<!--quoteo(post=1690387:date=Oct 15 2008, 12:41 PM:name=Cxwf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cxwf @ Oct 15 2008, 12:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690387"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well, given that the draw on their hardware is minimal but still necessary, I could see an argument that charges should be minimal but still necessary. For example, if they offered $10 / Year for unlimited access to Bnet on all games, I don't think that would be a terrible thing. I can spare 80 cents per month for their services. It kinda depends on the details and how much they're charging.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> True, however it would probably be easier to offset the minimal operating costs by just placing banner ads on the Bnet lobby, which they already do. Not to mention, while small, $10 a year would be out of reach for many people simply because they might not have a credit/debit card in which to pay with. Ofcourse most of the audience affected by that problem are probably kids whose online presence may not be desired in the first place. Infact, now that I think of it I'd be willing to pay $10 a year just to be able to play against only other people who payed the $10 (think: The SA forums).
EpidemicDark Force GorgeJoin Date: 2003-06-29Member: 17781Members
edited October 2008
<!--quoteo(post=1690220:date=Oct 13 2008, 10:22 AM:name=aNytiMe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aNytiMe @ Oct 13 2008, 10:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690220"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A) All bnet does is host the chat rooms and provide players with a lobby server where they can see games they want to join. The actual games and game lobbies are hosted by the host of the game and latter through peer2peer UDP (lol) networking. B) It is VERY easy to set up your own lobby server similar to BNETEAST BNETWEST BNETEUROPE BNETASIA. This is what might happen if blizzard gets too greedy off of bnet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except for Diablo 2 whose battlenet has games hosted entirely on Blizzard's hardware. The monetizing battle.net comment was made in a diablo 3 panel, go figure.
<!--quoteo(post=1690409:date=Oct 15 2008, 01:56 PM:name=Xyth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth @ Oct 15 2008, 01:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690409"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->True, however it would probably be easier to offset the minimal operating costs by just placing banner ads on the Bnet lobby, which they already do. Not to mention, while small, $10 a year would be out of reach for many people simply because they might not have a credit/debit card in which to pay with. Ofcourse most of the audience affected by that problem are probably kids whose online presence may not be desired in the first place. Infact, now that I think of it I'd be willing to pay $10 a year just to be able to play against only other people who payed the $10 (think: The SA forums).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That being said, about 40% of the starcraft professional league in korea is under 18 in age.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1690593:date=Oct 16 2008, 07:53 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ Oct 16 2008, 07:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690593"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That being said, about 40% of the starcraft professional league in korea is under 18 in age.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> But they'd have no trouble getting 10 bucks to play.
<!--quoteo(post=1690595:date=Oct 16 2008, 07:43 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Oct 16 2008, 07:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690595"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But they'd have no trouble getting 10 bucks to play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The issue isn't the players who are already pro gamers, definitely, their sponsors will cover any such cost. The issue is the up and coming players. In order to hit pro at 14-16 yo as is very common, you need to start practicing at 10-13... Those players can probably save up their wooden nickles and buy a one time game, but at that age you don't have the reliable income to support a monthly fee on a game. Some's parents may cover it, but I'd think they would be a minority.
The reality is, a good 20-30 percent of blizzards long term profit will come out of korea for SC2, and 50% of that chunk will be from purchases of players under 18. They can't afford dropping support of a market that large. You might say, "oh, it's only 10-15 percent" but 10-15 percent of 10 million is still over a million.
<!--quoteo(post=1690703:date=Oct 18 2008, 01:27 PM:name=Abra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Abra @ Oct 18 2008, 01:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Let me just turn around, bend over, and could you be a gent, and get them for me?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I bow to your superior use of irony and sarcasm.
Thanks for my new sig. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" />
If it's not clear from the MASSIVE range in figures my post was covering, the figures were estimates... They are based on a reasonable amount of previous knowledge though...
<!--QuoteBegin-"wikipedia"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("wikipedia")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->StarCraft was released internationally on 31 March 1998 and became the best-selling PC game for that year, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide.[72] In the next decade, StarCraft sold over 9.5 million copies across the globe, with 4.5 million of these being sold in South Korea.[73] Since the initial release of StarCraft, Blizzard Entertainment reported that its Battle.net online multiplayer service grew by 800 percent.[74] StarCraft remains one of the most popular online games in the world.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Over 40% of blizzards total titles sold were sold in Korea for Starcraft. Now, you can't really accurately forecast sales for a game still a year out... but I'm guessing that, in the long term, sales of Starcraft 2 will match sales of Starcraft in Korea, and slightly beat the original elsewhere world wide (mostly because the gaming market is much larger for triple A titles than it was 10 years ago). I'm not sure how much they are exploiting it, but blizzard also has the potential to make money through licensing and advertisement avenues in the large consumer base market of Korea, where competitive play is a massive focus, and to the point of actually being a large scale spectator sport.
[edit]Estimates on age is based on the fact that professional starcraft teams all but exclusively recruit players under the age of 20. From my experience I'd guess the average age of professional starcraft players is about 19 in korea.
I heard a good analogy from a Blizzard dev: Do you give Peter Jackson crap for splitting LOTR up into three movies? No? Are you glad he didn't try to cram them into one?
