This is exactly the way I look at it: there are more games out there for me to enjoy than I'll ever have time to play, so I'm not going to accept some kind of asinine DRM just to play yet another game on the long list of games that look good to try.

On a side note: I know from your previous postings that you're a scotch drinker. I'm enjoying a nice glass of the Talisker at the moment. Tipping my glass to you right now, OG. Cheers!

Okay, pouring a glass of Abelour! Hehe.

"The king o' drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Islay, or Glenlivet." - Robert Louis Stevenson. Good choice ser!

As far as Diablo goes, I really don't mind the online only bit as it affects me very little. As sad as it may be, this the direction the industry is going and not only gaming but most IT as well. Whether the shit sticks to the wall I'm not sure but it certainly isn't hard to imagine a day when you have to be online to make use of your desktop applications much like the direction Google's Chromebooks are heading. I'll always love my desky top, and I'll always love being able to play my games in some deserted place with nary a phone line but for multiplayer games and what not I don't really mind all that much. If it makes the game a hassle or less fun then forget it but if the game is still well made and enjoyable then whatever...

Well then, I guess I shouldn't give a damn about future games, since I already have enough to play. On that note, I might as well buy Diablo 3, enjoy it and not worry even if every game ever made in the future will have the most insane DRM or whatever. After all - I already have enough. Future generations also won't have a shortage of games, since if there's enough for me, there will be enough for anyone !

Yeah, that reasoning is actually sound. Code to think of it - it's double escapism. Fearing the "future of gaming" we might as well seek refuge in the past.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to ponder the inevitability of death and inherent absurdity of human life.

As much as I love gaming, I would never let it keep me up at night (unless I was, you know, playing at night). Just look at where every other media industry is and you will see where gaming will end up. Don't worry, there will always be a good game somewhere.

Not all of those 300 games are GOG games from 10 years ago, I probably have 2-3 dozen recent releases (less than a year old). There will be more future releases that won't have Diablo 3 type DRM (apparently HoMM VI, or at least we can hope that that was a true story). When you get right down to it, you can absorb a lot of games stories on Youtube, is it the same as playing it? No, not really, but if that's all you want to do, Youtube the videos and go play Torchlight 2 on local LAN co-op, while you're at it, feel free to use a trainer to spawn a new character for your buddy's girlfriend that tagged along and wanted to hang with the guys. Later on install the zombie mod, which includes infection and traps, oh yeah!

Putting cancer in chocolate wouldn't slow me down. Everyone would finally understand smokers.

Every time someone bought a game with annoying DRM, it told the publishers that customers would put up with it. Every time someone cracked the game, it told the publishers that more DRM was needed.

Incremental, step-by-step, up to this point with always on DRM.

This shit should have been nipped in the bud 7 years ago, but it wasn't because people 'just wanted to play the game'. It became the accepted norm because people 'think it's more important to support development' and believe that 'boycotts don't work because not enough people will do it to be effective'.

And here we are now, with people, as evidenced in this very thread, happy to be entirely dependent on the whims of a third party. Happy to be told when they can and cannot play the game they paid money for. Still foolishly using phrases like 'buy the game' when it can no longer be applied.

If StarCraft 2 had no offline mode, I would never have given Blizzard my money. If I'd known that I'd never be able to get offline mode working, I would never have given Blizzard my money. It is not a mistake I shall repeat, and Blizzard will no longer be getting any of my money.

It'll make not a jot of difference, because enough simpletons will support this crap to prove Blizzard right, as they have done for most of the last decade. Always online DRM will become the norm. Gaming will become a service.

Welcome to the future.

The problem is that at the time they started introducing DRM the consoles were gaining strength and market share. A total boycott of PC games would likely have lead to less and less PC games being made. If anything Steam, a DRM platform, led to a PC resurgence.

There is nothing wrong with people drawing the line in the sand when it becomes too much for them. For me this is that line in the sand, an easily cracked one-time activation was not.

Indeed. The problem is that with all the varying lines in the sand there were simply too few saying "fuck that noise" at any one time. So matters persisted, things got incrementally worse, and now we arrive here.

If Diablo 3 sells seven copies and is a monstrous flop, prompting a massive backtrack, I will gladly eat my words and say that I was wrong. But if Diablo 3 sells millions and is quite the success., then welcome to games as a service.

Indeed. And it will.

Honestly as I commented on rockpapershotgun yesterday singleplayer gamers are living on borrowed time right now when it comes to mainstream games. Online features and new revenue streams are going to keep chipping away at offline singleplayer until there is not much left, especially on PC. I'm not saying singleplayer is dying really, but traditional singleplayer is.

There seems to be a lot of us now not buying Diablo 3 thanks to this online crap i do hope this has a huge impcat on sales but all i can see is Blizzard shrugging their shoulders and just doing their own thing as they have the cash cow that is WOW so they wont care they lost sales it wont make much of a dent on their profits.

I would love to see it fail or fail to the point that the have to change it and include an offline mode and such.

I've polled some of my friends about D3. Including myself there are eight lost sales for various reasons . . . always on-line, no off-line SP and no LAN the usual responses.

Mostly ... none of us can get excited about a game release that is a decade late. We all played Diablo into the ground buying every release. Maybe 7 or 8 yrs ago the release would have been relevant??

These people really live in some la-la land, not having the faintest idea how people play their games. I could be wrong of course, but from my point of view more and more PC gamers play on laptops, thus want mobile gaming. Let's talk again when there is a cheap world-wide LTE (4G) coverage without any caps or limits.

Heck, even most mobile phone single-player games that I've played don't expect you to be online. The only exception are free games that force you to watch some simple net advertisements every now and then.