Internet Money | The Internet Hate Machine Spools Up Against Diablo 3 Over Mods DRM

It's getting to a point where I can only take so much internet outrage seriously. Message boards and gaming sites are all up in arms today about a bunch of recent revelations about the upcoming action RPG, Diablo III, a title that's been hotly anticipated for almost a decade.

The issues are threefold (via PC Gamer ), and have upset players for a variety of reasons.

1) You must always have an internet connection to play the game, also known as "always on DRM"

2) There will be no support for mods

3) There is an auction house that allows players to buy and sell Diablo items for real world cash.

So why the outrage? Always on DRM is a big issue in the PC gaming community now, and one that doesn't have a console equivalent. It's like saying you always need to be signed on to an Xbox Live account to play any game, even in single player mode, and if you lose your connection, you're booted off the game.

Blizzard's Starcraft II has this system as well, but players have more or less gotten used to it, complaining about another issue instead, lack of LAN support. Out of the three of these announcements, it is definitely the biggest issue, but one that I doubt will cause players to not buy the game in droves, despite their protests. But despite the system, there is almost always a way around it for pirates, and I've never been convinced always on DRM actually does more good than harm.

Secondly, a lack of mod support is annoying to be sure, but not unexpected as fewer and fewer titles are opening themselves up to that possibility these days. That said, it was a fun part of the last game, and will be missed.

Finally, the auction house should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the word "microtransactions." Since Diablo 3 presumably won't have a monthly subscription fee as its predecessor didn't, Blizzard wants to find a way to make cash from players in game. Their idea is to build this system where players can sell each other items for real world money, and take a cut of those profits as it happens.

But this is entirely optional. You still have to play through the game to be able to use high level items, and so this wouldn't seem to affect core gameplay that much. All it really serves is a shortcut for those who don't want to spend hundreds of hours hoping a boss drops an item that has a .00001% chance of showing up, something admittedly frustrating about the previous game.

I've yet to hear of very many boycott threats that actually changed anything, and to hear that people are threatening to ditch Diablo 3 over these items is ridiculous. A few may, but largely this is no way will make a dent in sales, despite how much complaining there will be over the next few days until this is just accepted.