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Diablo III targeted by German consumer advocacy group

Connor Sheridan
By Connor Sheridan, News Intern

Blizzard's action role-playing game misleads buyers by not specifying a constant online connection is required to play, group says.

Some players have taken exception to Diablo III's constant Internet connection, and a German consumer advocacy group could take formal action on their behalf. According to German site PC Games, and as reported by GamingBlend, the Federation of Consumer Organizations advised Blizzard it has until July 27 to more clearly detail the game's online requirement on its packaging lest the group pursue legal action.

Diablo III has had a hexed first few months despite great sales.

Diablo III has had a hexed first few months despite great sales.

Diablo III's current packaging stipulates only that an online connection is required to register with Blizzard's Battle.net service, the report states, and does not say the game is unplayable without continued Internet access. The group also censured Blizzard's handling of the game's launch, which left many completely unable to play even the game's single-player because of overloaded servers.

It's not the only planned legal action in response to Diablo III's always-on DRM woes. Blizzard was legally obligated to provide refunds for South Korean gamers, and a trade group of Korean Internet cafe owners plan a class action lawsuit to compensate for fees paid to Blizzard needed to offer the then-nonfunctional game to customers.

GameSpot requested comment from Blizzard on how it plans to respond to the German group, but had not received a response as of publication time.

Connor Sheridan
By Connor Sheridan, News Intern

Connor Sheridan is the News Intern at GameSpot in San Francisco. He loves Super Metroid and has seen "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert three times.

105 comments
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TigusVidiks
TigusVidiks like.author.displayName 1 Like

D3 is briliant as a game. However,it does have some problems with the online requirements. Not everyone in the world who owns a PC has cosntant internet at usable prices.  And it doesn't say in the box about the constant online conection required.  It doesn't matter how many time Blizzard stated it in press conferences or in online sites.  There are people who don't see those things and don't live an intense online activity to have heard about it.  The box of the product needs to state exactly what you need to be able yo play, obviously. 

BuzzLiteBeer
BuzzLiteBeer

 @TigusVidiks While I agree that people have been more harsh than nessesary about D3, I do not think it is "brilliant" by any measure. It's a good game, but from a developer/publisher like Blizzard, it falls far way below the mark. After many months of patches, it's still not a rewarding experience after finishing inferno.

kiramasaki
kiramasaki

Within in the last 4-5 years Bizzard, Nintendo, Square Enix, and Capcom have really become shells of their former selves.

SauhlGood
SauhlGood

wonder if we can get that goin in NA, i hope people at blizzard realise their rep as a once gamer-first company is being ripped to shreds by, one can only assume, activision business policies

Valen_Ca
Valen_Ca like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 10 Like

Wait, wait, Blizzard doesn't even have the always online requirement listed on the box? If there is anything worse then this kind of idiotic DRM it is not explicitly telling your paying customers about on the Battle.Net store or on the back of the box.

Dragon_Nexus
Dragon_Nexus like.author.displayName 1 Like

Yeah, this'll amount to nothing what-so-ever.

staranise
staranise like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 6 Like

hope blizzard continues to fail and get sued some more to learn on this "constant online connection snafu". the moment starcraft 2 was a chopped up game upon release and d3 must be online constantly, i prayed for them to fail like dominoes....who cares if they made great games in the past. the question is the now...if they suck now then the games they make in the future will also suck like rEAperWare did (must be the new role models of devs these days)....

xDARKS0ULx
xDARKS0ULx

A lot of you are probably on american servers too, you have no idea how bad it was and still is on euro servers. Why can't I just log my character into a different server? Because blactivision wants to milk transfer costs.

iluvOP
iluvOP

I know its a bad game, but still why is it that everyone has be up in legal arms whenever they see the slightest chance? Oh humanity, never change.

SauhlGood
SauhlGood

 @iluvOP

 randy kotick is that you!? cmon mate youve got a company to run and people to gouge, hop to it

deathblow3
deathblow3 like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 4 Like

 @iluvOP what other option do we as consumers have they already have our money. do we just go hey give us our money back i doubt that would ever work. you have to get what you are promised.

suture
suture like.author.displayName 1 Like

The amount of stupidity is too damn high!Blizzard announced countless times D3 would be online only.PVP, AH, multiplayer, RMAH they all obviously need internet (duh)Its not a "drm", its server wise like wow, or else ppl would not care because they could PIRATE it anyway. THATS WHY they are whinningsadly you cannot sell it cause its bounded to your account, but you can PROFIT from it! Like i did AND STILL KEEP THE GAME.And yes the game is awesome, not my fault the "omg ill buy D3 cause its kool and hype" kids didnt like it (most of them never Played a diablo b4 anyways)So, go play some pirateded half assed games and dont even bother replying to this

SauhlGood
SauhlGood

 @suture

 jeezus organize your thoughts!, you sound like a teenage girl goin off on a justin bieber rant....  when you grow up you'l realize what things like "bait and switch" are.... and why they are unethical, your world must be black and white which is nice, and easy to navigate but not the world we live in

suture
suture

uh, you got a point there, lots of commas, line breaks missing there along with the rage and cellphone typing, creates a really nasty spaghetti wall of text.

