Old news I know, but still relevant.

Don't bother with the posting though: This guy sums it up in a more rational and sensitive way.

Yep, just that at the end it should in fact say "Vivendi ruined you". Smart marketing by Vivendi there actually, they knew plenty of people had their eyes on them already, so when they bought Activision they renamed the new entity Activision-Blizzard, keeping their name out of it.

Heh. I read about this on ModDB. It's not just the DRM stuff, but what's even worse is that there will be no modding support for this game.

Blizzard does not deserve our money. Also, I heard Activision really has nothing to do with this, as it was Blizzard's decision. Not that I'm surprised, Blizzard doesn't have the brightest past I've ever seen... I assume nobody already forgot all the whole FreeCraft situation.

Blizzard will probably never stop disappointing me.

I never really played a Blizzard game, but I was surprised to hear that StarCraft II didn't include a LAN multiplayer option. I thought that was the whole reason people played the first one, and that it wouldn't have been as successful without it.

It's ridiculous. I hope they didn't break even on that one, it doesn't deserve it. This is, in my opinion, where they crossed the line and it becomes inexcusable for players to just silently accept it and buy the game anyway.

Diablo 3, well it's not exactly a new line to be crossed, but I hope it fails miserably.

From what I understand the main driving force behind the decisions taken on Starcraft were the lucrative competitive gaming licenses. Specifically all that sweet, sweet Korean money. Starcraft 1 might have been a sales success, but Blizzard never saw a penny of the pro-gaming money thanks to the lan-play feature.

I read reports though that exactly these pro-gaming circles were the ones most outraged at the decision. Which is somewhat understandable, since as soon as big money is on the line, I wouldn't want my stuff to be dependent on a server that is both distant and out of my control either.

Well yeah, that's what I meant. Everything has to go through Blizzard now, including tournaments. The same guys that used to be sitting in a free goldmine now find themselves controlled by broadcasting and licensing agreements with Actiblizzard.

There quite possibly exist working LAN emulators for StarCraft 2.

And once again... forcing their customers to look for sites and sources which will once and for all explain to them why exactly the free, pirated copy would have been the one of superior quality.

And FreeCiv is still going strong, latest release was two weeks ago.

Oh well, I am sorry to disagree with some of you people but I love Blizzard games (the offline ones at least, I never played WoW). They are worthy games with deep storylines and very nice graphics. I still play Starcraft and Diablo 2 on a daily basis to this day, they are my favourite all-timers...

However, I must say that their DRM policy has worked because they also make good games. Right now I am playing the pirated version of SC2, and I must say it was more or less a hassle to make it work, I had to do my fair amount of research. I think that it'll be the same with Diablo 3... but I am seriously thinking about supporting them if the game keeps the interesting factor up as it has done, been playing over a week and so far I've liked what I've seen.

As a gamer, I first try the games but I only buy those that not only fulfill but surpass my expectations. Last example? Gears Of War 1 and 2 for the 360.

It might have been a hassle to get the pirated version to work, but I suppose that at the latest a few weeks after any game's release, when the crackers had the time to perfect their solutions, it is a lot less hassle than the original copy. And that is where I see the problem. You say you still like Starcraft and Diablo 2 to this day. But chances are pretty high that if you were to buy Diablo 3 now, after the same amount of time cracking your original copy will be the only way to play it, while the older titles still work from the original versions you bought. You are punished for buying the original version versus downloading the pirated copy. Or in other words: the DRM considerably increases the relative product value and quality of the pirated copy compared to a legal, original one. I'm not sure I agree with publisher's opinions that the software piracy is endangering their profits because they "can't compete with free", but I'm pretty sure that lowering the value of what you sell to customers is not the solution.

Who cares about Diablo III when there's Diablo V already available?