Gaming Blizzard facing Legal Indictments from France & Germany

[FireCat]

While poor gamers in the US of A have been left to the wolves regarding the pervasive always-on DRM in Diablo III, other consumers around the world are getting help from consumer advocacy groups including some extremely stiff stipulations being placed on Blizzard from both Germany and France.

Yes, that's right, both Germany and France, well known enemies of each other, are coming together to fight a greater evil...Diablo. You know it's bad when countries who were arch-enemies can put aside petty genocidal rivalries to drop a ban-hammer on a greedy video game publisher.

Read Moar Here.

 

[Accname]

Germany and France are arch-enemies?
I thought they both work very closely together in the EU.

 

[Dan]

It's not Blizzard, it's the entire idea of DRM I suppose. Diablo is no different from playing World of Warcraft which is online only. I have faith that the great Blizzard legal team will shrug all the stupidity off.

 

[The Helper]

This is a new thing, have to be online to play Diablo even in Single Player mode off a console. Wait until they role these games out on console, once they get all these lawsuits cleared away. Blizzard is backed by Activision and is a huge moneymaker with WoW and they are leading the way. They might not release games all the time but they sure have some hits They will make money no matter what and they will fight to make money in single player, and to try and stop cheating, even in single player it seems. Is that a bad thing to stop cheating?

 

[s3rius]

I thought they both work very closely together in the EU.

Sadly they do. French language gives me arrythmia.

 

[LurkerAspect]

Warning: Strong opinion to follow:
Good to see the scumbags at Blizzard finally answering for their rubbish... At what point did they go from making awesome mind-blowing games to becoming blood-sucking consumerism-driven ripoffs? Or am I the only one who's been disappointed by Blizzard these last few years?

 

[Jaujarahje]

At what point did they go from making awesome mind-blowing games to becoming blood-sucking consumerism-driven ripoffs? Or am I the only one who's been disappointed by Blizzard these last few years?

When they merged with Activision. That's when. All Activision does is mass produce games until they can't be milked anymore, then abandon them and the devs and restart with another company

 

[Slapshot136]

Germany and France are arch-enemies?
I thought they both work very closely together in the EU.

they are the 2 largest players - if they agree on something, it gets done, but if they disagree, a political shit-storm ensues.

 

[Wiseman_2]

This is a new thing, have to be online to play Diablo even in Single Player mode off a console. Wait until they role these games out on console, once they get all these lawsuits cleared away. Blizzard is backed by Activision and is a huge moneymaker with WoW and they are leading the way. They might not release games all the time but they sure have some hits They will make money no matter what and they will fight to make money in single player, and to try and stop cheating, even in single player it seems. Is that a bad thing to stop cheating?

If always-on DRM becomes a thing on consoles then I will pretty much be forgetting about buying any new games with it. I have a shaky internet connection at the best of times, and it's entirely unfeasible to expect to be able to roll out a game worldwide that everyone will be able to connect online with. I can accept it if the game contains a heavy online portion, but only if it remains disabled for single player. I'm playing offline, on a console/PC I bought, on a game I bought, I want to be able to play it as and when I want to, not when I can establish a connection to the developer/publisher's likely clogged servers. It's part of the reason the only PC games I play these days tend to be 7+ years old (aside from the fact my laptop is also 4 years old ^.^).

As it goes, I am not fussed much by Diablo III so I guess it doesn't matter that much... just now. Also, this.

 

[Bribe]

I suppose it could be beneficial for someone who was playing single player for fun but wanted to transfer their achievements to the online experience.

Though for a game like StarCraft, I hope we never see that kind of sacrifice. The only thing you take away from you after each game of single player RTS is that you have more experience for the next fight, but there are no notable achievements to transfer over to the multiplayer experience (part of what makes the game great: you both start with the same stuff)

 

[Dan]

Well Blizzard is my all time favorite game company. When it comes down to it, at the end of the day they have the right to make whatever they want and use any business model that they think will benefit them the most. If that means they have become "all about the money" then I have to laugh a bit.

Do you guys realize how much money goes to developers in a year? These people are professionals; Blizzard developers are prime picks from the industry. Diablo 3 took SIX YEARS to develop. In order to pay developers for that long, you need to dump a LOT of money into a product. A lot of studios would have just released a crappy product after the third year passed in order to cut losses. Blizzard has money to allow for longer cycles and can support huge money losses like that because they know that they have a following based on past excellence. Diablo 3 is another excellent game from them. They are even supporting it post release which is amazing.

I don't understand what goes through people's heads. "requires online connection" is pretty straightforward to me. If you don't understand what that means... I feel very bad for you as a person. People are claiming that they "didn't know" that you needed a consistant online connection.

What I don't understand, is why they can attack D3 and not every mmorpg ever made... Don't like the D3 model? That's fine, but it doesn't make it illegal. Nothing will stick.

 

[Jaujarahje]

The thing about the always online though is that it isn't an MMORPG. It is an Action RPG that was mainly, and still kind of is mainly, a single-player RPG. They did online only to help combat botters and the such, but botting is just as rampant as it has always been. People want to play single-player, not have random people or friends join in without their say so. It's a matter of this not being an MMO, but a (relatively) Single Player RPG, that makes people so mad about the online only

 

[phyrex1an]

You're missing the point. Blizzard aren't getting sued because you can't play without Internet, they are getting sued because you can't play at all.

Customer protection in the EU is pretty straight forward:

Customer: "I bought X because I wanted Y"
Did you get Y when you bought X?
Yes => Good for you!
No => Is it reasonable to expect Y when buying X?
      No => Then you are stupid for buying X
      Yes => Has the company you bought X from compensated you enough because of this?
                  Yes => Well, I guess that settles it...
                  No =>  ANGRY LETTER!

Some people bought Diablo 3 because they wanted to play Diablo 3.
Blizzard servers was malfunctioning for a long time after launch, so people couldn't play Diablo 3.
It's reasonable to expect to be able to play Diablo 3 when you buy Diablo 3.
Blizzard hasn't compensated people for this.
So, Blizzard is now at the "ANGRY LETTER!" step.

 

[Jaujarahje]

Again though, people bring that problem back to the fact that if they allowed an offline mode, it wouldn't have happened.