Salon article on Blizzard's bnetd lawsuit

Here's a decent article from Salon discussing the Blizzard vs. bnetd issue. This thing is shaping up to be a legitimate litmus test for the DMCA. I knew Ross Combs (one of the bnetd leads) casually when I was still at NMSU. He's a nice guy.

Frankly, I've decided that Blizzard can go f*** themselves. Their lawsuit is a ridiculously transparent power play motivated entirely by the inevitable transition of BattleNet to a subscription service. What I don't understand is why Blizzard thinks it can afford to alienate its customer base? Do they think there's some kind of shortage of subscription based games? Are they honestly banking their future on an MMOG?

The most disappointing thing about all of this is that no matter what, Warcraft III and whatever the hell else Blizzard publishes will sell a million copies in its first week of release because the world is full of fanboys. I guess I just answered my own question. Blizzard can afford to rape its own fans because it knows they'll just pull their pants up and buy the collector's edition.

Ordinarily, this kind of behavior makes me boycott a company, and I guess for the record I'll boycott Blizzard, but it's really just a symbolic gesture. After playing Diablo 2, I decided I had probably sampled my last Blizzard game anyway.