StarCraft II Will Have Monthly Fees, But Only In Russia
- Thread starter John Funk
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I don't like the idea in general. Truthfully with big Russian companies like "1C" I'd imagine they have a fairly healthy gaming market despite some of the claims.
My immediate suspician is that they are justifying what amounts to an experiment in a test market to see if they can get people to pay fees for RTS games at all. Truthfully I think the gaming industry as a whole would love to get consumers to pay membership fees for all kinds of games instead of just for constantly supported MMORPGs.
But then again I'm a paranoid cynic.
I think they should just market to Russia normally and it would be just fine.
My immediate suspician is that they are justifying what amounts to an experiment in a test market to see if they can get people to pay fees for RTS games at all. Truthfully I think the gaming industry as a whole would love to get consumers to pay membership fees for all kinds of games instead of just for constantly supported MMORPGs.
But then again I'm a paranoid cynic.
I think they should just market to Russia normally and it would be just fine.
I think this is part of the reason.Therumancer said:
If it wasn`t a test bed, they would probably have done the same to areas like Brazil and China, which have similar problems.
But I also think the other side of the coin is true and it makes a lot of economic sense that you want to offer people with less money a cheaper version, while maintaining a higher price for those that have more money. I don`t think 60$ is a high price for the value you get from a blizzard game and I`m betting that this russian model will have a bunch of internetcafes consider the licensed version where they don`t have to get the hacked update after every patch.
If this means more money in activision-blizzard pocket, that is good news!
They will be less likely to divert their energy to world of warcraft or world of starcraft and keep spending energy in making quality strategy games, even though it`s probably 5-15 years before we`ll see the next strategy game from brazil.
Whoa whoa whoa, am I the only person here who got caught up on the "$60 here in the US, like Warcraft III and Diablo II" lie? I bought both games on release day, and they were $50 each. $60 is the price we have to pay for 360/PS3 titles - and originally, MS had promised that MS-published games would stay at $50, and that third-party games would be higher because of licensing fees. Obviously, that went out the window REAL fast, but PC games have maintained a $50 price point throughout. That INCLUDES the Blizzard titles we know and love. Why is $60 suddenly acceptable (even confused for being the old de facto standard), especially since Blizzard has already announced that Starcraft II will come out in 3 separate installments? We're going to be paying $180 for SC2.
I'll say it again because it bears repeating: You will be expected to pay $180 for Starcraft II.
Rage on Blizzard all you want, JourneyThroughHell. I know I am.
I'll say it again because it bears repeating: You will be expected to pay $180 for Starcraft II.
Rage on Blizzard all you want, JourneyThroughHell. I know I am.
I like this idea. This actually beats the whole idea of that pay 10-15 dollars for an expanded demo, and then pay 60 or however many dollars on top of that for the full game. You get access to the full game for a certain amount of time based on how much you pay. For some people, that's more than enough to play it, decide if they love it or hate it, finish single player, get into some multiplayer battles, and then get bored of it and never play it again. There's some who might be teetering on the edge of buying it, but don't want to shell out 60 dollars for a game they might get a week's enjoyment out of. This would win them over, and if they like it, most likely would pay the rest.
Now that I've gotten what I like out of this, I'll give you what I absolutely HATE about this idea. It allows for a super cheap full version of the game for grubby little hackers to get their hands on to mess up the playing experience of legitimate gamers. And sadly, that reason is pretty damn compelling. Probably the primary reason why this pricing scheme hasn't been announced for the rest of the world. It's sad, but there's people who wouldn't hack a 60 dollar game, that don't give a second thought about hacking a 15-20 dollar game.
