These days, nothing seems to strain the relationship between developers and gamers like digital rights management. But when your customers are as infatuated with your work as the millions who've been drooling over Blizzard Entertainment's Starcraft sequel, I guess you're willing to risk it, especially if your parent company is Activision.

That's right, after almost 20 years of shipping consistently tight, expertly crafted strategy blockbusters and online juggernauts, Blizzard is adding DRM to its repertoire, starting with Starcraft 2.

Mindful that intrusive DRM can cool the ardor of even the most devoted fans, Blizzard promises a lightweight scheme that will only require users to connect to Blizzard's servers once and sign up for a Battle.net account.

In an interview with Incgamers, which broke the news, VP of game design Ron Pardo notes that "piracy really historically has not been that bid of a deal for us." Though there have been a few examples, Pardo said that "for the most part we can shut down those services."

But if Blizzard's combination of fan loyalty and savvy use of online components to boost the value of buying a game spare it the ravages of theft, why the move to DRM?

The tongue-in-cheek answer to that question rests with Blizzard parent Activision and its Papa Smurf, Bobby Kotick. After bemoaning piracy rates for Call of Duty 4, Activision seems to have gotten much more serious about copy protection. And with chief Kotick publicly wishing for even higher game prices, the publisher is going to need some protection from outraged gamers and their pirate backlash.