New Diablo III buyers restricted to demo for 72 hours

After the release of the Diablo III patch 1.0.3, Blizzard have announced that PC gamers who purchase the digital version of the game will only be able to play the full version after three days.

The reason is an effort for Blizzard to tackle credit card fraud, and “an unintended consequence of these security measures”.

The new buyers will be locked into the Starter Edition of the game for up to 72 hours, although it could be less than that if things go according to plan.

The ‘Starter Edition’ is the fancy name for its ‘demo mode’, basically, and restricts you in these ways:

Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
Level 13 cap
Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)
Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account’s home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.

Blizzard also issued a statement on their forum. “Outside of the issue that we fixed, digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone’s play experience.”

Queue nerd-rage.