Blizzard Plans to use Battle.Net as Diablo III's DRM

Considering the anger going around the PC gaming community due to exorbitant DRM schemes that lock users from doing certain things with their purchases, the choice that Blizzard is going with for Diablo III is an interesting one: they’re going to use Battle.Net as DRM.

Have a look for yourself: Blizzard’s Executive VP of Game Design, Rob Pardo, explained it to Wired recently:

Wired: Along with that, there’s a huge segment of the fanbase and a huge segment of the media who came down on EA recently when they released Spore and it had that ridiculous DRM system that only allowed you to put it on three computers. There was a huge uproar. Obviously you need some kind of DRM otherwise people would just blatantly pirate your game over and over again. What kind of solutions are you guys looking at for Diablo III?

Pardo: The thing that I think helps us, is that since our games have such a huge multiplayer component, Battle.net really is our most effective DRM.

If you wanna play online on Battle.net with other players you’re going to have to have a legitimate copy. That’s really kinda been the thing that’s always saved us from a lot of the PC piracy that I think hurts a lot of other single-player-only games.

I’m surely not the only person relieved by that statement. Especially later in the interview when he uses an analogy: “We take an approach that’s more similar to Steam than EA, let’s say. ” To that, I say awesome. They’re going the old-fashioned way, by checking serial keys when you go online. Who can beat that?

You’d think more companies would do it that way nowadays, considering the amount of games that focus on multiplayer gameplay…

Any way it goes, Blizzard is kickin’ it old school with Diablo III. I, for one, am glad they’re doing so.

Q&A: Blizzard’s Executive Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo [Wired.com]

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