Always-online Mythbuster

[DoPo]

I'm sure some people, at some time, did say something like that. You need to address those people at that time though, and quote them directly. Otherwise you're just paraphrasing their position, and creating an illusory antagonist that you can project your arguments onto. You're not arguing with individuals. You're just tilting at windmills. At best you're baiting a thread hoping someone with that perspective will come in so you can yell at them.

If hundreds of people use the same argument at the same moment, it's impractical to adress them all individually. That can make it necessary to use a generalized counter-argument.

However, we're getting where we were about a month or so ago - making a new thread just because "our opinion is special". Generalising the "overall" arguments can always be viewed as a flawed tactic, it's not too far from a strawman, after all.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Question for clarification.

What consumer right is being attacked?

I hear it said alot, but what right is it precisely that they are attacking?

I am pretty sure "being offline" is not a consumer right.

This really isn't an issue of consumer rights, at least, not any more than Steam and other forms of DRM have been for years now. The issue is that people are unable to use the game that they paid money for in the way they want to, expect to, and have been able to in the past.

Blizzard has removed what is to many essential functionality that has been in not only past Diablo games, but most games that have been released in the past, period, namely, the ability to play without an internet connection. This means that many people are unable to enjoy the game the way that they want to or expect to, ie playing when the internet is down, in a place without an internet connection, or when Blizzard's servers are undergoing maintenance. And remember, just because this isn't an issue for you, doesn't mean that it isn't a serious issue for others.

There's also the problem that could affect everyone trying to play the game right now (or at least right when it launched) that people are unable to log into servers due to high amounts of traffic. This wouldn't be as much as an issue without the DRM, as people wanting to play single player wouldn't have to worry about server issues, and people wanting to play multiplayer wouldn't be slowed down by people playing single player.

Now, there are two reasons why people are making a big fuss over this, instead of just not buying the game and playing something else.

First, people don't perceive video games as being easily replaceable in the same way that non-entertainment products are. If a video game doesn't offer me what I expect it to, I can't just buy from another company in the same way that I can for say, a dishwasher, because I can't always expect to get the same experience from another game. Thus, people that are unable to play due to the online requirement are complaining because they want to play Diablo, and they don't necessarily see an alternative to it (whether or not this is actually the case is an entirely different matter).

Second, people (like myself) are worried that the success of Diablo III (and let's be honest, it will be successful) will lead other publishers to putting an always-online requirement in their games. This would lead the people that don't buy always online games (like myself) with less options for games in the future, and that would make me an angry and bitter person.

tldr: Diablo III's DRM is an issue to many people, and they have legitimate reasons to complain about it.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

-snip-

I made it about consumer rights because of how casually the guy I quoted threw it out there without any real understanding of what his rights were.

I was just responding to your question about which consumer rights are being attacked, I'm not implying that you're the one that brought them up. I do believe that there are consumer rights issues in regards to Diablo III's DRM, but these are not the primary reason that the DRM is a bad thing, and are not at all specific to Diablo III.

I still dont see how the DRM is a legitimate complaint. They didn't pull the rug under you like Guppy already pointed out. If it was a case of false advertisement and you expected to be able to play offline, then yeah. But that isn't the case. Their product their choice. It isn't our right to make them change it. It is however our right not to buy it.

This is true. However, it is within our rights as consumers to complain if there is an aspect of a product we don't like, and it is also within our rights to encourage people not to buy something, and make sure that others are aware of any issues with a product.

Plus, the launch day issues weren't known about in advance, so it is only reasonable to complain about them when the game comes out and we actually know about them.

Although I do agree that gamers need to show more restraint in buying games with major issues in them. No game is a must play, and there is no excuse for not knowing about the biggest problems of a game before you buy it.

 

[pure.Wasted]

I'm sure some people, at some time, did say something like that. You need to address those people at that time though, and quote them directly. Otherwise you're just paraphrasing their position, and creating an illusory antagonist that you can project your arguments onto. You're not arguing with individuals. You're just tilting at windmills. At best you're baiting a thread hoping someone with that perspective will come in so you can yell at them.

