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Starcraft 2 is going free-to-play
Why Starcraft 2 is going free to play

Basically, if you've never bought Starcraft 2, the base game and first campaign, Wings of Liberty will be free to play. If you'd bought Wings of Liberty in the past but not any of the other campaigns (as I had), you will receive Heart of the Swarm for free. Any remaining campaigns will be priced at $14.99.

Rejoice and discuss here.

Didn't know there was a Starcraft 2, and it's been out for 7 years? I quickly left another region that I found out was way too into the first Starcraft, which must be at least 15 years old by now, and that was less than 7 years ago, if they were really big fans you'd think they'd have known that a sequel is out now. I like retro games too, for the usual reasons of it feeling nostalgic for the days of childhood innocence with my brother, but I'm not crazy obsessed with Super Mario Bros 3 and talking about it all the time...

Anyway, can't really beat free in price, so I think I'll try it. The Predator ripoff looking guys look interesting so I want to try them.

Starcraft 1 came out in 1997, I think, so it's... 20 years old. :O

Anyway, I still much prefer the original, but if it's free now, I suppose I'll try it again.

Didn't know there was a Starcraft 2, and it's been out for 7 years? I quickly left another region that I found out was way too into the first Starcraft, which must be at least 15 years old by now, and that was less than 7 years ago, if they were really big fans you'd think they'd have known that a sequel is out now. I like retro games too, for the usual reasons of it feeling nostalgic for the days of childhood innocence with my brother, but I'm not crazy obsessed with Super Mario Bros 3 and talking about it all the time...

Anyway, can't really beat free in price, so I think I'll try it. The Predator ripoff looking guys look interesting so I want to try them.

As I understand it, a lot of people preferred the original to the sequel, especially in esports and competitive play, so that might explain why they were still focused on the original. To be honest, that may even play a factor in why Starcraft 2 is free to play now...it never reached the same iconic status as the original.

Starcraft 1 came out in 1997, I think, so it's... 20 years old. :O

Anyway, I still much prefer the original, but if it's free now, I suppose I'll try it again.

In case you didn't already know, the original is free too if you prefer it!

Those people preferred the original to the sequel because it was cheaper, both in terms of required system specs and in terms of the actual game, and because it didn't support LAN play (which is a fairly sizeable market segment in Asia, LAN shops where people just like go in a group of 4-10, rent computers for 2-3 hours, and sit their asses down and game are a legit thing, that was a lot of my afternoons when I was 15-17).

Still, with it being free, I can finally end my long boycott of Blizzard that jokingly started when they cancelled Ghost (for some reason, they were literally my homepage for a year until that point, but I blame that on being, like, 13, and thus stupid), and actually properly became a thing when they said Starcraft II would be $120 on launch in Singapore because they knew people would pay for it anyway.
I said 'no fuck that' and committed to a boycott, which has been a struggle in light of Diablo 3 (fortunately I missed the shitshow that was its first year) and Overwatch (which is great timing tbh because Moira looks dope), but at least that's at an end.

what is starcraft?

Those people preferred the original to the sequel because it was cheaper, both in terms of required system specs and in terms of the actual game, and because it didn't support LAN play (which is a fairly sizeable market segment in Asia, LAN shops where people just like go in a group of 4-10, rent computers for 2-3 hours, and sit their asses down and game are a legit thing, that was a lot of my afternoons when I was 15-17).

Still, with it being free, I can finally end my long boycott of Blizzard that jokingly started when they cancelled Ghost (for some reason, they were literally my homepage for a year until that point, but I blame that on being, like, 13, and thus stupid), and actually properly became a thing when they said Starcraft II would be $120 on launch in Singapore because they knew people would pay for it anyway.
I said 'no fuck that' and committed to a boycott, which has been a struggle in light of Diablo 3 (fortunately I missed the shitshow that was its first year) and Overwatch (which is great timing tbh because Moira looks dope), but at least that's at an end.

I still think removing LAN was a shitty thing to do. It doesn't matter how Blizzard spins it, it was a business decision to reduce piracy by removing what most people consider a key gameplay feature. They put money over gameplay and still don't want to admit it.

And yet one wonders if they hadn't done that if they'd still be giving the game away for free now.

I'm actually reading a book called Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, which is about the issues that developers faced in developing different games, and they had a chapter on Diablo 3 and how hard it was for the team to create a sequel to Diablo 2 because it was so big. In many cases it paralyzed the decision making, and that's why D3 was such a mess when it first came out. To their credit though, afterwards they brought in someone new to lead development and were able to improve the game later on.

Coming from someone who really doesn't like FPS games, especially not exclusively multi-player ones, I can honestly ask: why the hell haven't you played Overwatch yet, Doc?

It's the best thing I've played this year.

well thanks to lan shops being a thing in asia, and being in singapore for about a month both this year and last year, i have had the opportunity to play overwatch, and: spoilers: i suck, which is why i'm not too cut up about not actually owning it