Some big companies have already closed down servers for games they no longer wanted to support. And no company will give a guarantee that if they close authentication servers they will release a patch not requiring authentication, since that authentication is an asset of the company.

The slow but steady march of DRM continues, and every time people say "It's only just..." the noose gets a little tighter. In a few years people will be calmly accepting authentication every time they play, that laptops aren't meant for games, and that PCs are dying as a platform. But hey, "It's only..."

ALso, it is not Blizzard, it is Activision, remember that. And Activision has a business plan based wholely around maximising profit via the minimum amount of development.