StarCraft II SA pricing

[Tank]

still waiting to see if they deliver on the "content" promises. IF and BIG IF we do get 30 odd missions then yes R400 is justified. but if they reveal less missions say 15-20. bugger that R350 at most.

plus there is the fact that they said all three campaigns have the same story just told differently, what's the point of buying all three then? seeing as the terrans are out first that's the i'm buying because i never really liked the protoss and i absolutely hate the fraking zerg.

 

[_Caboose_]

Just because some korean rushed u no need to be hating

 

[Tank]

never played it online. so no korean rushed me, i just don't like the zerg.

 

[StrontiumDog]

I live in a hole. What is the release date for SC2? Will be inclined to wait for the bargain bin unless i succumb to peer pressure as I have plenty of other games to catch up on first.

 

[tehNihilist]

I will wait and see on this one. Reserving any judgment. And no I will not only trust the reviews, because sure, they will all rate this game a 9.9/10, or similar. I will check a couple of places before I make a decision.

 

[Azimuth]

As I've asked in the comment section; How is it that MegaRom are the ONLY people in the world with confirmed prices?

Um. They're not. Amazon in the US and UK is already listing a price. So's Game, a UK retailer.

Do your homework before asking silly questions.

 

[Azimuth]

I agree

This is extortion.
Just because it is a highly anticipated game they can just load the price and you will get people that will buy the game just because it is SC (no matter the cost)... Exactly the same happened with MW2.
So just becqause the people want to play it they will fork out up to R1k for a few hours (hopefully) worth of entertainment and Bliz will be laughing to the bank all the way.

But i didnt support MW2, and i wont support SC2 with this line of thinking - also with all the issues around the game (no lan, etc.)

Besides, this is for only ONE (1) campaign. So of course they will load the price for the other 2 campaigns as well, costing you more than R1k at the end.

so, pick a finger Bliz - wait, here take this one! .|..

Yeah, because, like, when Starcraft came out in 1998, it was R300. SO FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM FOR RAISING THE PRICE OF GAMES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 12 YEARS. FUCK THEM.

SHAMELESS PROFITEERING. FUCK THEM.

 

[Blackhand]

Yeah, because, like, when Starcraft came out in 1998, it was R300. SO FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM FOR RAISING THE PRICE OF GAMES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 12 YEARS. FUCK THEM.

SHAMELESS PROFITEERING. FUCK THEM.

I just smiled, sometimes you have such a way with words Azi =)

Anyway, R430 is steeper than normal but not excessive, R500 for the standard edition would be excessive. The game has been in production for a very long time, the pricing seems right for recovering development costs and the content included.

Your going to get 20+ hours of epic single player content, chock full of Blizzard's fucking amazing FMVs no doubt and an unrivaled multiplayer competitive RTS with almost unlimited replay value that also promotes community made content for even more replayability (mouthful).

Assuming they pull it off and the game is good, and there's no reason to believe it won't be, R430 actually isn't bad at all for what your getting.

 

[Stefan9]

While I believe the price can be justified I am not going to be giving activision/blizzard more money than what I do for EA games. If EA charges me only R325/350 for new games then I see no reason why I need to pay R100 more for an activision/blizzard game. This pricing point is basicly the same I paid for the CE of ME 2.

I will wait for the bargain bin.

 

[RoosTa]

Um. They're not. Amazon in the US and UK is already listing a price. So's Game, a UK retailer.

Do your homework before asking silly questions.

See, I did do my homework. As you can see, MyGaming is first on the list

Most places like Amazon had pre-order prices for years on their site, does that make this anymore official? I have not seen anything official from Blizzard or Activision, nor a mention of the official release date.


http://www.amazon.com/Starcraft-II-Wings-Liberty-Pc/dp/B000ZKA0J6#productPromotions

Official pricing and release date have not been announced by the publisher. These are estimates only and subject to change.

Also Amazon have a Pre-Order policy:

Pre-order Price Guarantee! Order now and if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and the end of the day of the release date, you'll receive the lowest price. Here's how (restrictions apply)

 

[Azimuth]

See, I did do my homework. As you can see, MyGaming is first on the list

Most places like Amazon had pre-order prices for years on their site, does that make this anymore official? I have not seen anything official from Blizzard or Activision, nor a mention of the official release date.

To be fair, pre-order prices seldom change. *shrug* I'm not sure why you're making such an issue of this. The way I see it, Megarom's late to the Starcraft II price party.

 

[Tsar]

Tinman don't forget that each part after the first one will add new units and other things.

 

[RoosTa]

Sorry go read my edit as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Starcraft-II-Wings-Liberty-Pc/dp/B000ZKA0J6#productPromotions

Official pricing and release date have not been announced by the publisher. These are estimates only and subject to change.

Sure they can thumb suck prices, but there still is a chance that it will change. ATM pre-orders are guestimates.

To be fair, pre-order prices seldom change. *shrug* I'm not sure why you're making such an issue of this. The way I see it, Megarom's late to the Starcraft II price party.

All I'm saying is, take this news with a pinch of salt. It's not official and it might still change.

