In case you are late to this whole affair. Diablo 3 requires a persistent online connection, which resulted in a massive outrage in the online communities. It was believed that this move was made to combat piracy and is extremely anti-consumer. However, Blizzard denied this today. Robert Bridenbecker, Vice President of Online Technologies at Blizzard had a lot to say regarding this controversy, “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.”

“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.”

“Internally I don’t think [DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate,” he said.

“Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You’re guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that’s not really entering into why we want to do it.”

“I’m a huge purveyor of online sites and from my standpoint, I don’t look at DRM solutions and go, ‘Wow, those are awesome.’ I look at those and say, ‘Wow, those kind of suck.’ But if there’s a compelling reason for you to have that online connectivity that enhances the gameplay, that doesn’t suck. That’s awesome.”

He said that gamers have nothing to worry about and this will be not intrusive but a part of evolution.

Via Eurogamer

49 GameStop stores have already agreed to not selling Electronic Arts’ upcoming FPS, Medal of Honor, an AAFES representative told Kotaku. GameStop emailed all it’s employs, telling them not to ‘carry Medal of Honor in any of our AAFES based stores…out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform.’

This is what the email reads: ‘GameStop has agreed out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform we will not carry Medal of Honor in any of our AAFES based stores. As such, GameStop agreed to have all marketing material pulled by noon today and to stop taking reservations. Customers who enter our AAFES stores and wish to reserve Medal of Honor can and should be directed to the nearest GameStop location off base.’

GameStop also made it very clear that the game will not be stocked due to the fact that one team in the multiplayer mode will assume the role of a Taliban team. ‘GameStop fully supports AAFES in this endeavor and is sensitive to the fact that in multiplayer mode one side will assume the role of Taliban fighter.’

The game was about to be banned in UK for the very same reasonm, but wasn’t since the The Department of Media, Culture And Sport feels ‘he game in question is rated 18 so should only be sold to, and played by, adults. There is a clear choice for consumers which they can exercise when making decisions about purchasing video games.’ Check out the full story here.

Ea have made it pretty clear that they are very disappointed with these controversies. They feel there are several books and movies featuring terrorist groups, ‘or set in Afghanistan’, and yet ‘they don’t get flask, yet games do.’

EA should be feeling betrayed right now, since they “partnered with the US military, and the Medal of Honor Society as well. We’ve gone out of our way to produce the best story for the game.”

Sad… good games shouldn’t be penalized for such stupid reasons. What are your thoughts?