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

[Iwata]

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.

What he said.

 

[John Funk]

Also, it goes without saying: Keep it calm, people. I'm seeing a lot of assholeish behavior here on both sides of the argument, and if you can't be calm and argue respectfully the hammer will be swung.

 

[Nikolaz72]

I would probably have a look at Diablo 3.. But Starcraft 2 is probably never gonna get bought in this house. I kinda lost faith in Blizzard when they started acting like Zynga (on certain points anyway).

 

[lacktheknack]

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.

They are selling the first part for sixty dollars... it's every race in multiplayer, and one race single player. Then the rest will be cheaper DLC, probably about twenty bucks.

They're giving you about two thirds of the full package, and I don't think it's worth hating Blizzard over or calling them "greedy bastards". Do you want two fully functioning thirds now, or the whole thing "when they're done" (ie. At least a year later)?

 

[Nikolaz72]

I would probably have a look at Diablo 3.. But Starcraft 2 is probably never gonna get bought in this house. I kinda lost faith in Blizzard when they started acting like Zynga (on certain points anyway).

 

[Pendragon9]

I'll gladly pay for the first for multiplayer and Galaxy Editor, but I will be REALLY mad if they hold those back and I have to buy the other expansions too. Grr, that would piss me off so much.

Can I get confirmation if I'll be required to buy all three for multiplayer? Or will I get the entire multiplayer package in the first set? Because this isn't Brood War, basically the two expansions are just single player addons, right?

 

[Iwata]

Do you want two fully functioning thirds now, or the whole thing "when they're done" (ie. At least a year later)?

Without doubt, the whole thing when it's done.

 

[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.

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

...this is such a mind-numbingly ignorant statement. That's like saying that BioWare is lazy because it wasn't already working on Mass Effect 2 before Mass Effect 1 came out. Blizzard's RTS team is putting all of its development resources into finishing SC2T. After it comes out they will work on the expansion.

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.

*Assumption. You are assuming that it will not be a standalone plot with closure, when it very well could be. But even knowing that the story continues, I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Do you like Valve? Hey, look at Half-Life 2. Better boycott them. Do you like BioWare? We've known from the beginning that Mass Effect was a trilogy, so since you're clearly not getting the full story might as well not buy any of the Mass Effect games.

Don't watch any of the Star Wars movies or the Lord of the Rings movies, you need to see all three in order to get the full story. What a rip!

**A quick check on Battle.net reveals that there are just as many people playing vanilla WC3 as there are playing WC3:TFT. There will always be people who don't upgrade. And even if this WERE the case, just look at Relic and its hojillion expansions to the Dawn of War games. They do the exact same thing.

 

[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.

Idk if that is how it will work.

I think it is actually going to be 3 different perspectives, and I doubt we will get nice closure out of it(Broodwar gah!).

This isn't opinion, I used to think it was beg-mid-end, but I remember reading somewhere that it won't work that way.

So what's going to happen the, you play the entire thing then only get to the middle and have to wait for an expansion or the 3rd game?

Do you want two fully functioning thirds now, or the whole thing "when they're done" (ie. At least a year later)?

Without doubt, the whole thing when it's done.

Same here, why would I want only the first part of a game.

 

[John Funk]

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.

Now you're just splitting hairs. My point remains the same. Yes, you don't pay $60 for a movie, but movies give you a fraction of the entertainment hours.

 

[CitySquirrel]

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

This is not necessarily true. The size of the audience is a factor in the pricing; in other words, the same number (production cost) is being divided by different numbers. The cost of the lord of the rings was divided by (let's say) 5,000,000 people paying ten dollars to buy a ticket for a total of $50,000,000. This are obviously arbitrary numbers, but let us assume that LoTR cost 40,000,000 to make. As you can see, the movie is paid off and there is a tidy profit. Now, let us say that the game costs roughly the same amount to make, so at 10 dollars a game you would have to sell the game to 5,000,000 people, but there are not this many people who are buying the game. Maybe a million are. Thus, you have to charge each person more to make the same money.

Also, the movie will make money with licensing, repeat viewers, people like me who purchased the extended edition DVDs, etc. Games have just the cost of the game, for the most part. In addition, we gamers get 50 plus hours of enjoyment from our product, where my lifetime viewing of LoTR will probably never exceed that. So gamers are actually getting a fantastic deal.

 

[s0denone]

*Assumption. You are assuming that it will not be a standalone plot with closure, when it very well could be. But even knowing that the story continues, I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Do you like Valve? Hey, look at Half-Life 2. Better boycott them. Do you like BioWare? We've known from the beginning that Mass Effect was a trilogy, so since you're clearly not getting the full story might as well not buy any of the Mass Effect games.

Don't watch any of the Star Wars movies or the Lord of the Rings movies, you need to see all three in order to get the full story. What a rip!

**A quick check on Battle.net reveals that there are just as many people playing vanilla WC3 as there are playing WC3:TFT. There will always be people who don't upgrade. And even if this WERE the case, just look at Relic and its hojillion expansions to the Dawn of War games. They do the exact same thing.

Alright, I'll just ignore the condescending "Don't watch Star Wars, what a rip!" tone here. You are obviously very passionate about Starcraft. Haha.

There is a difference, though, for instance with Mass Effect. Mass Effect is one game(and we've been told from the start that it's a trilogy) with one set of graphics.

Mass Effect 2 changed many, many, many, many things from the original, and was an entirely different game.

Starcraft: Wings of Liberty is different from Starcraft II: Zerg Version only in name. It's the same graphics. The same units(with probably somewhere between two and four added for each race, and one or two buildings) and the same buildings. While Blizzard have at this point had much feedback, they cannot change the fundamentals of the game, since it's basically the same, you know?