If hundreds of people use the same argument at the same moment, it's impractical to adress them all individually. That can make it necessary to use a generalized counter-argument.

Blizzard used several flawed arguments in defense of their online system in D3, and other people have now started copying those arguments. The two counter arguments by allinwonder is a good way to adress this. It's hard to argue directly with a company like Blizzard, because in general they won't comment.

Flawed arguments such as... what? This? "Blizzard assured them that the user experience will not be affected by always online requirement."

I'd personally love for someone to supply a quote of Blizzard saying that there would never be any lag. Or there would never be any server instability. I mean, it's going to be pretty tough considering that just last week they said there would be instability... and considering they have common sense and would never say such a thing. But by all means, feel free to track one down.

What other flawed arguments has Blizzard used in defense of D3 that this OP addresses?

"It has to be always online because of the real money auction house."

That? Again, a quote saying something like "the only reason Diablo 3 is always online is to make the RMAH work" would be great. See, me, I don't think they've ever actually said that, so I don't think that the OP does that great a job of addressing their argument.

If I go to a store and buy a box, I usually own the contents of that box. In the case of contract terms it's usually expected that both parties get to read the contract before making an agreement.

Yes, you own the contents of the box you bought or pre-ordered. Those contents aren't "Diablo 3," they're "a disc that allows you to create an account on Diablo 3 provided the servers are up and running."

When I pay $15 every month to play WoW and Blizzard brings the servers down for maintenance, am I supposed to review bomb the game for not allowing me to play when I want to play? Cause they've been doing that on a weekly basis, every Tuesday night, never mind all the unscheduled maintenances that have gone on.

It is much, much easier to be sympathetic to the plight of consumers who don't think the world revolves around them and whatever they're doing.

True but if the market moves in a direction that many consumers dislike, I think it makes sense to communicate that feeling. Otherwise how would companies notice that there is sufficent demand for other types of product.

Don't be an arse. Is that too much to ask for? A lot of people who might have valid points to contribute are going, and will continue to go, overlooked, just because they're not capable of talking (or in this case typing) without tripping over their twisted panties.

Now, I'm not calling you an arse, but do you see how useless the discussion becomes when we talk about faceless people who apparently exist and apparently say things that aren't entirely dissimilar to what I'm presenting here?

It helps to actually quote things actual people have actually said. Now, you said that it's important to communicate a feeling. Absolutely! And is anybody in this thread telling you to shut up, pack your bags, and get out of here? No, there's nothing wrong with some healthy discussion.

Problems arise when that discussion stops being healthy. The OP uses all sorts of unnecessarily hostile language like "they lied," when in fact no evidence of any such thing has been presented.

The people who work at Blizzard, by the way, are actually very real people. It always fascinates me that even on decent-ish forums, such as this one, attacking people is perfectly fine as long as they're not here to defend themselves. I don't see what the point of using hostile language like that is unless you actually want to get into an analysis of Blizzard's marketing strategy, and precisely what things they've said were knowingly said to manipulate consumers. Nothing wrong with that conversation, either, but we're not having it yet. No quotes, no evidence, just a lot of rage over something that's absolutely happening (internetification of everything) whether we like it or not, addressed at Diablo 3 as if Blizzard is the only company that's a part of this movement, and Diablo 3 is the first time they've ever taken part in it.

 

[Bostur]

If hundreds of people use the same argument at the same moment, it's impractical to adress them all individually. That can make it necessary to use a generalized counter-argument.

Blizzard used several flawed arguments in defense of their online system in D3, and other people have now started copying those arguments. The two counter arguments by allinwonder is a good way to adress this. It's hard to argue directly with a company like Blizzard, because in general they won't comment.

Flawed arguments such as... what? This? "Blizzard assured them that the user experience will not be affected by always online requirement."

