Blizzard has revealed that any player who is interested in playing the upcoming Diablo III will have to be constantly logged into the Battle.net service and maintain a continuous Internet connection. The company says that this is necessary because Diablo III is deeply integrated with Battle.net and Blizzard is very careful to make sure that players do not tamper with the game in any way and do not seek to get any unfair advantages for their characters for the various multiplayer modes.
Of course, another simple consequence of the fact that the player needs to be logged into Battle.net in order to play Diablo III is that pirating the game will be pretty much impossible. Piracy has always been a big problem on the PC and Blizzard, a developer that is dedicated to the platform, has always sought to limit its impact on releases. Despite the many security measures introduced over the years pirates have always found a way of stripping the big releases down and playing them without paying, but Diablo III might prove to be a tough nut to crack.
Starcraft II, the real-time strategy game that launched during the middle of last summer, also required players to log into Battle.net so adding the same requirement for Diablo III is not too much of a surprise. Blizzard has also announced that Diablo III will be getting auction houses where players are allowed to use real-world money in order to trade in-game items with their peers. Diablo III does not have a clear launch date at the moment, but the fact that a beta is planned to take place in the fall of this year means that a 2012 launch is a good bet.
There are also unconfirmed rumors that the game will also get console versions after the PC launch.