Blizzard has confirmed that Russian gamers will have to pay monthly subscription fees to play their soon to be released RTS, StarCraft II, online.
This falls in line with their plans to look at different monetization methods for different regions.
While Russians will have to bear the brunt of MMO-like monthly subscription fees, the retail price of the game will be cheaper. According to Inc Gamers, instead of the unconfirmed €30 RRP (R300) that Europeans will have to pay, Russian gamers will have to shell out the equivalent of €25 (R250).
Local distributor for Activision Blizzard, Megarom, told MyGaming that as far as they are aware, the game will still come with a once-off purchase fee in SA, with no additional payment required to play online.
This makes sense as SA gamers will mostly be connecting to the European Battle.net servers. Russians on the other hand, will have their own servers, and will be locked out of the EU servers.
It does raise an interesting question though. Since StarCraft II – like Modern Warfare II – consists of two very separate components in the single and multiplayer portions, is it not fair to charge users differently according to which part of the game they want? This is essentially what Blizzard seems to be piloting in Russia with StarCraft II, and it remains to be seen what sort of response they get.
Similar Articles
Local StarCraft II pricing confirmed
Local StarCraft II community site now up
StarCraft II beta: how to win in under 8 minutes
Do you think it’s fair to charge for online access? After all, it is essentially an ongoing service, and it does benefit those who only want the single player portion of the game. Have your say in the forums.
Loading ...