I'd personally love for someone to supply a quote of Blizzard saying that there would never be any lag. Or there would never be any server instability. I mean, it's going to be pretty tough considering that just last week they said there would be instability... and considering they have common sense and would never say such a thing. But by all means, feel free to track one down.

What other flawed arguments has Blizzard used in defense of D3 that this OP addresses?

"It has to be always online because of the real money auction house."

That? Again, a quote saying something like "the only reason Diablo 3 is always online is to make the RMAH work" would be great. See, me, I don't think they've ever actually said that, so I don't think that the OP does that great a job of addressing their argument.

Blizzard generally marketed D3 as an online multiplayer game and ignored that some people also see the Diablo franchise as a normal single player game. They actually did say that it wasn't technically possible to create an offline mode for it. The real reason probably was that they didn't want to becuase that would cut into their RMAH profits.
If you take a look at discussions here or on Battle net, a common argument is that offline functionality is technically impossible because D3 is solely a multiplayer game. That argument is flawed because the limit is not technical.
In the hypothetical case that Blizzard were to create an offline mode, one of the challenges would be to ensure that the integrity of items on the RMAH would be preserved. So RMAH is not the only reason they used to defend the online functionality, but it is one of them.

If I go to a store and buy a box, I usually own the contents of that box. In the case of contract terms it's usually expected that both parties get to read the contract before making an agreement.

Yes, you own the contents of the box you bought or pre-ordered. Those contents aren't "Diablo 3," they're "a disc that allows you to create an account on Diablo 3 provided the servers are up and running."

When I pay $15 every month to play WoW and Blizzard brings the servers down for maintenance, am I supposed to review bomb the game for not allowing me to play when I want to play? Cause they've been doing that on a weekly basis, every Tuesday night, never mind all the unscheduled maintenances that have gone on.

In the case of D3 it isn't clear what the consumer pays for. And it would be almost impossible to communicate the details on the outside of the box. When buying a box marketed as a game, I think it's natural to assume that you buy a game. If it is a limited rental agreement this should be made clear, and as a minimum it should be stated how long the agreement lasts.
"Creating a D3 account", isn't worth $60 so it's reasonable for consumers to expect they also get some gameplay for their money.

True but if the market moves in a direction that many consumers dislike, I think it makes sense to communicate that feeling. Otherwise how would companies notice that there is sufficent demand for other types of product.

Don't be an arse. Is that too much to ask for? A lot of people who might have valid points to contribute are going, and will continue to go, overlooked, just because they're not capable of talking (or in this case typing) without tripping over their twisted panties.

Now, I'm not calling you an arse, but do you see how useless the discussion becomes when we talk about faceless people who apparently exist and apparently say things that aren't entirely dissimilar to what I'm presenting here?

It helps to actually quote things actual people have actually said. Now, you said that it's important to communicate a feeling. Absolutely! And is anybody in this thread telling you to shut up, pack your bags, and get out of here? No, there's nothing wrong with some healthy discussion.

Problems arise when that discussion stops being healthy. The OP uses all sorts of unnecessarily hostile language like "they lied," when in fact no evidence of any such thing has been presented.

The people who work at Blizzard, by the way, are actually very real people. It always fascinates me that even on decent-ish forums, such as this one, attacking people is perfectly fine as long as they're not here to defend themselves. I don't see what the point of using hostile language like that is unless you actually want to get into an analysis of Blizzard's marketing strategy, and precisely what things they've said were knowingly said to manipulate consumers. Nothing wrong with that conversation, either, but we're not having it yet. No quotes, no evidence, just a lot of rage over something that's absolutely happening (internetification of everything) whether we like it or not, addressed at Diablo 3 as if Blizzard is the only company that's a part of this movement, and Diablo 3 is the first time they've ever taken part in it.

I don't think the OP is an arse. I think his arguments are quite reasonable. Also I didn't see any reason to pick apart his argumentation the way BloatedGuppy did.