I'm not particularly fussed about them splitting the game up into three. Each campaign is likely to be pretty huge. Blizzard have earned a hell of a lot of goodwill by supporting their games essentially forever. They're still patching Starcraft, for christ's sake.
Charging a subscription to play normal multiplayer games with your friends over b.net will probably never happen. Cash will come into the equation if you're entering into tournies and suchlike, if ever.
As for charging for Diablo b.net usage, I'm not so certain. I imagine money will come into the equation if you want to change your account name, or other such non-gameplay-related things. I very much doubt they'll charge a wowesque subscription fee.
<!--quoteo(post=1690822:date=Oct 19 2008, 07:33 PM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scythe @ Oct 19 2008, 07:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690822"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I heard a good analogy from a Blizzard dev: Do you give Peter Jackson crap for splitting LOTR up into three movies? No? Are you glad he didn't try to cram them into one?
I'm not particularly fussed about them splitting the game up into three. Each campaign is likely to be pretty huge. Blizzard have earned a hell of a lot of goodwill by supporting their games essentially forever. They're still patching Starcraft, for christ's sake.
Charging a subscription to play normal multiplayer games with your friends over b.net will probably never happen. Cash will come into the equation if you're entering into tournies and suchlike, if ever.
As for charging for Diablo b.net usage, I'm not so certain. I imagine money will come into the equation if you want to change your account name, or other such non-gameplay-related things. I very much doubt they'll charge a wowesque subscription fee.
Blizzard fanboy, signing off. --Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You don't save movies and come back to play them later. It's actually a really really bad analogy because blizzard isn't making a movie. It's blatantly a profit maximization scheme.
Ya, it's probably valid... but still, it's a let down to the players because, realistically, blizzard could afford to do the whole thing in 1 game... They just aren't, because they will make somewhat more money doing it this way. There's really nothing that would have stopped blizzard from making $120 worth of game content, and pricing it at $50, they'd still sell enough copies to MASSIVELY MORE than break even on development costs, ultimately, they just decided the $ was worth more than the fanbase. It's not an incredibly unfair decision, but it's still disappointing.
<!--quoteo(post=1690836:date=Oct 20 2008, 03:22 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ Oct 20 2008, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690836"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You don't save movies and come back to play them later.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ever bought a DVD?
The analogy isn't perfect, but it illustrates the issue in a comparable context where this kind of thing is perfectly acceptable.
<!--quoteo(post=1690836:date=Oct 20 2008, 03:22 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ Oct 20 2008, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690836"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's really nothing that would have stopped blizzard from making $120 worth of game content, and pricing it at $50, ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's really nothing stopping blizzard from releasing the game for free. WoW is making them enough cash to fund a small country. Unfortunately capitalism doesn't work that way.
Personally, I'd rather 1/3 of Starcraft 2 ASAP and the rest can come as it will. While "episodic content" is largely a laughing stock due to Valve's efforts, but it is still valid given you readjust what you expect to be a reasonable timeframe for an episode. I doubt Blizzard will charge full price for three separate games, but they won't quite be expansion pack prices.
Bear in mind that the Terran campaign is essentially an RPGRTS. It's not story->mission->story->mission. You follow Raynor around in his ship, making "character" (research, fleet, special units) development choices between each mission. The Protoss and Zerg campaigns are going to be radically different. It won't just be replacing the battlecruiser with a carrier and throwing in a few different NPCs, it'll likely be an entirely new mechanic.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
edited October 2008
<!--quoteo(post=1690836:date=Oct 20 2008, 01:22 AM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ Oct 20 2008, 01:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690836"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's really nothing that would have stopped blizzard from making $120 worth of game content, and pricing it at $50, they'd still sell enough copies to MASSIVELY MORE than break even on development costs, ultimately, they just decided the $ was worth more than the fanbase. It's not an incredibly unfair decision, but it's still disappointing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Part of me says it is uncompromising artistic vision, and part of me says it's just them wanting to make 3 times the money for the same amount of work. The bread and butter of StarCraft gameplay is multiplayer and that's where all the development time will be spent.
If the first game's good(and has enough content) I'll happily buy the others. If it's not then I will not be happy for playing full price for a 1/3rd of a game and I'll avoid paying the next 100 bucks.
<!--quoteo(post=1690838:date=Oct 20 2008, 12:38 AM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scythe @ Oct 20 2008, 12:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690838"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The analogy isn't perfect, but it illustrates the issue in a comparable context where this kind of thing is perfectly acceptable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's the thing, gaming and film are not comparable contexts. You can buy a game like Guild wars and get nearly infinite maximum gameplay time, you can buy halflife and get hundreds of mods to play, you can get Warcraft 3 and get obscene amounts of player made content. Game developers tend to price based on the amount of work THEY have to do, movies, in contrast, are broken up by length. If you need 10 hours of film time to convey the story, you have to break it up, people won't buy a 10 hour movie, it SHOULD be 3 movies. The same structure just doesn't exist in gaming. <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's really nothing stopping blizzard from releasing the game for free. WoW is making them enough cash to fund a small country. Unfortunately capitalism doesn't work that way.
