Diablo 3's Nail In The Coffin For Linux Users: No Refunds, No Discussions, Blizzard Doesn't Care

You can try and try hard but you won't be getting your money back if you get perma-banned from Diablo III playing on Linux. The system has spoken and it says that it doesn't care about you, it doesn't care that you're not getting what you paid for and it doesn't care that you protest it because there will be others to fill in the gap.

Way back in July when the Linux debacle for Diablo III went public, there were a lot of people saying that it wasn't that big of a deal, it only affected a small group of players. It's not really possible to know how many people were specifically affected but we do know that those who were affected were not only shortchanged on a gameplay experience but also cutoff from any sort of customer resolution, as outlined in the original articles.

Blizzard avoided personally dealing with the Linux users, and instead sent out automated responses. Just part of the epic fail that is always-on DRM: If you get banned and you want to appeal it (even to play the game in single-player mode) you can't, and you can't even get a refund. How consumer friendly.

Lenon K., has actually attempted to change around the image associated with Blizzard's customer support. He's gone out of his way to give them the benefit of the doubt multiple times, in hopes that maybe their handling of previous Linux cases might actually be met with a more civil and humane approach after the initial fallout. Here's what he received in his ticket response from Blizzard, after contacting them multiple times regarding his penalty being lifted...

The status of your Customer Support ticket #32297303 has changed to “Resolved.”This is the latest response from Customer Support:This penalty has already been upheld.

That's it. Even if you can prove you're not cheating, Blizzard doesn't care. They don't want to care and they never will. They're a corporation, they operate on profit margins. If they can squeeze fun into a game while meeting those margins, cool beans. If they can't? No big loss. If customers are dissatisfied with the product? No problem just ignore it and keep going. If the forum protests get out of hand? Silence them.

One of our readers made a very accurate account of how bad this situation has become, where a Devon Mullane states...

The problem is a lot of people just don't care. In fact, while discussing this with someone else another one of my friends asked me to please stop talking about it because it doesn't matter. There's a lot of nonchalance over this situation because its being seen as Blizzard-hate instead of pro-consumerism. It doesn't matter what company is doing it, if it happens, consumers should be more than pissed.Of course on the Blizzard side, they don't really have to care. They got their sixty dollars for those they banned (more in some cases), and the people who are blissfully ignorant of the corporate **** being thrust into their, well, the RMAH is making them money so unless they suddenly get hit with a bunch of high profile lawsuits, they won't even flinch.

That's the sad reality of it all folks, Blizzard won't flinch and they don't have a reason to.

There are probably dozens, maybe even hundreds of customer support complaints about the issues surrounding Diablo III that no one will ever hear about because most people will eventually give up after the umpteenth automated response. What's the point in complaining if your voice won't be heard? Well, hopefully the echo of said complaints will reverberate far enough into the gaming community for people to recognize that there are certain boundaries we shouldn't let the corporations breach, lest we become slaves to their profit margin vices and always-on dictatorships.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.