I'm sure the individuals working at Blizzard are all decent folks. This is not about those individuals though, this is about Blizzard as a company and their product. I didn't notice any personal attacks in the original post.

Blizzard is not the only company that is 'internetifying' games. But people criticize specific cases and this specific case is about D3. People also complain when EA, Valve, UBISoft, Microsoft and others create online DRM schemes that give consumers less value for their money.

I agree that it helps to quote people specifically. But to be honest I'm to lazy to go digging up twitter posts several months old. Also I'm not in the habit of saving caches of Blizzard forums which makes it hard to preserve information that is regularly purged. Marketing information is often fickle, maybe because the people who make it don't like to be quoted for what they say.

I'll give you some quotes from a Blizzard representative giving an interview though.
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011/08/04/blizzard-vp-surprised-over-fan-reaction-to-diablo-3-online-requirements/

"You can play by yourself but your character is going to be saved on our servers. You have to authenticate through our servers to be able to play the game. I think it's not just 'Diablo 3' but with our games as a whole we're tying everything into Battle.net these days...We can provide a much a much more stable, connected, safer experience than we could if we let people play off-line."

Here he says that the gameplay experience would be much more stable than in an offline game. Thats not what people experienced at launch, and not what people would expect if comparing it to an MMO. Its close to be an outright lie because any system dependant on a network connection is bound to be more unstable than an offline equivalent.

"Internally I don't think [DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate. Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You're guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that's not really entering into why we want to do it. I'm a huge purveyor of online sites and from my standpoint, I don't look at DRM solutions and go, 'Wow, those are awesome.' I look at those and say, 'Wow, those kind of suck.' But if there's a compelling reason for you to have that online connectivity that enhances the gameplay, that doesn't suck. That's awesome."

Preventing dupes directly ties into preserving the online economy and thus the integrity of the RMAH. So the argument "Because of RMAH" was one of the reasons.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Blizzard assured them that the user experience will not be affected by always online requirement. They lied.

I think that might be a bit heavy handed. They failed to deliver sure, but they didn't lie. If the VP was smart he wouldn't have talked in absolutes. Quite careless of him.

I'm sure some people, at some time, did say something like that. You need to address those people at that time though, and quote them directly.

That's kind of moving the goalpost don't you think? No one could start discussions if that were the case.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't think the OP is an arse. I think his arguments are quite reasonable. Also I didn't see any reason to pick apart his argumentation the way BloatedGuppy did.

I didn't "pick apart his arguments". I was actually quite clear that I was sympathetic to his gripes. I had an issue with HOW he stated them. If I titled a thread "Entitled Whining Fanboys Need Common Sense" and then went on to make some reasonable points in amidst my shit flinging, it would not reverse the fact I was flinging shit.

That's kind of moving the goalpost don't you think? No one could start discussions if that were the case.

Hardly. There are a billion times a billion discussions that can be had and started that don't require sensational headlines (the OP changed his, you'll note), loaded aggressive language, and accusatory tones. If he wanted to talk about always online DRM there were numerous existing threads for him to do so. If he wanted to address a particular "Blizzard apologist" there were numerous opportunities for that, too. It's not like I reported his post, or attempted to censor him. I pointed out that he was being needlessly argumentative and picking a fight. It was Pure who called him an arse.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Why would anyone buy this game? It's just a rental title. By that I mean that in a few years they will shut down the servers and you will never be able to play D3 again.

I'd much rather have a game like Diablo 2 where I can install it and play on my PC or Virtual PC forever.

 

[Nerexor]

Why would anyone buy this game? It's just a rental title. By that I mean that in a few years they will shut down the servers and you will never be able to play D3 again.

I'd much rather have a game like Diablo 2 where I can install it and play on my PC or Virtual PC forever.

