Diablo 3 is coming out.  They made a controversial decision.  Diablo 3 requires an Internet connection to play, even for single-player mode.

There are some advantages of “You always need an internet connection to play.”  It allows people to use the same characters in multiplayer and singleplayer, because the server is sure that the player didn’t cheat.

One advantage is “fighting piracy”.  If you have an “illegal” copy of the game, you can’t connect to the server.  However, some people are already reverse-engineering the server protocol, and will write their own server.  There are “World of Warcraft” servers not run by Blizzard.

There are some negatives.  What if you have an unreliable Internet connection?  What if you have a slow connection?

What happens 5-10 years from now, if Blizzard goes bankrupt or decides to stop operating the server?  There are old DRM products that are worthless, because the company operating the DRM server failed or shut down the server.

I also don’t like it when a game forces you to play multiplayer.  I had that problem in Diablo 2.  I was playing a spellcaster, and I came across a boss with magic resistance, extra HPs, and regeneration.  (This was on hard difficulty, where bosses randomly get extra abilities.  That combination was unbeatable.)  I couldn’t kill it and got stuck and frustrated.  I had to play multiplayer, and use a warrior to get past that point.

I usually don’t buy games right away when they’re released.  I wait a few years, and you can get the game+expansion combo relatively cheap.

I’m more interested in “Torchlight 2″ than “Diablo 3″.

I’m annoyed that “Diablo 3″ requires an always-on internet connection.  I’m not going to buy it for a few years, and maybe not at all.  One good aspect is that it prevents cheating in multiplayer.  It’s offensive that you can’t play singleplayer without connecting to their server.  It’s an excessively-intrusive DRM.  The only solution is to refuse to buy.