While watching Heroes tonight, I read a little Digg.com (I don’t know why I bother sometimes!) I came across an image titled:
How To Force Blizzard To Add LAN Support To Starcraft II (PIC)
Looking at the image, you see that a customer is canceling his World of Warcraft account in order to protest the dubiously misused term DRM that’s being used to prove customers are trusted to play the game. The exact phrasing is:
I am cancelling my account because you chose DRM as an acceptable means of deployment in StarCraft II, and refused to allow me to play the game as I wish, where I wish without connecting to your system to authenticate my purchase. You have lost me as a customer because I cannot play your game without proving to you every time I play it that I am a legitimate customer.
Since you have decided your game is too good to trust me with, I have decided my money is too good to leave in your hands.
I have seen this tactic before. My 11 year old uses it from time to time. He doesn’t want to have to wear a coat, so he decides he doesn’t want to go outside anymore. Childish much? The reality is this user really has very little idea what the motivating factor behind this decision was. It’s quite possible that it uses network resources to stay up to date, allow social features, etc. Blizzard is making gobs of money with World of Warcraft so it’s feasible that they are mashing it up with an MMORPG. But that’s not the point.
The point is that Blizzard has and will have millions of customers, and quite probably this guy too. Once all his friends are playing and talking about how good it is, or his WoW Crack addiction grips him, he’ll be back. Blizzard, just like most software companies, write software for the greater group, not the super hardcore contingent (which this guy obviously is) and will include a feature set that appeals to the broader base. I can guarantee that adding a LAN support mode is no trivial feat, and Blizzard isn’t going to be blackmailed into redeveloping the entire game this close to release by $15 per month.
Get a grip, sure, vote with your wallet, but drop the “screw you guys, I am going home” Cartman routine, it’s a game.
Tweet
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with this. “Digital Rights Management” is a sorry buzzword for making the paying customer’s life more difficult, in a sorry attempt to make it more difficult to pirate software.
I wish companies could understand, DRM only makes it harder for a legitimate user to use the software.
I’m not condoning piracy here, but I’d much rather have a pirated version of a DRM-ridden piece of software, because the pirates have gotten rid of the DRM.
DRM only comes as a desperate plea to a customer to bear with the developers of the software for the inconvenience, that does little towards its supposed purpose.