Personally, I'd rather 1/3 of Starcraft 2 ASAP and the rest can come as it will. While "episodic content" is largely a laughing stock due to Valve's efforts, but it is still valid given you readjust what you expect to be a reasonable timeframe for an episode. I doubt Blizzard will charge full price for three separate games, but they won't quite be expansion pack prices.
Bear in mind that the Terran campaign is essentially an RPGRTS. It's not story->mission->story->mission. You follow Raynor around in his ship, making "character" (research, fleet, special units) development choices between each mission. The Protoss and Zerg campaigns are going to be radically different. It won't just be replacing the battlecruiser with a carrier and throwing in a few different NPCs, it'll likely be an entirely new mechanic.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's not really ever fully appropriate to make a game that was initially marketed as a single title into a trilogy. It's marketable, sure, and depending who's doing it in many cases it's absolutely warranted (many game studios can't afford the risk, so they have to offer smaller chunks then they originally wanted to). That's not really the case for blizzard. They made the right move for their shareholders, sure. They made the right move in terms of keeping the market fair for their competitors, sure. But they didn't make the decision that really supports the fans. I'm disappointed, it's all I'm saying. You absolutely can't sell me that this move was made for the benefit of the fans, or the players, simply put, it wasn't.
The orange box, now THAT is an example of a game company making a choice that benefits the fans.
Time for some updates eh..Though this time not in the form of more samey-looking screenshots. This time they released a full 20+ odd minutes of <i>Alpha</i> stage 1vs1 gameplay with commentary, including some new Terran Unit called <b>The Marauder</b>. All done in-house.
Go ahead you know you <a href="http://www.starcraft2.com/features/battlereports/1.xml" target="_blank">want</a> to.
<!--quoteo(post=1696526:date=Dec 22 2008, 03:46 PM:name=LockNLoaded)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(LockNLoaded @ Dec 22 2008, 03:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696526"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Time for some updates eh..Though this time not in the form of more samey-looking screenshots. This time they released a full 20+ odd minutes of <i>Alpha</i> stage 1vs1 gameplay with commentary, including some new Terran Unit called <b>The Marauder</b>. All done in-house.
Go ahead you know you <a href="http://www.starcraft2.com/features/battlereports/1.xml" target="_blank">want</a> to.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was a fairly nifty video, I've watched it a few times. I've been keeping up with the blizzcast, they regularly have starcraft, diablo and warcraft sections in every 'cast. RSS feed <a href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/_content/en-US/rss.xml" target="_blank">here</a>.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It takes us some development work to do it, so it makes sense to charge for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->To change someone's account name? Even manually it will take someone under 3 minutes to do that, just how much are Blizzard employees getting paid?
In real terms, changing your name should not be much more than $1. However, I suspect that the real figure would be much more than this to dissuade everyone from changing names all the time. So really they'll be offering a service that isn't necessary and overpricing for it because it's not necessary enough to provide enough staff to cover everyone wanting to use the feature.
I don't mind the game being split into 3 as long as the multiplayer functionality is complete for the first one. The only thing being extended in the subsequent releases is polish (tweaks and minor bug fixes, not major bug fixes that shouldn't be in a release), more multiplayer maps, the singleplayer campaign and perhaps additional multiplayer game mode(s). What I'm afraid of is that this will become a very easy excuse not to put everything that's needed into the first game and leave it to the next one simply because they've run out of time and hit a shipping deadline.
Team Fortress kind of did this with the poor selection of maps when it first came out. It now has 18 maps (including 3 user-made ones) with 7 game modes, but when it released it only had 6 maps across 5 game modes. On release that's simply not enough maps for a multiplayer game, especially when 2 of those are rehashes (Dustbowl & 2Fort) and one fundamentally lends itself to stalemates by design (Hydro). The only reason they managed to get away with retaining a playerbase is by adding extra content, some of which should have been in the game to start with (maps) and some were truly bonuses (unlocks, new game types such as Payload and Arena).
I hope Starcraft 2 doesn't distil its multiplayer in the full knowledge it can make up for it later in the forthcoming 'episodes'. I find it a really distasteful way to treat customers by giving them half for full price to begin with and give them the other half later, even if it includes extras. If you're going to do it like that I'll pay half for half and if I like the added content I'll pay the rest when I see it.
ShockehIf a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it...Join Date: 2002-11-19Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1696531:date=Dec 22 2008, 09:21 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Crispy @ Dec 22 2008, 09:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696531"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't mind the game being split into 3 as long as the multiplayer functionality is complete for the first one. The only thing being extended in the subsequent releases is polish (tweaks and minor bug fixes, not major bug fixes that shouldn't be in a release), more multiplayer maps, the singleplayer campaign and perhaps additional multiplayer game mode(s). What I'm afraid of is that this will become a very easy excuse not to put everything that's needed into the first game and leave it to the next one simply because they've run out of time and hit a shipping deadline.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As long as they don't fall into the EA style trap (and I'd put money down now that someone in Blizzard-Vivendi, at least someone, has looked and thought 'wow, what a great idea') of "Oh no, you don't NEED these expansion packs to play, you can play without them, but oh lol the units are much better than your rubbish 'standard' user ones, haha!".
<!--quoteo(post=1696531:date=Dec 22 2008, 03:21 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Crispy @ Dec 22 2008, 03:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696531"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->To change someone's account name? Even manually it will take someone under 3 minutes to do that, just how much are Blizzard employees getting paid?
