Blizzard Releases StarCraft II Demo (Yes, a demo)

[hellwig]

You know, I played Warcraft I on a relative's computer, that was all I needed to know I wanted Warcraft II. Warcraft II naturally led to Starcraft. Then came along Warcraft III (which I bought without question), and I realized the genre was heading in a different direction than I was (Hero's, really, why do I need a stupid hero). This made me question whether Starcraft II was for me. Now that there's a Demo with 3 missions, hopefully I can answer that question without shelling-out $60. After all, that same $60 could buy numerous quality games from smaller publishers off Steam.

 

[bildo123]

What a troll...where did the $300 come from? He said $200. Nothing like misquoting a person to get your point across.

Whoops, $200. Interestingly enough the point remains unscathed. Pro Tip: These expansions will be released under the time span of several years.

I'd love to see the reactions of some of these kids when they have to sign their life away to a mortgage, assuming they get that far in life.

 

[bin1127]

a demo also allows you to test your rig's performance. if you need to overhaul your system to play the game then you can forget it or perhaps get a job.

 

[kartu]

Cracked xbox and uncracked PS3 SOLD THE SAME NUMBER OF GAMES. So big money lost due to piracy is a myth. If somebody pirates anything, he's highly unlikely to buy it, even if he can't pirate it.

[citation][nom]wcnighthawk[/nom]"Uh, that's pretty much the point of having no lan setup, isn't it? So you can't share your game with 3 other people who then have no reason to buy the game for any reason since they have a full working copy.[/citation]
Uh, did you miss the fact that you could OFFICIALLY play it with friends?
The whole thing was done NOT TO FIGHT PIRACY, BUT TO INCREASE INCOME.

Don't worry about the pirates, they will get their LAN, as far as I see from google results, they already have it.

 

[tayb]

[citation][nom]kartu[/nom]firebee1991Xbox360 about 40 million consoles, 100 million games sold annually, HACKED FOR YEARSPS3 about 40 million consoles, 100 million games sold annually, hacked only a couple of month agoWhat "piracy" is someone fighting please?[/citation]

1. Your sales numbers are way off. The Xbox 360 averages over 430,000,000 software sales a year while the PS3 is right around 315,000,000 a year. (Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly.php)

2. Hacked for years? Whoop de doo. Do you know how to modify an Xbox 360 to run pirated games? It's a pain in the A** and you're at a constant risk of turning your console into an offline-ONLY machine. Let's face it, multi-player is king and for 99% of console owners modifying the console to play pirated games isn't worth it.

So, yeah, consoles are a great way to fight piracy.

 

[tayb]

[citation][nom]distanted[/nom]Yes, because there's nothing that motivates a thief to do the right thing like the loss of credibility. Most will simply switch to a new argument, like saving the rain forest by avoiding software packaging. But, I am glad to see a demo of this game.[/citation]

Exactly. The whole "try before you buy" argument is just silly because it turns into "I tried it and I liked it, so I cracked it" or "I tried it but I didn't like it so I didn't buy it." It's just dumb. The shift will move back to the illogical "games are too expensive" and we'll deal with the whining piraters whining about game prices all the time again.

 

[tayb]

[citation][nom]aaron88_7[/nom]And which console is Starcraft 2 available for? Oh, yea, neither has the power to run it...[/citation]

The Xbox 360 or PS3 could easily run Starcraft provided Starcraft was developed for those two platforms. You all forget that consoles don't have to worry about running an operating system on top of the game. Windows 7 is lightweight but it's not lightweight... You get way more out of less from a console. Plus the fact that PC games can scale to different hardware levels. Yeah, this game could easily work on a console provided you got rid of the crap controller.

 

[Dirtman73]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]The shift will move back to the illogical "games are too expensive" and we'll deal with the whining piraters whining about game prices all the time again.[/citation]

There's nothing illogical about that argument. $60 is too expensive. As long as losers like you are willing to pay that much for games, studios will continue to feel justified in spending massive amounts of cash for advertising and marketing gimmicks.

I mean, someone has to be dumb enough to pay for Blizzard's SC2 South Korean commercial airline billboard campaign, right?

 

[dEAne]

I will try this one and share this to the rest of my neighborhood see if they like it.

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]The Xbox 360 or PS3 could easily run Starcraft provided Starcraft was developed for those two platforms. You all forget that consoles don't have to worry about running an operating system on top of the game. Windows 7 is lightweight but it's not lightweight[/citation]

The OS footprint on any system today is low and the console "os" have to be even more lightweight considering they run at least 1-2 generations behind the latest PC and they can't afford to place any really fancy hardware in the box even when its "new".