Also, look below.

Blizzard has always released one or two expansions for each of their games. This is nothing new. If these expansions contained very little new content, I could understand the hate. But like you said, they contain at least 20+ hours of single-player gameplay each, along with new units and new multiplayer features.

Selling each expansion for $40 is definitely fair, considering that all the shit DLC people pay for these days cost about $10 each, and only provide 2 hours of extra gameplay.

So let's see, you can support EXPANSIONS, which cost about $2 for each extra hour of gameplay they provide, or you can support DLC, which cost $5 per extra hour. Don't fool yourself, in the end you'll be supporting one or the other by buying certain games.

But these aren't actual expansions. There is one single player campaign split into three pieces.

Take Warcraft III, as you mention Blizzard and their expansions, and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

In Warcraft III you have one single player campaign. In Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne you have another single player campaign.

Yes, Warcraft III spanned a lot of missions, and different races, but it was one campaign, just like Starcraft II and it's "expansions" are. Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne followed this beastmaster half-ogre whose name I simply cannot recal in this moment - it started with R.

That's an example of an expansion done right. You have one campaign in the original game. The campaign is closed. Over. Then the expansion provides another campaign.

That's the difference.

That's what I'm against.

Also @ John Funk.

If you want to compare it to something, I'll also compare it to something.

Starcraft II in 3 is basically the same as Diablo II, if it had three acts, and each of these were their own separate purchase. The only way one would have all three acts(all content for the original campaign) would be to buy each one.

You cannot compare movies to games. Stop doing that. We cannot compare apples to oranges.

 

[Nikolaz72]

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.

Now you're just splitting hairs. My point remains the same. Yes, you don't pay $60 for a movie, but movies give you a fraction of the entertainment hours.

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).

...this is such a mind-numbingly ignorant statement. That's like saying that BioWare is lazy because it wasn't already working on Mass Effect 2 before Mass Effect 1 came out. Blizzard's RTS team is putting all of its development resources into finishing SC2T. After it comes out they will work on the expansion.

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.

*Assumption. You are assuming that it will not be a standalone plot with closure, when it very well could be. But even knowing that the story continues, I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Do you like Valve? Hey, look at Half-Life 2. Better boycott them. Do you like BioWare? We've known from the beginning that Mass Effect was a trilogy, so since you're clearly not getting the full story might as well not buy any of the Mass Effect games.

Don't watch any of the Star Wars movies or the Lord of the Rings movies, you need to see all three in order to get the full story. What a rip!

**A quick check on Battle.net reveals that there are just as many people playing vanilla WC3 as there are playing WC3:TFT. There will always be people who don't upgrade. And even if this WERE the case, just look at Relic and its hojillion expansions to the Dawn of War games. They do the exact same thing.

Now im not the big player of Blizzard games since i left World of Warcraft. (really turns you off that company i can tell), but arent the Mass Effect expansions like 15 $ and give 8 hours of campaign? (If its the good one) if we times the 8 hours by 4 hours to get 32 hours pretty close to the campaign time that Starcraft expansions give (4$ x 15$ = 60$) Yea, thought it was cheaper but if the Startcraft expansions are BELOW 60 Dollars a piece they are actually cheaper than Bioware content. -Tell me if im wrong there-

Playing Mass Effect 1/2 right now. Can recommend the game to anyone who havent tried it!

 

[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).

...this is such a mind-numbingly ignorant statement. That's like saying that BioWare is lazy because it wasn't already working on Mass Effect 2 before Mass Effect 1 came out. Blizzard's RTS team is putting all of its development resources into finishing SC2T. After it comes out they will work on the expansion.

Ok we are going to do this piece by piece because it's easier to look at everything that way.

I would like to know how calling someone who hasn't been able to finish 1/3rd of a game in 10 years lazy is ignorant, please fill me in here, us small people would love to know.

And unlike Starcraft 2, the Mass Effect games are self containing, you can jump in at any point, they all have a begging middle and end just like any good book in a series.

just look at Relic and its hojillion expansions to the Dawn of War games. They do the exact same thing.

But your missing the fact that each DOW expansion brought something new to the table and changed how the game was played in some way so here is a list for you(I believe I did this for you once before but I'm willing to try again).

Dawn of War(DOW)-Single linear camping with only Space Marines(SM), Multiplayer only had SM, Ork, Eldar, and Chaos Space Marines(CSM)

DOW:Winter Assult-Added Imperial Guard(IG) as a playable race, also had 2 different campaigns that branched into 4 different endings(1 for each race), also new unites were added for multiplayer

DOWark Crusade- Added Tau and Necrons to the game, changed from a linear campaign to a risk type board that let you pick were to fight and what perks to go after, and your buildings would be saved to each map, also added new units.

DOW:Soulstorm-Added Sisters Of Battle and upped how big the risk type board was, also added new units.

And if you want me to start in with DOW 2 I would be more then glad.

So now I think Blizzard is doing way less then Relic did.

 

[WaffleCopters]

Um, first off:
Each part is 32-36 levels long.

2nd off: Would you rather pay for three parts, or wait another 3 years. and pay the same amount in total.

3rd: The Galaxy Editor is in the first part, soo.... its not like we wont have infinite amount of levels or anything.

 

[park92]

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.

well the campaign is supposed to be 20 hours long so its actually not that bad

 

[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.

Now you're just splitting hairs. My point remains the same. Yes, you don't pay $60 for a movie, but movies give you a fraction of the entertainment hours.

Yea i know they do, what I'm saying is the pice of the product should reflect the cost of making it to some degree, their idea of paying $140 for a damn game is moronic, hell I got all the sessions of Seinfeld for less then that and I guarantee you there is more entertainment hours in that.