Starting with Valve releasing Steam as a necessary tie-in product to activate Half-Life 2, videogame companies have developed a habit of using titanic releases to push forward new and controversial forms of digital rights management (DRM). Proponents and PR folks both claim that these will ultimately improve the experience of playing a game, while cynics cry that these are thinly-veiled attempts to quash consumer rights through more aggressive anti-piracy measures. As I said before in my preview of Diablo III, Blizzard has always been a company with an unmistakable sense of its own identity. When fans rebelled against Diablo III’s artistic direction by staging…