In real terms, changing your name should not be much more than $1. However, I suspect that the real figure would be much more than this to dissuade everyone from changing names all the time. So really they'll be offering a service that isn't necessary and overpricing for it because it's not necessary enough to provide enough staff to cover everyone wanting to use the feature.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No company in the entire history of the universe that has ever wanted to surivive for more than ten seconds has ever priced its stuff based on what it costs for them to provide the service. That's a dumb way of doing it. No customer bases a decision on what his purchase is going to cost the company. Blizzard charges what it thinks the market can handle, and like you said, it's probably overcharging to prevent a ton of people from changing names. If Blizzard were in the "change names" business, then I could agree with you and say that the price is much too high; they're expecting unreasonable returns. They're not in the "change names" business, though, so they can afford to lose money doing that to match some sort of ulterior motive, which in this case is "not have to change so many names that we become a name changing company and not a game development company."
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's blatantly a profit maximization scheme.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah, and? Something wrong with a good company getting the profit they deserve?
Starcraft: 30 missions total.
Starcraft II: 36 missions <i>per part.</i> 108 missions <i>total.</i> +free online support +numerous units in addition to all (most) of the originals
Blizzard selling the trilogy as one unit would be like the Orange Box only being two dollars.
<!--quoteo(post=1696549:date=Dec 22 2008, 03:18 PM:name=Haze)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Haze @ Dec 22 2008, 03:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696549"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Blizzard selling the trilogy as one unit would be like the Orange Box only being two dollars.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This comparison doesn't make sense. You are saying that blizzard selling 3 games for $50 would be a better deal then valve selling 5 games for $50? I'm confused.
<!--QuoteBegin-Tycho+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tycho)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Starcraft also had free online support, and numerous units.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I meant units in addition to the normal defaults from the original. <i>More,</i> I mean.
<!--QuoteBegin-Xyth+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This comparison doesn't make sense. You are saying that blizzard selling 3 games for $50 would be a better deal then valve selling 5 games for $50?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeap.
Am i the only one who wants to point out that the LOTR analogy is total crap
Peter Jackson didnt split up anything. He took THREE SEPERATE BOOKS as part of a trilogy, and created THREE SEPERATE MOVIES as part of a triligy.
Lets modify that analogy and say "Why didn't they try to cram all 7 harry potter books into one movie, some genius there must have thought it a good idea to split them up."
Im all for creative licensing here, but dont make it like Peter Jackson did anything other than take a book trilogy, and turn it into a movie trilogy. He may have changed the ending times between the novels slightly when transferring to movie form, but he surely wasn't a genius in "Splitting them up" and i find that a horrible analogy.
That being said, Starcraft 2 is what it is, i hope the Devs dont expect me to pay ~150 for three sucessive titles. Because i simply wont....Ill buy one, pirate the others (as has been said before)
<!--quoteo(post=1690171:date=Oct 13 2008, 09:23 AM:name=Abra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Abra @ Oct 13 2008, 09:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690171"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If I have to pay a monthly fee to play diablo 3 online, someone is going to have to die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wait! I've got a couple machete in the back. I'll get them.
<!--quoteo(post=1690495:date=Oct 16 2008, 04:41 AM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Zaggy @ Oct 16 2008, 04:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690495"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Blizzard's putting a lot of work into SC2, so much they're going to provide us with an excellent singleplayer AND multiplayer?!
Respect for these folks, not many companies can pull that off.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I duly and completely respect Blizzard, and furthermore, I'm not going to support Blizzard monthly subscriptions to software I already own just because it's good software.
If microsoft wanted to start charging a monthly fee to 'lease' windows, I'd boycott that as well. Software should continue to be a "buy by usage" model and not a "buy by time" model in every respect. Charge what you want, but charge only once. Otherwise you'll start seeing microsoft coming out with support for programs to uninstall themselves once they're 'lease' has expired and hasn't been renewed. Lord knows they'd do it too. The only thing keeping the world to moving to "buy by time" software model is that most people won't purchase software they have to continue to pay. However, I fear it's becoming more and more acceptable.
<!--quoteo(post=1696545:date=Dec 22 2008, 12:27 PM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Dec 22 2008, 12:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696545"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No company in the entire history of the universe that has ever wanted to surivive for more than ten seconds has ever priced its stuff based on what it costs for them to provide the service. That's a dumb way of doing it. No customer bases a decision on what his purchase is going to cost the company. Blizzard charges what it thinks the market can handle, and like you said, it's probably overcharging to prevent a ton of people from changing names. If Blizzard were in the "change names" business, then I could agree with you and say that the price is much too high; they're expecting unreasonable returns. They're not in the "change names" business, though, so they can afford to lose money doing that to match some sort of ulterior motive, which in this case is "not have to change so many names that we become a name changing company and not a game development company."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Blizzard does whatever it can get away with. I can hardly blame them. They're only a business afterall. However, make no mistake about it. If people are willing to pay X per month for a game or software, there will be games and software which charge X per month. As good as a game is, it's never worth a monthly fee if you intend on playing it indefinitely.