 

[Leakysandwich]

Yeah, because, like, when Starcraft came out in 1998, it was R300. SO FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM FOR RAISING THE PRICE OF GAMES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 12 YEARS. FUCK THEM.

SHAMELESS PROFITEERING. FUCK THEM.

I have no issue with developers upping the price. Its natural as with any product.
But removing certain gameplay elements, adding certain 'anti piracy' measures, and then still upping the price to be even more than any normal priced game these days, is just dipping your hands in the honey pot.

Bliz KNOWS ppl will buy the game no matter the price. see MW2
Bliz KNOWS they have an EPIC game. fair enough.
Bliz trying to trump piracy with some of their game-changing ideas. we'll see... seeing as the beta is already 'cracked'...

IF (and big IF here) the game does actually give you 20 - 30 hours worth of singleplayer joy - by all means then yes.
BUT, if like MW2 the campaign is a measly 3 hours long for a R400-R500 game, and they expect to sell 'value-add' in the form of "endless replayability via multiplayer" then its a whole different story and they can go screw themselves.

So dont get your panties in a twist.
You dont have to like my viewpoint, and just as with MW2, Bliz ARE going to make a killing with SC2, even without my support.
So good for them.

 

[Nictron]

If that is the price I am not buying it, period.

MW2 was the last time I paid that much for a game!

Activision is thinking way too much of its titles lately. But there are fools born every day and they can gladly jump into that greedy pool.

 

[Nictron]

Bliz KNOWS ppl will buy the game no matter the price. see MW2
Bliz KNOWS they have an EPIC game. fair enough.
Bliz trying to trump piracy with some of their game-changing ideas. we'll see... seeing as the beta is already 'cracked'...

I think this is more Activision and the people that run it. The old Blizzard would not do this. Blizzard are puppets now in the hands of those greedy Activision bastards.

 

[Necuno]

Yeah, because, like, when Starcraft came out in 1998, it was R300. SO FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM FOR RAISING THE PRICE OF GAMES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 12 YEARS. FUCK THEM.

SHAMELESS PROFITEERING. FUCK THEM.

fuck yay

 

[Sockmonkey]

Ill be first in line to get the game and will be more than happy to pay said price.

I don't know how they can extend the campaign that much, I mean a RTS usually only has three differentiating missions - go kill a base, defend your base and go take one dude and kill a base. There is not much else to it.

 

[Dre]

Activision is the publisher. No surprise there. MW2 same pricing basically...If i was not going to play online...I would not pay that amount for any game. I don't give a crap! but yes online...have to make a way...

 

[Azimuth]

I have no issue with developers upping the price. Its natural as with any product.
But removing certain gameplay elements, adding certain 'anti piracy' measures, and then still upping the price to be even more than any normal priced game these days, is just dipping your hands in the honey pot.

Okay. Removing regular LAN play is a bit sad. As I understand it, however (and please correct me if I'm in error here, anyone), all that's required to play StarCraft II multiplayer is a connection to Battle.Net. There's nothing stopping anyone, therefore, from hooking up a bunch of PCs in a room, logging them all into Battle.Net, and playing together, surely?

Yes, this means big LANs like OC and Mayhem and whatnot have problems. Considering one of the biggest attractions of LANs like OC and Mayhem are their DC++ servers, I'm not sure this is entirely unjustified for publishers.

As for competitive play, it simply means organisers have to arrange internet connectivity at venues. This isn't really a major issue in the States and Europe, and that's their biggest market.

I'm not convinced that DRM policies definitively devalue games. I know some people have technical issues, but I suspect the actual incidence of this is much lower than the internet wants anyone to believe. And in most cases, it's a simple matter of disabling apps like Daemon Tools. Apps that, let's be honest here, are usually used to nefarious ends.

Finally, I think "normal priced games" are all going to see an increase very shortly. As I've already pointed out, PC game prices have been pretty static for over a decade now. We've been lucky.

Bliz KNOWS ppl will buy the game no matter the price. see MW2
Bliz KNOWS they have an EPIC game. fair enough.
Bliz trying to trump piracy with some of their game-changing ideas. we'll see... seeing as the beta is already 'cracked'...

You say this like it proves something other than that gamers are dishonest.

IF (and big IF here) the game does actually give you 20 - 30 hours worth of singleplayer joy - by all means then yes.
BUT, if like MW2 the campaign is a measly 3 hours long for a R400-R500 game, and they expect to sell 'value-add' in the form of "endless replayability via multiplayer" then its a whole different story and they can go screw themselves.

I'm a reasonably okay player, and MW2 took me around 8 hours to complete on Veteran. That's just the regular single player campaign, mind you, and excludes the Spec Ops section. Which I've yet to finish. At this point, I've sunk 6-7 hours into it already. That's around 15 hours. Even tacking on just 5 hours of multiplayer (far less than the average player is going to invest in the game, I'll warrant), and it's a 20-hour product. That's a lot of game.

I'll venture that, like so many other gamers today, you simply do not (will not) see the real worth of games.