Starcraft 2 - worth buying?

[[vL]Kp]

From what I understand you have to reregisted the game periodically even if you want to play offline. That's 100% crap if you ask me.

So what? It's still their service that they're providing, so they get to say how it works. It isn't as if they're a health provider or someone else providing an essential service. It's just for playing games, not exactly important.

The box states "Internet connection required." According to what was posted here, it does not state "Internet connection required on a regular basis." Based on that distinction, I could see somebody buying it, lugging their hardware to a friend's Internet connection, activating it once, and taking it back to their home. They would then be quite surprised to find that they need to do this on a somewhat regular basis. Even Windows activation is a one-shot deal, assuming you leave the hardware static.

I still can't find where I said make it illegal.

What did you mean then by "The federal government needs to step up and make a ruling on behavior like this?" Since you obviously don't like the practice, you must want the government's ruling to say that they're not allowed to do it. Isn't that tantamount to saying you want it made illegal?

For at least ten years now, some (most? all?) U.S. retail stores have refused to accept returns of opened software. If they give a reason at all, it is some hand waving about how the customer might have copied the discs and so the store might be in some way involved in copyright infringement if they accepted the returned disks and refunded you the purchase price. At the time, there was at least some sense to this argument. Games of the day had little or no activation requirements, and such requirements could typically be defeated without resorting to cracked copies of the software.

In light of the severe usability restrictions Blizzard has imposed on the game, it seems fair that stores be required to accept prompt returns of Starcraft 2 and provide a refund of the purchase price (or that the customer be entitled to pursue the same remedies directly from Blizzard, if the store cannot or will not process the return). By prompt, I mean the store can impose a short time window, on the order of one to a few weeks, in which the return will be accepted. After that window closes, the sale is final and nonrefundable. Today, that window closes as soon as you open the box, which usually precludes even reading the EULA unless you have the foresight and luck to find a copy of the EULA text online. Even if the customer copied the discs, they would be useless after the reactivation interval. This strikes me as a good balance: the customer has an opportunity to get a refund if the product is defective (fails to run or contains unacceptable EULA provisions) and Blizzard can continue to impose strict requirements on their games. Customers who have no problems with the current model will barely notice the difference. The store is protected from severe revenue swings if customers decide after months of possession that they no longer want the discs, and the short time window also minimizes the ability to abuse the return window by buying it, playing for a while, returning it, and repeating the whole cycle. Stores that object to the return window can refuse to carry games that encounter a high return rate, potentially discouraging vendors from releasing subsequent titles with misfeatures that prompt returns. The biggest weakness I see in this scheme is that it allows customers who buy the game and discover they do not like it to get a refund. Some might consider this a feature, since it only hurts the vendor if the game deviates significantly from customer expectations.

Various details, such as whether a restocking fee can be charged against the refund, would need to be worked out before such a rule could be finalized. However, I think the overall aim of the rule would produce a more fair balance than exists today.