Blizzard Thinks Always Online Diablo 3 Shouldn’t Surprise You

Blizzard really thinks you should get with the times. There’s really no reason why an always-online Diablo III should shock you, Blizzard VP of Online Technologies Robert Bridenbecker says in an interview with MTV Multiplayer

“I’m actually kind of surprised in terms of there even being a question in today’s age around online play and the requirement around that,” said Bridenbecker. “We’ve been doing online gameplay for 15 years now”¦and with ‘World of WarCraft’ and our roots in Battle.net and now with ‘Diablo 3,’ it really is just the nature of how things are going, the nature of the industry. When you look at everything you get by having that persistent connection on the servers, you cannot ignore the power and the draw of that.”

According to Bridenbecker, the decision has nothing to do with DRM and everything to do with how the game functions, which I suppose is the best possible reason to implement something like this — although what’s essentially happening here is that Blizzard is billing a primarily singleplayer game as an MMO-esque experience in the tradition of World of WarCraft to win players over to the idea of Diablo III being always-online.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. Let us know what you think

[Blizzard VP ‘Surprised’ Over Fan Reaction To ‘Diablo 3’ Online Requirements via MTV Multiplayer]

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