The companies even sell the consoles at a loss for years while the users pay the extra on the software price tag instead, compare PC vs Console game prices and its not hard to see the benefits to head to PC if you like to have a game library worth mentioning. Added benefit is that the PC games don't become obsolete once the new generation arrives.

The freedom on PC is great, whenever it might be a budget pc (thats upgradeable when you feel for it) or a high end rig added benefit is cheaper games too!

 

[safcmanfr]

[citation][nom]jgiron[/nom]You're guessing $40 for an expansion?? That's insane, but with demand high Blizzard can put a high price tag on it and the people will pay.[/citation]


They are not expansions!! They are full games, with the same amount of missions as the 1st "episode".

its not 30 missions split across 3 mini-games (10 missions per episode) but 20+ missions per episode.

Each one will give you 20 hours of gameplay at least. If people can spend 60$ on FPS games (10 hours gameplay), then no one should be griping about paying 60$ for 20 hours of gaming.

Oh yeah, and the 20 hours does not include the amount of time spent on the MP side of SC2.

 

[bildo123]

There's nothing illogical about that argument. $60 is too expensive. As long as losers like you are willing to pay that much for games, studios will continue to feel justified in spending massive amounts of cash for advertising and marketing gimmicks.

I mean, someone has to be dumb enough to pay for Blizzard's SC2 South Korean commercial airline billboard campaign, right?

I remember buying Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for Sega Genisis when it was pretty much new for I believe $50...around 1997. Not to burst your bubble what the heck else hasn't inflated since 1997? It's not spending $60 for a video game that is bad. It's buying a crappy over-advertised turd of a video game for $60 that is bad, since that lowers the overall bar for worthy video games.

 

[kartu]

[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]1. Your sales numbers are way off. The Xbox 360 averages over 430,000,000 software sales a year while the PS3 is right around 315,000,000 a year. (Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly.php)[/citation]
Nope. They both sell about 100 million GAMES annually (Sony just recently boasted selling record 105 million).

2. Hacked for years? Whoop de doo.

Yep. Basically from the very beginning.

Do you know how to modify an Xbox 360 to run pirated games? It's a pain in the A** and you're at a constant risk of turning your console into an offline-ONLY machine.

It's not to modify xbox360 at all.
It's been done millions of times.
Yet they sell roghly as many games per sold console as Sony, which wasn't hacked by that time (2009).

Let's face it, multi-player is king and for 99% of console owners modifying the console to play pirated games isn't worth it.

So, yeah, consoles are a great way to fight piracy.

Yep, except there is no evidence to support that claim, while there are quite a number of facts that contradict it. "Apple's app piracy" being another example. Only 10% of the iSomething devices are jailbroken, yet popular apps are "pirated" 10 times more often, as they are bought. Interesting, isn't it?

Piracy myth is often used as a cover for "improving" business practices, like:

1) killing second hand market
2) removing "spawn" games to play with friends in LAN (was official part of Starcraft 1)

Blizzard did both with SC2

 

[zybch]

[citation][nom]Ciuy[/nom]All Blizzard moves are well calculated and precise.[/citation]
Like forcing users to use their REAL names to use the forums and stuff?> Yeah, really well calculated that was!

 

[Guest]

I know I didn't buy it because of the lack of LAN play. Unless they added LAN where I don't need to connect to battlenet, then I'm not interested.

 

[pandemonium_ctp]

Ugh. This is just Blizzard milking all the money they can. I mean, the battlechest for Starcraft I is still on shelves, as well as Diablo II and some of the Warcraft series.

Maybe they think this is a "Christmas present" to the masses...giving away 3 free playable missions. Only to get everyone who hasn't played it hooked. I admit the storyline and gameplay was pretty cool. And so are hundreds of games out there that didn't cost nearly as much. I wanted the game for the multi-player function, but since that was all linked to your battle.net account and no option to test your own maps without publishing to the server first or play LAN really pissed me off. Doesn't Blizzard know how many hours were spent creating maps and LANing with friends?

Also, all of you guys talking about "expansions being $40" seem to forget how much Blizzard charges for all of their WoW expansions. Only did they just recently offer a package deal for the game+expansions. Prior to this the game costed well over $120 for a new account. Opposed to almost every other MMO out there that offered a package deal shortly after each expansion came out, or all those prior.

Blizzard is greedy. They know it. Their gamers know it. Nobody seems to care. :/