 

Anyways, just tired of dumb ppl who dont even bother to think a little bit on the Implications of Buying (in this case) a game in wich, most of elements are obviously online.There are few game companies that rarely let me down on fixing theyr stuff, call me fanboy or wtv, i dont care, and i dont even have that many blizzard games anyway.

 

But what really pisses me off, is buying a 60$ game with serious game breaking bugs or worse, faulty netcode, and a fantastic (not) 4h to 6h of gameplay.And cause ppl downloaded the game illegally dont give a flying frak and sometimes they even have the b**** to ask for game fix's to devellopers.Well sorry (most) "online requirement" haters but if you wanna play this you have to buy it.but seriously i live in a small village with the crappiest internet (1mb) and i am still able to play flawlessly.. 

 

i could be wrong, but i only see in forums cry babies that say this game is too hard and most of them never knew what a diablo game even was.If i hate blizzard, its only because they listened to those crybabies and nerfed the game dificulty.I finished the game just fine before that, and having a life, *shock*.

And finally trolls who want the offline mode so they could just crack it like starcraft.

 

So sorry, if i raged a little bit, but im kinda tired of the dumbness and stupidity of humanity

@SauhlGood

darkelfthief
darkelfthief like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @suture Diablo 3 being mediocre is the problem. Combine said mediocrity with the server issues and always-online requirement, you get a bad game. Diablo 2 (after expansion and patches), Titan's Quest, & Torchlight are better games within the same genre in terms of gameplay. 

 

Diablo 3 is visually pretty though, I'll give you that.  I do seriously hope that D3 will improve with future patches and expansions, but until such a time, I'll stick with better games and continue to wait patiently for Torchlight 2 (the real sequel to Diablo 2).

KC_CheeseKing
KC_CheeseKing like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

Blizzard should be forced to pay full refunds to anyone who asks for them after this bulls***. Their stupid "always-online" tactic is common knowledge now, but anyone who bought this on release day got screwed if they only wanted it for single player or if their internet connection sucks. Very stupid decision on Blizzard's part.

bikram323
bikram323

 @KC_CheeseKing 

I like to play Single Player. 

Also no good internet connection in my locality. So will Blizzard ask the better  ISPs to give connection there or will the sponsor a new house in the coverage of a good isp?

catzblu999
catzblu999

"then-nonfunctional"

 

Then non-functional? It's not functional NOW! It's garbage!

burizadokyanon
burizadokyanon

I don't get what the big complaint is re: constant internet connection (other than in this case, which I do agree, the packing is misleading).

 

Do any of you even remember how hacks and dupes made the DII economy completely unstable? It was ridiculous! People walking around with elite uniques like they were just common items. SoJ duping had become so rampant it had become the 'standard' currency of the game. IMO, anything Blizzard can do to prevent this kind of nonsense (maphacks too) is a step in the right direction.

 

darkelfthief
darkelfthief

 @burizadokyanon But why can't they keep separate character lists?  There shoud be one for offline single player only, where you can do whatever you want to your game, and another for always-online single player & co-op.  The items and gold you earn in the ofline game can't be transferred to the auction house or to your always-online characters.  I mean, I don't know, is there some technical hurdle or programming challenge that makes this infeasible?

Landsharkk
Landsharkk like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @burizadokyanon The CEO was already quoted in saying the always-on connection was not designed to combat hacks/cheats.  He said it was designed to 'enhance gameplay', whatever that means.

n0matter
n0matter

 @burizadokyanonActually, hacks and dupes are what made D2 so successful and still such an awesome game today.  Give Inferno a shot some time.  Come back and tell me how cool it is after you've been farming act 1 for two weeks and still haven't seen the drops necessary for you to progress to act 2.  So much fun...

This comment has been deleted

evil-zodiark
evil-zodiark

 @abroche not sure but i heard  somewhere that some group was able to pirate the game by using some lan server or something.....

so you're argument is not valid...

thing is you can't defeat pirates they'll allways find a way(remember ACII)

abroche
abroche

 @evil-zodiark and i quote you " not sure but i heard  somewhere"  

you heard, somewhere

 

you didn't see it or have a straight fact that it does exist

like i said is doable but not an easy task

petran78
petran78

 @abroche pirates, as in most games, go for offline versions. Diablo 3 is on its way there. protection can last 6 months the most

abroche
abroche

 @petran78 not likely unless they manage to mount a private servers or some way to download almost 30 gigs of information of the game plus the aditional programing to make it run in a stand along server configuration making diablo 3 run pirate version is not an easy task to do but duable it will just take a ell of time to do it

Savoritias
Savoritias

 @abroche People stop. Some people can't understand that games are for everyone and not just for those who have internet. 

