Battle.Net To Stop Piracy For Diablo 3

Who needs DRM when you’ve got battle.net? Blizzard believes they can authenticate legitimate users by stopping pirates from playing Diablo 3 online using their network service Battle.net. They’re saying the system is more like Steam than like EA’s solution of lock down methods using SecuROM.

Blizzard has used Battle.Net to stop piracy and allow only privileged people to play online since it was launched in ’97. This system, still in place, allows them to reuse the copy protection scheme they’ve been using, successfully, in the past.

“If you wanna play online on Battle.net with other players you’re going to have to have a legitimate copy,” Pardo said in a BlizzCon interview. Battle.net, he says, has “saved us from a lot of the PC piracy that I think hurts a lot of other single-player-only games.” (kotaku)

Although this copy protection is highly reasonable, it seems as if much of Diablo 3’s strong points lay in the awesome storyline. Apparently Blizzard is willing to let pirates play single player, and presumably with friends, using pirated copies.

Although it doesn’t seem fair for pirates to play through a single player campaign for free, it sure beats being harrased with awful copy protection along with potential gamer backlash.

0 thoughts on “Battle.Net To Stop Piracy For Diablo 3”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 246: Computer SpecsEpisode 246: Computer Specs

CES 2012 is going strong, as Jonah and Jordan do tonight’s podcast without Paul, who is packing for a trip. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the notorious Custer’s Revenge, and a punch of intriguing news and rumors comprise this week’s topics:

  • Fallout MMO rights belong to Bethesda as Interplay settles
  • Pachter sez there’s “zero chance” of PS4 at E3 2012
  • Rumor: Next Xbox tablet-based?
  • Rumor: Kaz Hirai to return as president of Sony
  • Diablo III release held due to South Korea (from GameFront)

Plenty of Reader Feedback this week, which is good because we forgot to include a Question of the Week this time.

Starcraft 2 Part Eins, Zwei and DreiStarcraft 2 Part Eins, Zwei and Drei

Nobody is perfect. When it comes to creating an epic story arc, awesome pre-rendered movies and a fully fleshed campaign Blizzard has done well. Now, Blizzard speaks of Starcraft 2 and the world shuts their mouth and listens to each and every word. What’s the word?

A Trilogy.

We’re not talking about the Lord of The Rings style trilogy, but three games with full stories which all end with the gamer being satisfied at the closure, not cliffhangers.

The three standalone games will be (says GameStooge):

  • Terrans – Wings of Liberty
  • Zerg – Heart of the Swarm
  • Protoss – Legacy of the Void

Gamers are probably thinking, “so, I can play multiplayer with only one race?” No! The campaign is split into three separete games, not the races and multiplayer features. Although, each title is sure to introduce something new to the game engine, Blizzard has said:

“Nothing changes for multiplayer or skirmish mode. All three races are fully implemented from the get go. Each campaign will feel like an epic story – not a cliffhanger into the next one. They will each have separate arcs that have a clear start, middle, end – and you will feel like you’ve really finished *something* at the end of each game. More content than we’d previously planned – many more Movies, Missions, etc.” (games.on.net)

From our perspective, it seems Blizzard is itching to release the multiplayer system to the world sooner than later, considering some countries use Starcraft as a professional league, but they don’t want to rush out fast to market campaigns just to satisfy this multiplayer desire.

Instead, they’re going to take their time, in usual Blizzard style, by releasing the game as they finish it… per races story. This should give us a less watered down storyline or having one or two races with a piss poor storyline while another has a kick ass storyline because it was done first.

End result? Multiplayer gamers will be happy in the end while those that play Starcraft for the story will need to wait for each game to be completed. We know Blizzards release schedule is “when it’s ready” so we can only imagine how long it will take to reach that third game in the trilogy.

DRM Free Spore Steams Forward!DRM Free Spore Steams Forward!

Gamers get upset when developers sneak ugly hacks onto their computers when they just want to play video games. Although gamers really only revolt when they know their being exploited, Spore is a fine example of how not to lock down a video game. Using SecuROM was a bad decision on the part of Electronic Arts, no matter what their PR spin tries to tell us.

Imagine a world of DRM free spore and you may be imagining reality using the Valve’s Steam software download architecture.

“The moderator specifically mentioned Spore but it’s possible this extends to other EA games that used SecuROM as well (like Mass Effect). If a game on Steam uses third-party DRM, it’s supposed to be mentioned on the product page.” (cinemablend)

We’ve been complaining about the Spore DRM for month snow on the gaming podcast, perhaps we’ll have to shut our mouths soon enough.

(Thanks, GameStooge)