Yeah, because Blizzard never provides ongoing online support for their games like Starcraft and Diablo 2... oh wait, THEY DO. You can still play these games online despite them being over 10 years old, so why the fuck would they shut down D3 in a few years. Just to spite you personally? Because they're somehow made of raw evil now because you don't like the way they make their games? Most of the arguments in this thread have some substance, but this is utter bullshit that needs to stop being spewed around.

If you have some compelling evidence that they are going to shut down the servers on us, by all means, provide it. Otherwise, stop spewing panicked nonsense.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Why would anyone buy this game? It's just a rental title. By that I mean that in a few years they will shut down the servers and you will never be able to play D3 again.

I'd much rather have a game like Diablo 2 where I can install it and play on my PC or Virtual PC forever.

Yeah, because Blizzard never provides ongoing online support for their games like Starcraft and Diablo 2... oh wait, THEY DO. You can still play these games online despite them being over 10 years old, so why the fuck would they shut down D3 in a few years. Just to spite you personally? Because they're somehow made of raw evil now because you don't like the way they make their games? Most of the arguments in this thread have some substance, but this is utter bullshit that needs to stop being spewed around.

If you have some compelling evidence that they are going to shut down the servers on us, by all means, provide it. Otherwise, stop spewing panicked nonsense.

The reason I say that is because I've recently been getting burned. 3 MMO's have shut down, reset, or changed owners. Flyff (fly for fun) Albatross 18 (Pangya) and Ragnarok Online (mmo).

For instance Pangya changed owners two times. The first time they let you x-fer your gear and xp over. The second time, I had no notification and they wiped my account (with almost 1500 dollars worth of cash shop items purchased over 4 years)

Flyff I had several lv70s and maybe 60-100 dollars in, and all that got reset.

Ragnarok Online has done 4 server resets in the last 6-8 years. Wiped all my characters out.

If you play an always online game, you are at the mercy of the people who owned and created the game. You are not the owner just a renter.

 

[Nerexor]

Why would anyone buy this game? It's just a rental title. By that I mean that in a few years they will shut down the servers and you will never be able to play D3 again.

I'd much rather have a game like Diablo 2 where I can install it and play on my PC or Virtual PC forever.

Yeah, because Blizzard never provides ongoing online support for their games like Starcraft and Diablo 2... oh wait, THEY DO. You can still play these games online despite them being over 10 years old, so why the fuck would they shut down D3 in a few years. Just to spite you personally? Because they're somehow made of raw evil now because you don't like the way they make their games? Most of the arguments in this thread have some substance, but this is utter bullshit that needs to stop being spewed around.

If you have some compelling evidence that they are going to shut down the servers on us, by all means, provide it. Otherwise, stop spewing panicked nonsense.

The reason I say that is because I've recently been getting burned. 3 MMO's have shut down, reset, or changed owners. Flyff (fly for fun) Albatross 18 (Pangya) and Ragnarok Online (mmo).

For instance Pangya changed owners two times. The first time they let you x-fer your gear and xp over. The second time, I had no notification and they wiped my account (with almost 1500 dollars worth of cash shop items purchased over 4 years)

Flyff I had several lv70s and maybe 60-100 dollars in, and all that got reset.

Ragnarok Online has done 4 server resets in the last 6-8 years. Wiped all my characters out.

If you play an always online game, you are at the mercy of the people who owned and created the game. You are not the owner just a renter.

That is a reflection on those companies though, not necessarily EVERY game with a significant online component. Again, Blizzard has a history of continuing to support games for a very very long time.

Starcraft 1 is still online playable 14 years after release.
Diablo 2 is still online playable 12 years after release.
Both of those are continued despite the remodel of Battle.net as well.

And that's just online play, not to mention all the patching they've done to ensure the games were playable on modern operating systems. (Diablo 2 just had a patch released 7 months ago, you know, 11 YEARS after it was released) Hell, a lot of devs don't even bother to do that. I can't get Bioshock 1 to work on my windows 7 box because 2K games hasn't bothered to patch it to work with it.

