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Saboth wrote on May 15, 2012, 20:56:Orogogus wrote on May 15, 2012, 20:41:Saboth wrote on May 15, 2012, 20:33:
Nothing will change until we start seeing some lawsuits. You buy a single player game, you should be able to play it. MMOs are a completely different story because you need servers to play with other people. The problem is, many companies (like Blizzard) toss in a few online components (like the trade house) and try and weasel around the issue.
I don't see how there could possibly be a case unless you could convincingly argue that Blizzard was somehow misrepresenting the online requirement, when in fact people have been arguing about it nonstop for months. I just can't imagine a court caring about the difference between singleplayer and multiplayer games, or being sympathetic to the right to play singleplayer games offline.
I'm not sure why they wouldn't. "Hey, I gave them $60. I can't use the product I bought." I think we've developed some kind of pathos in gaming that "this is just the way it is, deal with it." No, we are buying a product, and when you buy a product, you hand over money and you are entitled to a working product. When DRM is heavy handed like this, it seems some people are projecting the MMO model onto the single player model. "Well, it's release day, expect some problems." No...don't expect problems. There are only problems because of the DRM path they chose. They could easily make it so single player works in offline mode without access to multiplayer and the trade house. But they chose not to. That's a design flaw. This DRM is like having OnStar phone GM each time you start your car. "Hey, I need to verify I own this car...can you deactivate the remote disable so I can go to work?" "Sorry sir, there are some problems with our servers right now...we hope to have it resolved in 3-4 hours." Why the heck would you make your theft deterrent work that way? Obviously they didn't because it's stupid.
The only reason companies are getting away with this is because we let them.