Blizzard Boss Says Restrictive DRM Is a Waste of Time 563
Stoobalou writes "Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce reckons that fighting piracy with DRM is a losing battle. His company — which is responsible for one of the biggest video games of all time, the addictive online fantasy role player World of Warcraft — is to release StarCraft 2 on July 27, and Pearce has told Videogamer that the title won't be hobbled with the kind of crazy copy protection schemes that have made Ubisoft very unpopular in gaming circles of late. StarCraft 2 will require a single online activation using the company's Battle.net servers, after which players will be allowed to play the single-player game to their hearts' content, without being forced to have a persistent Internet connection."
Re:So it's still only good until the server dies? (Score:5, Funny)
Please post your address, I'd like to come take all your stuff. You'll clearly be OK with that if I give you the vague impression that I'm "likely" to give it back to you someday.
Oh, come on. After that rant, you can't possibly be suggesting you believe individual people should be allowed to own stuff.
Re:Call me a fanboi or whatever but... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, you will have trouble installing this on the non-existent computers that have no way to connect to the Internet, even temporarily, but still are modern enough to meet the other system requirements. Yes, if the authentication servers crash, you may be forced to suffer without a video game for an hour or two (or rather, without this particular video game -- presumably you'll still be able to play others if you really, really can't just read a book or watch TV or something). A meteor might come out of the sky and destroy your computer. YOU NEVER KNOW! So many things may prevent you from getting your SC2 fix at the particular instant you want it most...
But all that wasn't my point of my original post. The point was that you can't go around saying you don't have restrictive DRM and then implement restrictive DRM, but just less so than someone else.
Apparently, you can. Furthermore, since "restrictive" can be a very relative term, you can do so with a straight face, in perfect accuracy, and be understood by most competent speakers of the English language, just like you can claim you don't like hot beverages but then drink a "cold" beer that's hundreds of degrees above absolute zero.
Re:Gah! Where are my mod points? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Call me a fanboi or whatever but... (Score:3, Funny)
Same goes for Windows, Office, Adobe, etc etc etc. But you still have to activate it each time you reinstall. And even worse you tie your copy of CS2 to your battle.net account.
The day I need a battle.net account to run Adobe Creative Suite 2 is the day I get nothing done with Photoshop.
Re:Call me a fanboi or whatever but... (Score:2, Funny)
Online from the office that is.
Not necessarily ;) (Score:5, Funny)
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