Starcraft 2 wasn't a PC game. It was an online service as well (always online, playable only that way). It may not have been all about the microtransactions, but it still wasn't a PC game. Apparently they later patched in "offline" Starcraft campaign play. It was always-online on release. Still not worth considering since they designed it with the intention of it being always online trash.

Or you and your three buddies, quarters in hand, argued over who was going to get stuck playing the Valkyrie this time in Gauntlet.

This explains ''Do you not have phones?'' quite well.

Video for those who don't know, start at 23 seconds because youtube sharing feature is bugged: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly10r6m_-n8

Haven't given them a cent since i last got my Diablo 1/2 LOD pack back in 2005 or so. Their push for everything DRM everything always online, everything multiplayer just doesn't work.

Wasn't it, that unless you were online you couldn't save/load your game among other annoyances?

Guys, guys, it's totally for security and safeguarding a healthy, non-toxic community. Absolutely NOT to gather data which we can then later resell behind your back to 3rd parties for huge profit.

xD

The moment you disconnect/unplug the internet when the game is running, you are constantly being pestered by the "You are offline and can't earn achievements" message and every loading screen in single player will boot you to the main menu and you have to reload the save manually again every time.

It is playable, but they went out of their way to make it as annoying as possible to do so.

Both, SMS 2FA & mic listening have been actively happening since years...
e.g: If you link a cellphone number to the battle.net account WoW give you a larger bag for items


And a large chunk of the population don't care at all, so...

Everybody's happy (according to Dmocracy)... Yay!!