SC2 Retail Digital Download

[Hav0x]

Maul, I believe that after you'll buy a physical copy, you can register it's serial on Battle.net, and afterwards download the game directly from your account.

I'll buy a physical copy, hopefully the collector's edition. I just like having a real box of the game, with a printed manual etc.

You are correct.

[Hamshank]

I'm going to digital download, especially if they offer pre-installation.
Get in the game the first second!

Here's hopin' to a digital download manual. However, I doubt the manual will have anything on second thought. It's more of an old school thing to put information in the manual, especially the SC1, etc. even to WoW, that added lore. Blizzard is going to try and put that all in the game, why waste it on the manual?

[Hammy]

The Blizzard downloader is a p2p application. Basically, the more the people downloading it, the faster it gets, which is good news for SC2

Yup I'm aware of that, but it's still super slow^^

[Gifted]

If it's going to be like they've been doing with WoW lately, they will enable digital downloads about a week later than the first day release. This is a very smart marketing move, as it gets all the physical copies (which cost more to produce) incentive to be sold. It will also increase demand initially allowing stores to decide how much more product needs to be purchased based on non-digital influenced bottom lines.

Lastly, if by chance the demand for the product turns out to be larger than supply, the demand will increase further as media (such as gaming websites) brings attention to it in that fashion.

There is only speculation in this post, but it's based on explanations given within the WoW community which seems to be the most likely scenario to duplicate in terms of distribution.

[Maul]

I went to check to see if I could pre-order the collectors edition at EB games in Aussie land today but they're only pre-ording the normal copy at this time. Dag nammit!

[Alex]

I don't think that any shop will let you pre-order the special edition until it'll be officially announced (which is probably the same time they'll announce the release date of the game).

[Maul]

I went to check to see if I could pre-order the collectors edition at EB games in Aussie land today but they're only pre-ording the normal copy at this time. Dag nammit!

Well that didn't take long.

[Hamshank]

It's interesting that they only offer the digital download AFTER the release of the game to save on material cost. However, maybe they get an extra percentage from the retail outlets? Who knows.