Savoritias
Savoritias like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 5 Like

 @abroche so you don't care about the other and you care only about yourself? Barcause I have a good internet connection too but I know that it needs to be stopped so more people can play it.

abroche
abroche

 @Savoritias first i do care about others, but by doing so i wont give them a 10MB internet conection am i, and if you read right I DONT HAVE THE BEST internet connection i have some issues in the game with back track by lag

deathblow3
deathblow3

 @abroche yes i do know waht all those things are since i went to school to learn it and second your wrong. if the game is only getting small amounts off the server like you say then it shouldnt effect me moving in single player. and my game physically loads faster than all my buddies i usually have to wait on them. and all there pc's are well above system specs. either way we can argue semantics all day long. you wrong and sorely misinformed  about how this game runs.

abroche
abroche

 @deathblow3 first let me ask you something do you know what routing conection are , or hops hell do you even know what a tracert is , do you know how you connect to diferent services, what are the back bones to those other streaming services  the host bandwith (not internet speed) where each server for those games are located what are them IPS , the hops or routing conextion you ISP do , DO YOU even know what a packet loss is , you know what a ping represent and how affect you game take for example i live  in puerto rico and my conection have to doa series of jump in order to connect me to diablo server during those jump meybie one the relays have a huge problen with lag (ping times) from my ISP to diablo servers and there is my problem but if i connect to steam and play TF2 (awesome game btw) my times ar even lower than in diablo becuase the routing to those servers are clean and have no issues with the ISP relays to other location . diablo loading times are very fast becuase you have all the maps, and models installed the server only tells you game what is need to load and keep a comunication with the game to keep track of your achivements and the acution house  maybe as well is my problen  is not on our ISP

 

. and exuse my grammar i know is horrible

deathblow3
deathblow3

 @abroche so buy your answer it would be both side since all comms types suffer from (packet loss) to some degree. and this doesnt happen in anything else i play. city of heroes, wow or any number of streaming services i use. hell portal no lag. packet loss is common and they put in parameters to make sure this doesnt serverly effect game play. i'm not getting this issue with secret world??? i call bs theres not even any load times with d3 for me. its the way they did it all they crap they put in could be just like xbox even with always online. friends and auction house all of that drop in drop out works on that with out effecting single player so whats d3's problem i should not be lagging at all by myself even though its rare. and last time i check the server has crashed on my 4 times so far and it had nothing to do with my internet. so stop talking out the side of your neck. could get on but couldnt log in.

deathblow3
deathblow3

 @abroche well i have 20mb connection and i have the same issue its not you service or you pc well maybe yours idk but i have a brand new alienware not 2 months old and it aint my pc or connection causing lag when i am just moving it the servers for sure.

Hicks233
Hicks233 like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 4 Like

 @Savoritias Finally! Someone that gets it.

 

When "gamers" pull their heads out of their rears and realise they're not the only person in the world then perhaps options for customers will improve.

abroche
abroche

 @Hicks233 DRM dont cuase problems with products crappy computer and PBKC user does to this day and i running a mid range gaming rig never had any problem with any game so far DRM is not the issue here is the problem with internt conection but every single  QQer raging kid dont undestand that so

 

Hicks233
Hicks233

 @abroche This is adorable. Please read the first reply. The character of Capt. Schwetje is nicknamed Encino Man as reference to the slow witted cave man persona that he has. Compounded by his inability to make coherent arguments also.

 

Is it that difficult for you to grasp the point of:

 

Developer makes game and together with publisher decide to implement a drm that will likely not be well received.

 

Customer buys product. Encounters drm. Drm causes them to have problems running product.

 

Customer is not happy.

 

Did the developer and publisher *have* to use the drm?

 

No... No Capt. Schwetje they didn't.

 

Now regardless of the method the customer uses to load the data they need due to this drm be it via an internet connection that would make Seoul blush or delivered by Rickshaw on flash drives. They didn't *have* to use that particular drm.

 

That wasn't so difficult to understand now, was it?

abroche
abroche

 @Hicks233 nice you know how to copy paste  and really man if you going to use movies are references at least do it with more better movies not a crap from 1992

Hicks233
Hicks233

 @abroche You're really not helping your case with the Encino Man jibe...

 

Digital Rights Management. In this case an always on connection to limit copy infringement and to maintain developer control of the customers purchase. Alternatives include GFWL, Steamworks, Origin, Securom, having a hairy man standing over you with a 2x4 with a nail in it. All a nuisance - some more than others.

 

Has not been warmly welcomed due to it being a pain for legitimate customers with a variety of connection errors - this and a consistent erosion of customer rights and views of ownership. Simple enough for you?

abroche
abroche

 @Hicks233first encino man referenes really my firend you are a real failure 

secondly

DRM it semd you have no idea what is it i suggest you google it and get more educated of what it is 

Hicks233
Hicks233 like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @abroche You made a funny! Just like Encino Man in Generation Kill. They took your food! And you should be really, really angry!

 

Blame the developer and publisher for including an obnoxious drm. Blame the "gamers" for bending over and going along with it.

abroche
abroche

 @Hicks233 Blame your internet provider not gamers or the game studio

This comment has been deleted

abroche
abroche

 @Gelugon_baat when it happends i will still happy ill just look for another internet provider and problem solve 

abroche
abroche

 @Gelugon_baat it will be the ISP it always is diablo servers are the same as the new WoW ones they support over 30,000 players f not more they have a separate conection for diablo playerd and serversthe problem alwys happend between the cleint and the server so you ISP is the problem not blizzard it never will

 

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