14 DAY TRIAL // When video game developer Blizzard announced that the upcoming Diablo III will need to be always connected to Battle.net via the Internet a lot of fans of the franchise and PC gamers in general were highly critical of the company, saying that the choice is nothing more than a ploy to introduce DRM measures via the backdoor.
But it seems that when it comes to video game developers the move is seen as something that the industry needs.
Speaking to Eurogamer at the recent QuakeCon event Tim Willits, who is the creative director working at id Software, said that, “Diablo 3 will make everyone else accept the fact you have to be connected. If you have a juggernaut, you can make change. I’m all for that. If we could force people to always be connected when you play the game, and then have that be acceptable, awesome.”
He added, “In the end, it’s better for everybody. Imagine picking up a game and it’s automatically updated. Or there’s something new you didn’t know about, and you didn’t have to click away. It’s all automatically there. But it does take juggernauts like to make change.”
Blizzard has said that Diablo III needs to always be linked to Battle.net in order to make sure that the player does not tamper with it and to assure that the real money auction houses are not breached.
At the moment the staff at id Software is working on putting the finishing touches on their first person shooter RAGE, which will arrive on October 4 and will be playable on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
Diablo III still does not have a clear launch date, although a beta stage will be launched in the fall in order to test the network infrastructure needed for the always on mechanisms of the game.
The release is expected to happen in 2012.