The value of a game or any purchaseable item on the market is the quantity times quality over price, would you all agree with that?
That is to say, if see a buy one get one free deal for chiquita bananas, the quantity has effectively doubled, thus increasing value. Similarly, if there is a sale on the bananas, the price is halved, meaning the value is doubled (since you divide by price). And of course, if you find bananas which are yellow and ripe, it's clearly better value than bananas for the same price that are black and rotten.
With that said, how do you quantify price of Wow? I don't know exactly how much someone is charged, but lets say it's 10 banana skins per month. That makes the price of Wow = 10 * m where m is the number of months passed since you bought it (m + 1, but we'll simplify).
Plug that in our formula, and the value of Wow is the quality times quantity over 10 banana skins per month. If you intend on playing indefinitely, you effectively divide by a huge number. In order to beat any other game which is bought only once, you'd have to play Wow for less months than it takes for 10 banana skins a month to turn into the price of the other game. That is to say, if I bought guild wars for 50 banana skins and Wow charges me 10 banana skins per month, I'd have to play less than 5 months.
But wait, Hawkeye! The <b>quality</b> of Wow is clearly higher than Guild Wars (disputable, but lets assume so for a second). Suppose the quality were twice as good as Guild Wars. That's 10 months of play. Were you going to stop after 10 months of play playing Wow? I think not. Any way you slice it, Wow is not more valuable than any other game which you buy once if you intend on playing it for a long time.
But Hawkeye, it costs them money to maintain the servers! I have a duty to uphold and support the company giving me this <strike>free</strike> service. Quite commendable, but I'm going to stick to "supporting" the games which don't get any incentive to maintain free service. I don't feel any need of duty to sign up for Wow because, gosh darnit, it costs so much in electricity to keep those servers up.
I bought Guild Wars rather than Wow for precisely this reason. I still play Guild Wars with maximum satisfaction. When they released new campaigns, I bought them, because I enjoyed the previous campaigns. They deserve to have people buy their software because it's fun to play and the price is right.
If Diablo 3 or a Starcraft 2 trilogy requires a monthly fee, I won't buy it, as much as I loved Diablo 2 and Starcraft.
<!--quoteo(post=1696589:date=Dec 23 2008, 08:19 AM:name=SDJason)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SDJason @ Dec 23 2008, 08:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696589"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Am i the only one who wants to point out that the LOTR analogy is total crap
Peter Jackson didnt split up anything. He took THREE SEPERATE BOOKS as part of a trilogy, and created THREE SEPERATE MOVIES as part of a triligy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's not TOTAL crap. It's a single novel, printed in three volumes over a period of time due to paper shortages following the second world war. It's not a trilogy.
Well whether it was deliberate or not, LOTR was split in three by Tolkien, thus making it a trilogy. If then you want to argue that they aren't three separate stories, perhaps I'd go for that. Though the mere fact that it was written in three separate books makes it a trilogy by definition. The fact that they're not separate stories only means that the trilogy parts didn't end well or something.
It's like saying the three films of the Matrix aren't a trilogy because it pertains to the same central storyline and that warner brothers didn't have enough money to make a movie 6 hours long.
Comments
True, however it would probably be easier to offset the minimal operating costs by just placing banner ads on the Bnet lobby, which they already do. Not to mention, while small, $10 a year would be out of reach for many people simply because they might not have a credit/debit card in which to pay with. Ofcourse most of the audience affected by that problem are probably kids whose online presence may not be desired in the first place. Infact, now that I think of it I'd be willing to pay $10 a year just to be able to play against only other people who payed the $10 (think: The SA forums).
Respect for these folks, not many companies can pull that off.
B) It is VERY easy to set up your own lobby server similar to BNETEAST BNETWEST BNETEUROPE BNETASIA. This is what might happen if blizzard gets too greedy off of bnet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except for Diablo 2 whose battlenet has games hosted entirely on Blizzard's hardware. The monetizing battle.net comment was made in a diablo 3 panel, go figure.
That being said, about 40% of the starcraft professional league in korea is under 18 in age.
But they'd have no trouble getting 10 bucks to play.
The issue isn't the players who are already pro gamers, definitely, their sponsors will cover any such cost. The issue is the up and coming players. In order to hit pro at 14-16 yo as is very common, you need to start practicing at 10-13... Those players can probably save up their wooden nickles and buy a one time game, but at that age you don't have the reliable income to support a monthly fee on a game. Some's parents may cover it, but I'd think they would be a minority.
The reality is, a good 20-30 percent of blizzards long term profit will come out of korea for SC2, and 50% of that chunk will be from purchases of players under 18. They can't afford dropping support of a market that large. You might say, "oh, it's only 10-15 percent" but 10-15 percent of 10 million is still over a million.
I bow to your superior use of irony and sarcasm.