Now that I've gotten what I like out of this, I'll give you what I absolutely HATE about this idea. It allows for a super cheap full version of the game for grubby little hackers to get their hands on to mess up the playing experience of legitimate gamers. And sadly, that reason is pretty damn compelling. Probably the primary reason why this pricing scheme hasn't been announced for the rest of the world. It's sad, but there's people who wouldn't hack a 60 dollar game, that don't give a second thought about hacking a 15-20 dollar game.
in kapitalistic America developers love you in Soviet Russia you love developers!HaraDaya said:
£29.99 if you pre-order [http://www.game.co.uk/Games/PC-Games/StarCraft-II/~r331102/]. From the beta thus far, it's almost definitely worth that.Sebenko said:
(Whoops, typo)Please don't accuse me of lying, when I have evidence backing me up here: WC3 [http://web.archive.org/web/20010204015800/www.blizzard.com/press/000717.shtml] were both $60 at launch, as seen in Blizzard's old press releases.icarusfountain said:
And Heart of the Swarm/Legacy of the Void are expansion sets, according to the SC2 FAQ on the site. It won't be $180.
Unless you want to buy all of the collector's editions, which might be putting a hit on your wallet...
ZING!Mackheath said:
OT: Well this is one way of cracking down on piracy I guess. Ah well. Back to the Awesome Free Starcraft II Beta.
Calumon: Vikings away! Fwoossh! Zoom! Boom!
Capo Taco said:
Well, my opinion is that I want to see more money in MY pocket.
Right now the gaming industry is big business. Like the casinos I worked for we get contridictory messages. On one hand the game industry is screaming "OMG, we're making monster profits. Growth, growth, growth!" and you see fortunes being dropped to make deritive shooter games. On the other hand the game industry is screaming at the same time "Oh noes, we are losing money, we need to downsize and lay off all these people" (which could just be a ruthless optimization based on a lie).
Given that there certainly isn't any lack of people willing to sling fortunes at the gaming industry to make games (ie for all whining we have not seen anything close to a video game crash), I take all the claims of poverty and "victimization by pirates" with a serious grain of salt. If you want to know how skeptical I am, read some of my back messages where I've argued about how much guys in the industry are doubtlessly making, and then look at some of the articles here on the subject despite the arguements I've gotten (like a fairly recent one cross-posted from Maxim).
Simply put, I'm all for capitolism. The game industry exists to make a profit. I do not begrudge them this, no matter how it might sound at times. I simply feel that at a certain point it goes from making a fair profit, to ridiculous levels of greed, with us (the consumers) being treated as little more than pea-brained money bags with legs. The focus ceases to be on developing new games and technologies that are worthwhile, but increasingly on how to wring every possible penny out of the consumers while having to do very little.
I do not think that Activision/Blizzard needs any more money in their pocket, they are making some serious bank already just with what they are doing. I find the very idea of them experimenting with monthy fees for non-MMORPG video games to be somewhat offensive. What's more if they do succeed, that money is just likely to go into paying themselves higher salaries (increasing development costs further and continueing the cycle).
It's sort of like the whole digital download idea for games. The idea is that if they remove shipping, packaging, etc... from the equasion they can produce games cheaper. That was a good idea when a big part of the focus was on lowering prices to us consumers. However the reality has been that digitally sold games cost the same as physical media ones, and the company pockets the extra money as pure profit. The Escapist ran an article where the guys at "1C" were talking about how much extra they could make via digital download compared to selling physical media (where they were already making a profit). This isn't a socialist "public service" venture, but I think there is definatly room to both lower prices to consumers and increase profits there, but greed means that nothing is being passed on to us.
Now yes, I am perhaps overreacting, but even within a "test market" justified like this article is, I do not like this idea at all. If it works there to any extent, guaranteed it's going to find it's way to other markets.
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I still dont think thats right altho considering I bought the collectors or both of them I dont have the receipts to back up my argument, do you have any proof for yours? Im not even sure where to look for the suggested retail.John Funk said:
Alright, I have to ask.John Funk said:Russian piracy rates are some of the highest in the world. This does make a lot of sense when you think about it.Therumancer said:
But yes, you are a self-admitted paranoid cynic.
Russia has some of the highest piracy rates in the world according to whom? Besides if that was true, how does that explain fairly large companies like "1C" developing in the region (and apparently selling primarly TO that region because a lot of the localization of their products is absolutly horrible)? If piracy was that rampant I wouldn't think Russia would be producing anywhere near as many games as they are since it would be nearly impossible to make a profit on.
It's right there in the press releases, at least for the Warcraft III one. Sorry but Blizzard's been doing this for a while.Worgen said: