Starcraft 2: Will you pay full price for 1/3 of a game?

[loremazd]

Did you yell at Peter Jackson for making you pay full price for 1/3 of a movie? What's that? You didn't?

Movies aren't $60 though.

Movies aren't 20 hours long, dont have interaction, and dont change every time you watch them, either.

Starcraft 1 was 50 bucks, Starcraft 2 has just as many missions that are more diverse and interesting. Because of the multiplayer alone i'll pay 60 bucks.

 

[Flying Dagger]

nerds have tons of money from their geek squad jobs so i would count on them buying all 94 60$ games for each unit they will make forever,how bout you just pick a new hobby like being handsome or funny so girls will be attracted to you?

Since when did being funny ever get girls to be attracted to you.

OT: IDC because I don't play RTSs

 

[loremazd]

Why the fuck doesn't SCII support LAN play!? That is some gameddamning shit right there.

Also, on topic:
It fucking sucks. If I can be honest with you, I'll buy Wings of Liberty without question, and then download pirated versions of the expansions. Feel free to purchase all three "separate games" - I just know that I won't.(You're only fooling yourself if you argue that these are like three different games, and not simply some added single-player content that should have been there in the first place.)

I've spent hours upon hours of on first Warcraft, then Warcraft II, then Starcraft, then Warcraft III and its expansion, then World of Warcraft. Don't talk to me about "supporting" Blizzard.

From WoW they have like one fucking gazillion dollars, and what do they do? Sell two "expansion packs" priced at 60$ each, on top of a 60$ game. Seriously, you're only fucking giving on terran campaign in the original purchase!? Are you fucking with me!?

These games are HUGE! Bigger than the originals by a long shot by themselves, thats not counting all 3 together... They will also add new Multiplayer stuff as well (Units and ect)
You're extremely missinformed... I pity you.

Let me put it into words you can understand:
This is like release-day DLC.
"We know we had it done and all, and could just have put it in the original game... But since we know people will definitely want to play through the other campaigns, given that there will (most likely) not be actual closure to the story before the last mission of the last campaign. We will then charge as much for each of these "episodes" as the original game... Much like Half Life 2, only our games are more expensive... And also our games aren't really being developed over time, they've just been done all along."

If you don't understand my point:

"We are greedy little fucks who will abuse our fanboy userbase to earn thrice the amount of money."
Since I don't support such behaviour, I don't support splitting up the campaign of Starcraft into three separate pieces.

...Also don't act like an asshole. If I'm "misinformed" then please tell me all of which I am not informed.

Woah woah woah. It's certainly not -done-. Blizzard takes -forever to make a game as it is. Waiting for one campaign after WoL hits will probably be a wait that takes the better half of the year. Basically you -can- wait for the battlechest some time in 2012 if you want to.

 

[Traun]

Let me put it into words you can understand:
This is like release-day DLC.
"We know we had it done and all, and could just have put it in the original game... But since we know people will definitely want to play through the other campaigns, given that there will (most likely) not be actual closure to the story before the last mission of the last campaign. We will then charge as much for each of these "episodes" as the original game... Much like Half Life 2, only our games are more expensive... And also our games aren't really being developed over time, they've just been done all along."

If you don't understand my point:

"We are greedy little fucks who will abuse our fanboy userbase to earn thrice the amount of money."
Since I don't support such behaviour, I don't support splitting up the campaign of Starcraft into three separate pieces.

...Also don't act like an asshole. If I'm "misinformed" then please tell me all of which I am not informed.

I didn't think to post but...

This is completely false. You have no idea how game development works, do you?
In the original Starcraft Blizzard was unable to find a place for the Dark Templars, which is why they didn't showed up in multiplayer before Brood War. SC vanilla suffered from the fact that Zerg were ahead by a large margin airwise. All of this was fixed with Brood war, when Protoss and Terran got an awesome Anti-Air, DT were finally introduced in the game and voila Medic magic. Does that mean that SC was 1/2 of a game? Hell no, it means that the expansion fixed designed problems that balance changes couldn't.

This is what these expansions will do for SC2. They will introduce new units that will fix design flaws. If you think about it, most of the units were redesigned since the start of the beta. And just so you know, the beta costs Blizzard MILLIONS.

On another note, where do you think the money for SC2 is coming from? World of Warcraft? Optimist. No company has unlimited resources. Starcraft has a limited budget(probably some percentage of the income generated by the original game) and if it goes beyond that limit the game will be no longer profitable - in other words it wouldn't get developed. Obviously 90 missions was above the budget, I don't mind paying for quality.

So you're telling me it's going to be like World of Warcraft. How is that reassuring?

How is that like WoW? You aren't going to pay monthly, you are paying for expansions. And almost any successful game today has more then one expansion.


Also to the guy that compared movie prices to game prices. A brand new movie is 29.99$(if it is blue ray it is even more expensive), which is somewhere up to 3-4 hours with bonus features included. A video game is between 40$ and 60$ and it will give you 12-30 hours in SINGLE PLAYER. If you replay the game or play multiplayer, you are already getting way more enjoyment for your money then you can with a movie.

 

[Rayansaki]

So we're saying $180 dollars for one stupid game just to get a different point of view from three characters?

I'm curious if you read any of the other responses or just added your own $.02?

Actually, he added his $.03 because the games would be 179.97, not 180.

ohai

wait wat

 

[tjarne]

Long campaign does not equal good. If they have the same mission set up as they did in the first having to play as say Zerg for 15+ normal length missions until you get to play as Terran will only make it boring in the long run. It would also seem strange that the factions you don't control don't do anything good until you get control of them. If they however split the campaigns and only make them loseley connected to each other it would be a great improvement. I won't buy the game though, I liked the first but I'm not into RTS any more.

 

[loremazd]

But its like, going to a resturant... and usualy it might cost like 20$. But at THIS resturaunt... they use the best ingrediants, and the dish is about 3x bigger than usual dishes. It SHOULD cost more.

I think an even more apt metaphor would be in the grocery store. The person who doesn't like the new way Starcraft is being distributed wants Oranges. So he goes in and finds a 5 pound bag of oranges for 5 bucks. This he is fine with. Then, he sees a 20 pound bag of the same oranges right next to it for $15. The person then immediately gets angry, ranting about how the produce people would insult them by offering a bag of Oranges for $15 instead of the normal $5.

No. You get more Oranges if you spend more money. They have to pick more oranges, you have to pay more to get them. That's the way buying stuff works.

How about this metaphor instead:

You can pick 60 oranges in one hour - averaging at exactly one per minute.

You have two choices in how you could sell your oranges:

One big pack, all 60, for 20$ ~ Or you could sell them in bags of 20 for 10$ a piece.

In essence you've spent the same amount of time picking oranges - it's just that selling them separately nets you more money.

In other words, your metaphor is shit.

Except an average bag of oranges is 60 oranges, while Blizzard picked 180 oranges... and decided to split them up into 3 different bags and sell them, with the last two costing less.

I'm just going to stop dignifying your bursts of sudden, immediate diarrhea of the fingers with any kind of response from now on. Sorry to have wasted my time arguing ethics with someone too incredibly stuck up their own arse to recognise I'm not talking about whether or not companies want to make money, but whether or not I will(I, you know, is personal. This is my opinion. I was trying to argue opinion, like the thread is about, on whether or not doing this is fair, not if it's clever or sound marketing) endorse it by throwing my money at it.

I will just, and sorry for including you in my post to this devout trollfanboy, Iwata, direct you at this post, since it sums up my general opinion towards our non-cussion, at this point:

Well, I just feel sad that seemingly such a huge part of the community is so blinded by new shininess not to admit that Blizzard is just being greedy. No wonder Darth Kotick says games should be more expensive...

Edit: Also, evryone calm the fuck down.

Good, we'll stop treating you like a civil human being and instead treat you like the jackass you are. "SOMEONE DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME! HE MUST BE AN IDIOT!"

 

[Iwata]

I've waited over 10 years for that game and if I have to pay 140$ for it then I'll pay

Not to use you as an example, but thank you. That is pretty much what Blizzard assumes everyone is saying. And they've made a business model out of it.

Also, the campaign can be 10, 30, 50 or 100 missions long. It doesn't matter, because the fact remains that they've cut the game's story into three installments. And like someone else said, I play single player, and don't give a rat's ass for the Terrans, so I'm not paying to get a third of the full campaign, and the least interesting third, no less.

Also, it'd be really nice if some people here learned to respect other people, and other people's opinions. I'm sick as fuck of hearing words like "ignorant" being tossed around.

 

[LordWalter]

I know this may be a rehash but honestly, dividing one game into three parts and selling each part for full price? Blizzard you greedy bastards. The next step is releasing Diablo in four parts because you have to buy each class. (I hope Blizzard isn't reading this and going "hey, great idea!"). Am i buying Starcraft 2? Yes. When they release all three campaigns in one box and it's under 60 dollars. Until then, plenty of good games out there.

Uh....right. Sure. *backs away slowly* I mean, I'm not saying you're crazy to complain about getting three Starcraft-length games instead of one...most likely accompanied by new units and guaranteed to be the greatest RTS experience of all time....I'm not saying it just...just stay back a bit. Preferably behind this glass wall and contained in a jacket which lets you hug yourself.

 

[Cody211282]

snips

It doesn't and I never said that it would.

It also isn't 1/3rd of a game. The campaign is 30+ missions and will most likely be longer than the original game. If you just don't want to pay $60 for the singleplayer on a complete RTS then wait for the gold version/battlechest so that you get 3 full singeplayer campaigns.

The online component is a big part of any RTS. If you typically get RTSes just for the singleplayer, well you won't be getting any less of a product from SC2.

Well I plan on waiting for the entire game(beginning, middle and end) to come out as one for under $60 before I even look at it, and as far as I can see they are only making the first 1/3rd of the game, the middle and end are coming out as expansions.

 

[John Funk]

I think you're missing the point. It's indisputable that they've taken a finished game and broken it into three parts, for profit's sake. It's no better than some games that leave out content that was initialy included solely for the reason of selling it later.

It may be business, it may be capitalism, but when you look into it, it's also wrong.

What?

Uh, they haven't even started work on the Zerg or Protoss campaign.

Why the fuck doesn't SCII support LAN play!? That is some gameddamning shit right there.

Also, on topic:
It fucking sucks. If I can be honest with you, I'll buy Wings of Liberty without question, and then download pirated versions of the expansions. Feel free to purchase all three "separate games" - I just know that I won't.(You're only fooling yourself if you argue that these are like three different games, and not simply some added single-player content that should have been there in the first place.)

I've spent hours upon hours of on first Warcraft, then Warcraft II, then Starcraft, then Warcraft III and its expansion, then World of Warcraft. Don't talk to me about "supporting" Blizzard.

From WoW they have like one fucking gazillion dollars, and what do they do? Sell two "expansion packs" priced at 60$ each, on top of a 60$ game. Seriously, you're only fucking giving on terran campaign in the original purchase!? Are you fucking with me!?

These games are HUGE! Bigger than the originals by a long shot by themselves, thats not counting all 3 together... They will also add new Multiplayer stuff as well (Units and ect)
You're extremely missinformed... I pity you.

Let me put it into words you can understand:
This is like release-day DLC.
"We know we had it done and all, and could just have put it in the original game... But since we know people will definitely want to play through the other campaigns, given that there will (most likely) not be actual closure to the story before the last mission of the last campaign. We will then charge as much for each of these "episodes" as the original game... Much like Half Life 2, only our games are more expensive... And also our games aren't really being developed over time, they've just been done all along."

If you don't understand my point:

"We are greedy little fucks who will abuse our fanboy userbase to earn thrice the amount of money."
Since I don't support such behaviour, I don't support splitting up the campaign of Starcraft into three separate pieces.

...Also don't act like an asshole. If I'm "misinformed" then please tell me all of which I am not informed.

Except it isn't release-day DLC. It would be release-day DLC if Blizzard already had SC2Z and SC2P done and ready to ship. They aren't done and ready to ship. They'll probably come out a year and a half from now after the work has been done, because the single-player campaign is going to be a different experience (Kerrigan isn't going to walk around her flag ship talking to Hydralisks, for one - and they've talked about how SC2Z will have a RPG element to it).

All this is, is a Blizzard game with two expansions that were announced ahead of time instead of the one expansion that they usually go "Oh hey, yeah, we're making an xpac."

 

[Cody211282]

I've waited over 10 years for that game and if I have to pay 140$ for it then I'll pay

Not to use you as an example, but thank you. That is pretty much what Blizzard assumes everyone is saying. And they've made a business model out of it.

yep and it sorta pisses me off, I'm sorry but at this rate Diablo 3 is going to be $60 with 5 expansions planned from the start all at $40 a pop, and that's just BS.

 

[Cody211282]

I think you're missing the point. It's indisputable that they've taken a finished game and broken it into three parts, for profit's sake. It's no better than some games that leave out content that was initialy included solely for the reason of selling it later.

It may be business, it may be capitalism, but when you look into it, it's also wrong.

What?

Uh, they haven't even started work on the Zerg or Protoss campaign.

Ok so they are greedy and lazier then 3d realms(or whoever was working on Duke Nukem Forever).

 

[Enigmers]

Holy shitting Christ, if the beta was any indication Starcraft II is not "a third of a game," it's a multiplayer RTS with a campaign that centers around the Terrans.

You know, kind of like how Dawn of War 2 was like, except Dawn of War 2 didn't have a horde of ignorant internet users complaining about how Relic was making a fraction of a game because its single player didn't include a campaign for every race.

I won't pay full price for [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]3[/sub] of a game. However, I consider StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty to be a full game with planned expansions.

Because that's exactly what it is.

Why do people even think it's a third of a game? Was SC1 a third of a game? Because, last I checked, the multiplayer in SC2 is just as beefy (albeit without chat/LAN) and the campaign is just as long, if not longer (if Blizzard is to be believed). So who's the wizard that pulled 1/3rd out of his ass?

 

[Cody211282]

Did you yell at Peter Jackson for making you pay full price for 1/3 of a movie? What's that? You didn't?

Movies aren't $60 though.

Movies aren't 20 hours long, dont have interaction, and dont change every time you watch them, either.

Starcraft 1 was 50 bucks, Starcraft 2 has just as many missions that are more diverse and interesting. Because of the multiplayer alone i'll pay 60 bucks.

And amazingly enough the production costs are just about the same, gamers in general are being ripped off enough without crap like this.

Did you yell at Peter Jackson for making you pay full price for 1/3 of a movie? What's that? You didn't?

Movies aren't $60 though.

A movie won't give you 20 hours of singleplayer and a hundred+ hours of multiplayer.

In fact, if we assume that every movie is 2 hours long (it isn't), a movie ticket would have to only be $6 to give you the same value per hour. Last I checked, movie tickets are more expensive than that.

Well good thing I only have to pay $5.50 a ticket then, or wait for it to come onto netflix, also see above.

 

[Wolfram23]

People need to stop projecting just what the following 2 games will be or include. This thread isn't asking if you're going to pay for all three games. It's asking if you'll buy the first one. $60 for Wings of Liberty, with a Terran campaign as long as the entire original plus the multiplayer and the level editor is a great deal... unless you despise Terran I guess, but I love 'em. Sure it's fun having the diverse campaigns of original SC but this time they're going to epic proportions on them.

Why don't we all chill the fuck out and wait for release, see how mind blowingly good it is and buy a full, feature packed $60 game and then, whenever the next release is scheduled and also there's some info available on it, we can decide if it's worthwhile to pay $40 for 1/3 of a complete campaign (NOTE: Not 1/3 of a game... just the campaign/story).

At this point, I will for sure buy Wings of Liberty... I may not buy the expansions. We shall see.

 

[deth2munkies]

This is so 2 years ago. Stop misrepresenting the facts please.

 

[s0denone]

Snip

No, it's all an incredibly clever ruse.

Please consider:
Scenario #1.
You are buying Starcraft II mainly for the single player.
You need to buy all three expansions since the campaign isn't finished in the first one, and either one cannot stand on their own. You need to play from the start, Wings of Liberty and the Terran, through the Zerg and then the Protoss to get the actual single player experience.

Scenario #2.
You are buying Starcraft II mainly for the multi player.
You need to buy the two expansions since they give you added units, maps and other stuff for multi player. You will also not be able to play people playing on the expansion(s) if you haven't got them yourself... So when everyone upgrades, you have to upgrade as well.

It isn't like launch-day DLC because it's launch-day DLC, but because it's basically like saying you can play the game without the "expansions"... But you won't get the entire experience.

It's a fair marketing strategy - it makes a lot of money, since people need to buy your products continuously. Just like World of Warcraft. You have to upgrade, since everyone else upgrades.

I just cannot support such things, especially not having single player "suffer" from the same.