. The black market may have had scams, but you generaly weren't supposed to be using it in the first place. Blizzard only "legitimized" it because they saw an opportunity to make money off of it themselves. By embracing it, they've made it far more damaging to game balance than it was before. Fights are no longer won by the better player, just the one who spent more time window shopping.
And if the game is as focused around multiplayer as even you think it is, it's not hard to connect the dots to see this is a bad thing.

And here I thought that people on the Escapist liked being able to do whatever they wanted with games they purchased, rather than be told "you will play on our servers, there is no choice in the matter, no you cannot dick with our software, make sure you hit up the Auction House cause there's a 2 for 1 sale on Longswords!"

 

[ccggenius12]

Don't tell me an idea for a hint or a pop-up slipped your mind before saying that. Unless by casuals you mean complete retards, there's no reason those wouldn't work instead of cutting out features.

I fail to see how a hint/pop-up telling people that they can't do something would reduce the quantity of people complaining that they can't do something. Blizzard is doing far more than giving a hint that you have to be online to play, and yet here we are.
Could they include it? Yes. Do people want it? Obviously. Are the number of sales they'll lose by not doing it sufficient to justify doing it? Clearly Blizzard thinks not.

For what it's worth, I'd decided against buying D3 as I don't remember any specifics about my enjoyment of D2. I know I did, but overall, it wasn't memorable. The announcement of a cash Auction house changed my mind. Blizzard has made it quite clear that they've intended for D3 to be a primarily PVE game, and is balancing it as such. Given that being better geared than your peers is a bit moot for that gameplay, who cares about someone throwing cash at they're problems until they go away? They're spending time to earn it, just not at the computer desk. And at the end of the day, all it will accomplish is making it easier for those who don't spend money to get geared, as the geared player will do a better job clearing dungeons.

I feel I should mention that according to PC gamer's November issue, Blizzard has plans to implement a character auction house. I'm surprised that no one is up in arms about that in this thread. I mean, if getting equips for cash is bad, getting levels must be horrendous.

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

Spoiler: words words words

The guy makes a great point. They are making PC games of high quality and their competition is not really taking PC market seriously. So they reign with very little serious competition.

Sooo... why exactly are they stuffing Diablo III with always online DRM? Eh, it'll still sell like hotcakes.
And if you truly have a philosophical reason why you dislike any form of DRM? Don't let any friend coerce you into buying it. Ubisoft still thinks their DRM method is good. Why? Well, it did not hurt their sales at all.

We don't NEED a PHILOSOPHICAL reason. DRM screws with a game. It's purpose is to stop pirates. It doesn't. It restricts how the game will operate on a machine, and stops it being used to its full purpose and potential. That is one reason why I do not like DRM
Another reason is that it locks me (A legitimate user!) out of my game because it is badly made half the time, or because my system just doesn't have God watching over it 24/7

Tell you what, before you froth and rage TOO much about how Blizzards crappy DRM prevents you from playing, lets examine 2 things.

1) Has Blizzard ever used always-on DRM before? Yes. It's called WoW. And has there been a great commotion or ruckus over all the time lost because of it? No. Server outages here and there, but extremely minor in the long run. WoW certainly isn't "screwed" as you so eloquently stated.

2) How's your internet connection? If you're still rocking a 56k modem, you might be due for an upgrade. If it's just a flaky connection, that's your ISPs fault, not blizzard. You should take it up with them.


P.S. DRM isn't to stop pirates. It's to limit them. slow them down a bit. No company has delusions of stopping game piracy 100%. They just need to make it less attractive than spending $50 to buy the game outright. "I could spend all night torrenting something that claims to be Diablo3, and scour the internet for a key, and hope neither of those are all virusy... or I can just spend the money and not worry about it.

WoW is an MMO, MMOs are uniformly multiplayer, thus REQUIRE an internet connection. Diablo is not an MMO, the online features are optional. My internet is shitty, why should I have to always be connected to the internet if I want to play a single player game? Some of us like single player games because they don't require an internet connection. Also, pulling the whole "myew myew, if you don't have a good internet connection that's your fault" shit is bogus, people aren't meant to be annoyed that a company they like makes a game unavailable to them because we don't all live in a North American major city where good internet is an option?

A) I didn't say it was your fault if you have a poor internet connection. I said it was your ISPs fault. And furthermore I empowered you (or whoever) to do something about it. call em up and ***** about it. complain and tell them you're going to leave. Ask to speak to their manager. etc etc etc. If enough people do that, they'll actually listen.