Blizzard's business model has always been to produce a polished product and provide long term continuous support. Your mileage may vary on whether they succeeded on the first part with Diablo 3, but I seriously doubt they won't continue with their tradition of providing the second half.

That said, with those scenarios you mentioned I'm kind of hoping there's an eventual "back up your characters" feature in case anything really goes wrong with the blizzard servers...

 

[Sandytimeman]

Why would anyone buy this game? It's just a rental title. By that I mean that in a few years they will shut down the servers and you will never be able to play D3 again.

I'd much rather have a game like Diablo 2 where I can install it and play on my PC or Virtual PC forever.

Yeah, because Blizzard never provides ongoing online support for their games like Starcraft and Diablo 2... oh wait, THEY DO. You can still play these games online despite them being over 10 years old, so why the fuck would they shut down D3 in a few years. Just to spite you personally? Because they're somehow made of raw evil now because you don't like the way they make their games? Most of the arguments in this thread have some substance, but this is utter bullshit that needs to stop being spewed around.

If you have some compelling evidence that they are going to shut down the servers on us, by all means, provide it. Otherwise, stop spewing panicked nonsense.

The reason I say that is because I've recently been getting burned. 3 MMO's have shut down, reset, or changed owners. Flyff (fly for fun) Albatross 18 (Pangya) and Ragnarok Online (mmo).

For instance Pangya changed owners two times. The first time they let you x-fer your gear and xp over. The second time, I had no notification and they wiped my account (with almost 1500 dollars worth of cash shop items purchased over 4 years)

Flyff I had several lv70s and maybe 60-100 dollars in, and all that got reset.

Ragnarok Online has done 4 server resets in the last 6-8 years. Wiped all my characters out.

If you play an always online game, you are at the mercy of the people who owned and created the game. You are not the owner just a renter.

That is a reflection on those companies though, not necessarily EVERY game with a significant online component. Again, Blizzard has a history of continuing to support games for a very very long time.

Starcraft 1 is still online playable 14 years after release.
Diablo 2 is still online playable 12 years after release.
Both of those are continued despite the remodel of Battle.net as well.

And that's just online play, not to mention all the patching they've done to ensure the games were playable on modern operating systems. (Diablo 2 just had a patch released 7 months ago, you know, 11 YEARS after it was released) Hell, a lot of devs don't even bother to do that. I can't get Bioshock 1 to work on my windows 7 box because 2K games hasn't bothered to patch it to work with it.

Blizzard's business model has always been to produce a polished product and provide long term continuous support. Your mileage may vary on whether they succeeded on the first part with Diablo 3, but I seriously doubt they won't continue with their tradition of providing the second half.

Right but at the end of the day the chance that it could happen is still there. I don't want to not be able to play my game one day. I'll always be able to play with my Magic Cards, Or my Mage Knight Figurines, I'll always be able to plug in my Sega and kick butt in Streets of Rage.

I just don't want to wake up someday and find that Activision has done something horrible to blizzard.

 

[Tanakh]

I just don't want to wake up someday and find that Activision has done something horrible to blizzard.

Blizz is not managed by Activision. If they do something like killing SC:BW, Diablo II or Diablo III it will be because the ever growing greed in them took over, which is actually very possible.

But given their record, it is safer to buy a game from Blizz expecting them to keep their dedicated servers than of ANY other company. So as a rule of thumb it would be better to buy diablo III than any other game with dedicated servers since SC II.

No mod support. At all. No community classes, items, skins, tweak etc etc as they could be read a illegal modding of game files.

If you want to play this like a propper PC action RPG you have to crack and mod it taking all online out of the question. No nice modded games with friends, no ludicrous setups for overpowered fun gear. Daiblo III is a business, not a game.

This, if you want a proper PC action RPG, Diablo III is not. And yet i am having a blast, after playing almost every single action RPG since Diablo II this is the most fun i have had, maybe because it just borrow game mechanics from them, but the context is so diferent, i havent exactly found the roots of it. Could give examples of fun moments however, if you want.

