14 DAY TRIAL // Diablo 3 was finally released on the PC and Mac platforms earlier this week all around the world.
Sadly, while millions upon millions of fans eagerly awaited this moment, the period following its release wasn’t that great. The mandatory online connection to Blizzard’s Battle.net servers resulted in an array of errors and problems for actual users, many of whom were unable to access the game they paid good money for.
If another company, like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft or anyone else, had been in charge of the launch, this mistake wouldn’t have been that bad.
However, we’re talking about Blizzard, a publisher with a huge amount of experience in terms of online gaming, which had already launched five products that were dependent on its Battle.net servers (World of Warcraft, its three expansions, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm, as well as StarCraft II).
What’s more, Blizzard’s error is inexcusable as it had already run a lengthy beta stage for Diablo III and even organized a stress test for its systems last month, in which anyone was able to play the game.
During this time, Blizzard said that it managed to gauge the interest in the RPG and would be ready for the actual launch at midnight on May 15.
Sadly, for many fans who got the game right at that time, that wasn’t so, as the servers were quickly overwhelmed and the game started displaying all sorts of error messages.
After a couple of days in which I was barely able to access the game at certain points, things are finally getting better, as I can now login at basically any moment during the day and error messages are no longer plaguing my gameplay experience.
Even so, Blizzard’s mistake is inexcusable. It had lots of experience with online games, was able to accurately try out its servers, and had more than enough money to buy servers at least for a short time at launch, in order to ensure every player had a decent experience.