Thanks for my new sig. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" />
<!--QuoteBegin-"wikipedia"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("wikipedia")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->StarCraft was released internationally on 31 March 1998 and became the best-selling PC game for that year, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide.[72] In the next decade, StarCraft sold over 9.5 million copies across the globe, with 4.5 million of these being sold in South Korea.[73] Since the initial release of StarCraft, Blizzard Entertainment reported that its Battle.net online multiplayer service grew by 800 percent.[74] StarCraft remains one of the most popular online games in the world.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Over 40% of blizzards total titles sold were sold in Korea for Starcraft. Now, you can't really accurately forecast sales for a game still a year out... but I'm guessing that, in the long term, sales of Starcraft 2 will match sales of Starcraft in Korea, and slightly beat the original elsewhere world wide (mostly because the gaming market is much larger for triple A titles than it was 10 years ago). I'm not sure how much they are exploiting it, but blizzard also has the potential to make money through licensing and advertisement avenues in the large consumer base market of Korea, where competitive play is a massive focus, and to the point of actually being a large scale spectator sport.
[edit]Estimates on age is based on the fact that professional starcraft teams all but exclusively recruit players under the age of 20. From my experience I'd guess the average age of professional starcraft players is about 19 in korea.
I'm not particularly fussed about them splitting the game up into three. Each campaign is likely to be pretty huge. Blizzard have earned a hell of a lot of goodwill by supporting their games essentially forever. They're still patching Starcraft, for christ's sake.
Charging a subscription to play normal multiplayer games with your friends over b.net will probably never happen. Cash will come into the equation if you're entering into tournies and suchlike, if ever.
As for charging for Diablo b.net usage, I'm not so certain. I imagine money will come into the equation if you want to change your account name, or other such non-gameplay-related things. I very much doubt they'll charge a wowesque subscription fee.
Blizzard fanboy, signing off.
--Scythe--
I'm not particularly fussed about them splitting the game up into three. Each campaign is likely to be pretty huge. Blizzard have earned a hell of a lot of goodwill by supporting their games essentially forever. They're still patching Starcraft, for christ's sake.
Charging a subscription to play normal multiplayer games with your friends over b.net will probably never happen. Cash will come into the equation if you're entering into tournies and suchlike, if ever.
As for charging for Diablo b.net usage, I'm not so certain. I imagine money will come into the equation if you want to change your account name, or other such non-gameplay-related things. I very much doubt they'll charge a wowesque subscription fee.
Blizzard fanboy, signing off.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't save movies and come back to play them later. It's actually a really really bad analogy because blizzard isn't making a movie. It's blatantly a profit maximization scheme.
Ya, it's probably valid... but still, it's a let down to the players because, realistically, blizzard could afford to do the whole thing in 1 game... They just aren't, because they will make somewhat more money doing it this way. There's really nothing that would have stopped blizzard from making $120 worth of game content, and pricing it at $50, they'd still sell enough copies to MASSIVELY MORE than break even on development costs, ultimately, they just decided the $ was worth more than the fanbase. It's not an incredibly unfair decision, but it's still disappointing.
Ever bought a DVD?
The analogy isn't perfect, but it illustrates the issue in a comparable context where this kind of thing is perfectly acceptable.
<!--quoteo(post=1690836:date=Oct 20 2008, 03:22 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swiftspear @ Oct 20 2008, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690836"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's really nothing that would have stopped blizzard from making $120 worth of game content, and pricing it at $50, ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's really nothing stopping blizzard from releasing the game for free. WoW is making them enough cash to fund a small country. Unfortunately capitalism doesn't work that way.
Personally, I'd rather 1/3 of Starcraft 2 ASAP and the rest can come as it will. While "episodic content" is largely a laughing stock due to Valve's efforts, but it is still valid given you readjust what you expect to be a reasonable timeframe for an episode. I doubt Blizzard will charge full price for three separate games, but they won't quite be expansion pack prices.
Bear in mind that the Terran campaign is essentially an RPGRTS. It's not story->mission->story->mission. You follow Raynor around in his ship, making "character" (research, fleet, special units) development choices between each mission. The Protoss and Zerg campaigns are going to be radically different. It won't just be replacing the battlecruiser with a carrier and throwing in a few different NPCs, it'll likely be an entirely new mechanic.
--Scythe--
Part of me says it is uncompromising artistic vision, and part of me says it's just them wanting to make 3 times the money for the same amount of work. The bread and butter of StarCraft gameplay is multiplayer and that's where all the development time will be spent.
If the first game's good(and has enough content) I'll happily buy the others. If it's not then I will not be happy for playing full price for a 1/3rd of a game and I'll avoid paying the next 100 bucks.
That's the thing, gaming and film are not comparable contexts. You can buy a game like Guild wars and get nearly infinite maximum gameplay time, you can buy halflife and get hundreds of mods to play, you can get Warcraft 3 and get obscene amounts of player made content. Game developers tend to price based on the amount of work THEY have to do, movies, in contrast, are broken up by length. If you need 10 hours of film time to convey the story, you have to break it up, people won't buy a 10 hour movie, it SHOULD be 3 movies. The same structure just doesn't exist in gaming.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's really nothing stopping blizzard from releasing the game for free. WoW is making them enough cash to fund a small country. Unfortunately capitalism doesn't work that way.
Personally, I'd rather 1/3 of Starcraft 2 ASAP and the rest can come as it will. While "episodic content" is largely a laughing stock due to Valve's efforts, but it is still valid given you readjust what you expect to be a reasonable timeframe for an episode. I doubt Blizzard will charge full price for three separate games, but they won't quite be expansion pack prices.
