Blizzard ‘looking at free to play as an option’ for StarCraft II
By Alice Lynton on September 23, 2012 at 2:24 pm
StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder told audiences at the Valencia eSports Congress that Blizzard has contemplated taking the multiplayer portion of StarCraft II free to play. The publisher is ‘looking at free to play as an option’, according to PCGamesN – probably as one of a number of lines of investigation tracking the changing face of the games industry.
“We don’t know how we would monetise it. While it might be good fun for me to play against someone with only half the units available to them, that’s not going to be an enjoyable experience for them,” Browder noted.
The second instalment of StarCraft II, Heart of the Swarm, has not yet been dated.
Source: Twitch TV
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Even cosmetic skins would be a nightmare in a competitive game.
No clue how they think ftp could be pulled off without ruining the game for competitive mp.
Last time I heard they were going to make all of the MP content available to people who buy any of the 3 SC2 games, so realistically the people who only want the MP portion won’t be buying the next 2 games anyway. So in reality they might as well make MP free to play.
Ugh.. I shouldn’t post when I’m tired as fuck and there’s no edit function :/
I paid my 80 for sc2 back in 2010 – and still play it now. It’s an RTS, not an RPG – so there’s nothing ‘around the corner’ the player might hand over money for, to speed up the acquisition process.
The game is fun because the play mechanics are tight, and the devs try as hard as possible to keep it balanced. F2P games, in part, hold the players engagement by offering something new, to give them a boost against opponents.
It seems to me that principle of competitive RTS, using the same old better than your foe, is the opposite of that gameplay structure, and it would be very difficult to transfer sc2 to that pricing structure.
I thought blizzard was doing just fine making a few games that command a substantial fraction of full retail price a decade after release. I liked that model too, make a super polished title, and continue to support it through into the long term = ongoing revenue.
I guess they could bring out variable access licenses – single/multi player only, or a full bundle. Micro transactions for sc just seems silly.