Also, the conclusion is wrong, Diablo iii is just a diferent kind of game, still a game; and your phrasing seem to imply that the other games are not buisness... such naiveness is heartwarming

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Daiblo III is a business, not a game.

Almost all games are businesses. They're not spending millions of dollars developing and distributing this crap out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[Nerexor]

Snip.

Right but at the end of the day the chance that it could happen is still there. I don't want to not be able to play my game one day. I'll always be able to play with my Magic Cards, Or my Mage Knight Figurines, I'll always be able to plug in my Sega and kick butt in Streets of Rage.

I just don't want to wake up someday and find that Activision has done something horrible to blizzard.

We're talking about a pretty small chance though. I mean, I could get hit by a car if some driver runs a red light, doesn't mean I'm not going to cross the street. (I know, I know, the analogy is far from perfect).

Personally I think my $60 is reasonably well spent. Could've been better, but I'm willing to play the game despite the (really small) risk of potentially having it disappear in a few years. If you aren't willing to pay the money for that small a potential risk, that's your decision. But to get back to the original point of our discussion, please don't go shouting that Blizzard is absolutely going to pull the plug on the servers after a few years. There's plenty of precedent to say that they won't, and absolutely no indication that they are going to change that policy. If there ARE indications of that ever happening, then by all means let us know, but until then don't spread unsubstantiated rumors.

 

[w00tage]

-snip-

I made it about consumer rights because of how casually the guy I quoted threw it out there without any real understanding of what his rights were.

I still dont see how the DRM is a legitimate complaint. They didn't pull the rug under you like Guppy already pointed out. If it was a case of false advertisement and you expected to be able to play offline, then yeah. But that isn't the case. Their product their choice. It isn't our right to make them change it. It is however our right not to buy it.

Not to jump into the central arguments(s) but I just wanted to point out something that seems to be overlooked quite often.

There seems to be an assumption that "not buying a product" makes a statement to the producer that they can use to modify their behavior. This is not actually the case. If you don't buy Diablo3 because it requires an always-on connection (I won't fyi) then you simply drop off the radar as far as Blizzard is concerned. They will never know that they lost a potential customer because of this requirement.

This is imo a huge unaddressed issue with any industry that runs on monopolistic behavior (IP rights in this case). When you make a choice, you weigh pros and cons. When Blizzard made this choice, they had no way to weigh the cons (as represented by consumer concerns which would cost them sales), and there's no apple-to-apple competition to satisfy the market they failed to fulfill.

tldr; market forces don't work on monopolies unless the monopolist knows the reason(s) why someone didn't buy their product, and no game company seems to proactively ask that question.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Not to jump into the central arguments(s) but I just wanted to point out something that seems to be overlooked quite often.

There seems to be an assumption that "not buying a product" makes a statement to the producer that they can use to modify their behavior. This is not actually the case. If you don't buy Diablo3 because it requires an always-on connection (I won't fyi) then you simply drop off the radar as far as Blizzard is concerned. They will never know that they lost a potential customer because of this requirement.

This is imo a huge unaddressed issue with any industry that runs on monopolistic behavior (IP rights in this case). When you make a choice, you weigh pros and cons. When Blizzard made this choice, they had no way to weigh the cons (as represented by consumer concerns which would cost them sales), and there's no apple-to-apple competition to satisfy the market they failed to fulfill.

tldr; market forces don't work on monopolies unless the monopolist knows the reason(s) why someone didn't buy their product, and no game company seems to proactively ask that question.

I don't know if you can call an IP holder a monopolist. It's not like there aren't other similar games out there that people can choose to give their money to. If Diablo tanks and Torchlight 2 rakes in cash hand over fist because of always online DRM, I don't think Blizzard's bean counters are going to be sitting in a circle derping and wondering what happened. If we can figure it out on this forum, I'm pretty sure they're aware of the issue.