Bear in mind that the Terran campaign is essentially an RPGRTS. It's not story->mission->story->mission. You follow Raynor around in his ship, making "character" (research, fleet, special units) development choices between each mission. The Protoss and Zerg campaigns are going to be radically different. It won't just be replacing the battlecruiser with a carrier and throwing in a few different NPCs, it'll likely be an entirely new mechanic.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's not really ever fully appropriate to make a game that was initially marketed as a single title into a trilogy. It's marketable, sure, and depending who's doing it in many cases it's absolutely warranted (many game studios can't afford the risk, so they have to offer smaller chunks then they originally wanted to). That's not really the case for blizzard. They made the right move for their shareholders, sure. They made the right move in terms of keeping the market fair for their competitors, sure. But they didn't make the decision that really supports the fans. I'm disappointed, it's all I'm saying. You absolutely can't sell me that this move was made for the benefit of the fans, or the players, simply put, it wasn't.
The orange box, now THAT is an example of a game company making a choice that benefits the fans.
Go ahead you know you <a href="http://www.starcraft2.com/features/battlereports/1.xml" target="_blank">want</a> to.
Go ahead you know you <a href="http://www.starcraft2.com/features/battlereports/1.xml" target="_blank">want</a> to.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was a fairly nifty video, I've watched it a few times. I've been keeping up with the blizzcast, they regularly have starcraft, diablo and warcraft sections in every 'cast. RSS feed <a href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/_content/en-US/rss.xml" target="_blank">here</a>.
Urge to play starcraft... rising.
--Scythe--
In real terms, changing your name should not be much more than $1. However, I suspect that the real figure would be much more than this to dissuade everyone from changing names all the time. So really they'll be offering a service that isn't necessary and overpricing for it because it's not necessary enough to provide enough staff to cover everyone wanting to use the feature.
I don't mind the game being split into 3 as long as the multiplayer functionality is complete for the first one. The only thing being extended in the subsequent releases is polish (tweaks and minor bug fixes, not major bug fixes that shouldn't be in a release), more multiplayer maps, the singleplayer campaign and perhaps additional multiplayer game mode(s). What I'm afraid of is that this will become a very easy excuse not to put everything that's needed into the first game and leave it to the next one simply because they've run out of time and hit a shipping deadline.
Team Fortress kind of did this with the poor selection of maps when it first came out. It now has 18 maps (including 3 user-made ones) with 7 game modes, but when it released it only had 6 maps across 5 game modes. On release that's simply not enough maps for a multiplayer game, especially when 2 of those are rehashes (Dustbowl & 2Fort) and one fundamentally lends itself to stalemates by design (Hydro). The only reason they managed to get away with retaining a playerbase is by adding extra content, some of which should have been in the game to start with (maps) and some were truly bonuses (unlocks, new game types such as Payload and Arena).
I hope Starcraft 2 doesn't distil its multiplayer in the full knowledge it can make up for it later in the forthcoming 'episodes'. I find it a really distasteful way to treat customers by giving them half for full price to begin with and give them the other half later, even if it includes extras. If you're going to do it like that I'll pay half for half and if I like the added content I'll pay the rest when I see it.
As long as they don't fall into the EA style trap (and I'd put money down now that someone in Blizzard-Vivendi, at least someone, has looked and thought 'wow, what a great idea') of "Oh no, you don't NEED these expansion packs to play, you can play without them, but oh lol the units are much better than your rubbish 'standard' user ones, haha!".
--Scythe--
In real terms, changing your name should not be much more than $1. However, I suspect that the real figure would be much more than this to dissuade everyone from changing names all the time. So really they'll be offering a service that isn't necessary and overpricing for it because it's not necessary enough to provide enough staff to cover everyone wanting to use the feature.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No company in the entire history of the universe that has ever wanted to surivive for more than ten seconds has ever priced its stuff based on what it costs for them to provide the service. That's a dumb way of doing it. No customer bases a decision on what his purchase is going to cost the company. Blizzard charges what it thinks the market can handle, and like you said, it's probably overcharging to prevent a ton of people from changing names. If Blizzard were in the "change names" business, then I could agree with you and say that the price is much too high; they're expecting unreasonable returns. They're not in the "change names" business, though, so they can afford to lose money doing that to match some sort of ulterior motive, which in this case is "not have to change so many names that we become a name changing company and not a game development company."
Yeah, and? Something wrong with a good company getting the profit they deserve?
Starcraft:
30 missions total.
Starcraft II:
36 missions <i>per part.</i>
108 missions <i>total.</i>
+free online support
+numerous units in addition to all (most) of the originals
Blizzard selling the trilogy as one unit would be like the Orange Box only being two dollars.
This comparison doesn't make sense.
You are saying that blizzard selling 3 games for $50 would be a better deal then valve selling 5 games for $50? I'm confused.
I meant units in addition to the normal defaults from the original. <i>More,</i> I mean.
<!--QuoteBegin-Xyth+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This comparison doesn't make sense.
You are saying that blizzard selling 3 games for $50 would be a better deal then valve selling 5 games for $50?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeap.
Peter Jackson didnt split up anything. He took THREE SEPERATE BOOKS as part of a trilogy, and created THREE SEPERATE MOVIES as part of a triligy.