B) Just because a game doesn't NEED something doesn't automatically mean that it won't be improved by it. Diablo3 doesn't need a constant internet connection to function, but having one can improve the overall experience. Diablo3 doesn't need to come on DVD, it could come on a couple dozen CDs so that people with crappy computers and old hardware can still load it. Why doesn't anyone complain about that? Think of the CD-ROM drive only people! Honestly, if they're requiring a constant connection, it doesn't need to come with media at all. just download the whole thing and take a few $$ off the price.

There are plenty of things that aren't strictly necessary, but they are included for the benefit of the game and the paying customer. And if you don't think that solid, well executed DRM (as Blizzard has proven they can provide) doesn't benefit the game, you are simply delusional.

 

[maxmanrules]

The guy makes a great point. They are making PC games of high quality and their competition is not really taking PC market seriously. So they reign with very little serious competition.

Sooo... why exactly are they stuffing Diablo III with always online DRM? Eh, it'll still sell like hotcakes.
And if you truly have a philosophical reason why you dislike any form of DRM? Don't let any friend coerce you into buying it. Ubisoft still thinks their DRM method is good. Why? Well, it did not hurt their sales at all.

We don't NEED a PHILOSOPHICAL reason. DRM screws with a game. It's purpose is to stop pirates. It doesn't. It restricts how the game will operate on a machine, and stops it being used to its full purpose and potential. That is one reason why I do not like DRM
Another reason is that it locks me (A legitimate user!) out of my game because it is badly made half the time, or because my system just doesn't have God watching over it 24/7

Tell you what, before you froth and rage TOO much about how Blizzards crappy DRM prevents you from playing, lets examine 2 things.

1) Has Blizzard ever used always-on DRM before? Yes. It's called WoW. And has there been a great commotion or ruckus over all the time lost because of it? No. Server outages here and there, but extremely minor in the long run. WoW certainly isn't "screwed" as you so eloquently stated.

2) How's your internet connection? If you're still rocking a 56k modem, you might be due for an upgrade. If it's just a flaky connection, that's your ISPs fault, not blizzard. You should take it up with them.


P.S. DRM isn't to stop pirates. It's to limit them. slow them down a bit. No company has delusions of stopping game piracy 100%. They just need to make it less attractive than spending $50 to buy the game outright. "I could spend all night torrenting something that claims to be Diablo3, and scour the internet for a key, and hope neither of those are all virusy... or I can just spend the money and not worry about it.

I wasn't necessarily talking about Blizzards DRM. And of course you have to be online, it's a Mumorpuguh. I was talking about DRM in general.
And if it only slows the pirates down(for about a day, most DRM is broken faaaast), and the pirated copies are "virusy" no matter how much DRM you shove in them. (Not, for example having the amount of DRM and the greater difficulty of cracking a game corresponding in any way to the amount of concealed malware(which would be a constant threat to a pirate))

 

[maxmanrules]

We don't NEED a PHILOSOPHICAL reason. DRM screws with a game. It's purpose is to stop pirates. It doesn't. It restricts how the game will operate on a machine, and stops it being used to its full purpose and potential. That is one reason why I do not like DRM
Another reason is that it locks me (A legitimate user!) out of my game because it is badly made half the time, or because my system just doesn't have God watching over it 24/7

You my friend are spewing philosophy. What seems to upset you is my realism.

As I said, if you do not accept DRM in any form, do not buy a product. That way you are not affected by DRM, you are then NOT a user, thus you are completely free of the scourge.
But in reality, you are disliking my point because you want your cake and you want to eat it.

You cannot accept that only way to protest DRM is to not buy a product. You are unable to make an educated decision what level of DRM is acceptable and weather it brings enough added value to the customer.

And most of all ... You are not making a clear argument. Blizzard have so far made well working, stable online authentication systems and have always made any always online requirements clear way before anyone payed for it.

But we are off topic now. What this article is about is why it doesn't pay to license XBOX Live or Sony PSN to Blizzard. And ... tbh ... I prefer Battle.Net to PSN any day. At least Blizzard seems to understand how to build infrastructure better.

I wasn't necessarily talking about Blizzards DRM, just DRM in general
I generally don't know how much DRM is jam-packed into a game, UNTIL I buy and play the game. I can accept that the only way to protest DRM is to not buy the product, and if the DRM screws me over, I can always claim the product is faulty and take it back to the store(NZ has a very good consumer guarantees law)
Also, I hardly see how DRM stops the game from being as awesome as it can be without always online and stuff is philosophical
If DRM is well implemented and doesn't heavily change the way the game would run from a non DRM game, than that's good. It's things like Company of Heroes's DRM which piss me off.