Lets modify that analogy and say "Why didn't they try to cram all 7 harry potter books into one movie, some genius there must have thought it a good idea to split them up."
Im all for creative licensing here, but dont make it like Peter Jackson did anything other than take a book trilogy, and turn it into a movie trilogy. He may have changed the ending times between the novels slightly when transferring to movie form, but he surely wasn't a genius in "Splitting them up" and i find that a horrible analogy.
That being said, Starcraft 2 is what it is, i hope the Devs dont expect me to pay ~150 for three sucessive titles. Because i simply wont....Ill buy one, pirate the others (as has been said before)
Wait! I've got a couple machete in the back. I'll get them.
<!--quoteo(post=1690495:date=Oct 16 2008, 04:41 AM:name=Zaggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Zaggy @ Oct 16 2008, 04:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690495"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Blizzard's putting a lot of work into SC2, so much they're going to provide us with an excellent singleplayer AND multiplayer?!
Respect for these folks, not many companies can pull that off.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I duly and completely respect Blizzard, and furthermore, I'm not going to support Blizzard monthly subscriptions to software I already own just because it's good software.
If microsoft wanted to start charging a monthly fee to 'lease' windows, I'd boycott that as well. Software should continue to be a "buy by usage" model and not a "buy by time" model in every respect. Charge what you want, but charge only once. Otherwise you'll start seeing microsoft coming out with support for programs to uninstall themselves once they're 'lease' has expired and hasn't been renewed. Lord knows they'd do it too. The only thing keeping the world to moving to "buy by time" software model is that most people won't purchase software they have to continue to pay. However, I fear it's becoming more and more acceptable.
<!--quoteo(post=1696545:date=Dec 22 2008, 12:27 PM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Dec 22 2008, 12:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1696545"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No company in the entire history of the universe that has ever wanted to surivive for more than ten seconds has ever priced its stuff based on what it costs for them to provide the service. That's a dumb way of doing it. No customer bases a decision on what his purchase is going to cost the company. Blizzard charges what it thinks the market can handle, and like you said, it's probably overcharging to prevent a ton of people from changing names. If Blizzard were in the "change names" business, then I could agree with you and say that the price is much too high; they're expecting unreasonable returns. They're not in the "change names" business, though, so they can afford to lose money doing that to match some sort of ulterior motive, which in this case is "not have to change so many names that we become a name changing company and not a game development company."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Blizzard does whatever it can get away with. I can hardly blame them. They're only a business afterall. However, make no mistake about it. If people are willing to pay X per month for a game or software, there will be games and software which charge X per month. As good as a game is, it's never worth a monthly fee if you intend on playing it indefinitely.
The value of a game or any purchaseable item on the market is the quantity times quality over price, would you all agree with that?
That is to say, if see a buy one get one free deal for chiquita bananas, the quantity has effectively doubled, thus increasing value.
Similarly, if there is a sale on the bananas, the price is halved, meaning the value is doubled (since you divide by price).
And of course, if you find bananas which are yellow and ripe, it's clearly better value than bananas for the same price that are black and rotten.
With that said, how do you quantify price of Wow? I don't know exactly how much someone is charged, but lets say it's 10 banana skins per month. That makes the price of Wow = 10 * m where m is the number of months passed since you bought it (m + 1, but we'll simplify).
Plug that in our formula, and the value of Wow is the quality times quantity over 10 banana skins per month. If you intend on playing indefinitely, you effectively divide by a huge number. In order to beat any other game which is bought only once, you'd have to play Wow for less months than it takes for 10 banana skins a month to turn into the price of the other game. That is to say, if I bought guild wars for 50 banana skins and Wow charges me 10 banana skins per month, I'd have to play less than 5 months.
But wait, Hawkeye! The <b>quality</b> of Wow is clearly higher than Guild Wars (disputable, but lets assume so for a second). Suppose the quality were twice as good as Guild Wars. That's 10 months of play. Were you going to stop after 10 months of play playing Wow? I think not. Any way you slice it, Wow is not more valuable than any other game which you buy once if you intend on playing it for a long time.
But Hawkeye, it costs them money to maintain the servers! I have a duty to uphold and support the company giving me this <strike>free</strike> service. Quite commendable, but I'm going to stick to "supporting" the games which don't get any incentive to maintain free service. I don't feel any need of duty to sign up for Wow because, gosh darnit, it costs so much in electricity to keep those servers up.
I bought Guild Wars rather than Wow for precisely this reason. I still play Guild Wars with maximum satisfaction. When they released new campaigns, I bought them, because I enjoyed the previous campaigns. They deserve to have people buy their software because it's fun to play and the price is right.
If Diablo 3 or a Starcraft 2 trilogy requires a monthly fee, I won't buy it, as much as I loved Diablo 2 and Starcraft.
Peter Jackson didnt split up anything. He took THREE SEPERATE BOOKS as part of a trilogy, and created THREE SEPERATE MOVIES as part of a triligy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not TOTAL crap. It's a single novel, printed in three volumes over a period of time due to paper shortages following the second world war. It's not a trilogy.
It's like saying the three films of the Matrix aren't a trilogy because it pertains to the same central storyline and that warner brothers didn't have enough money to make a movie 6 hours long.
--Scythe--