Starcraft 2 Special edition is a wee bit pricey.

[Crazy_Jonny]

I was actually going to not buy SC until I realize I was like the only person doing so, at which point I decided just to screw it, your right, we don't have the power to change this decision unless theirs a very large boycott.

Their won't be a boycott right now. Most people don't care.

Change has to start somewhere, and changing attitudes is a good place to start.

I'm ok with people not caring really, though why anyone would defend this is beyond me.

You should be buying SCII because you want to play it, not because you don't want to fight "the man".

[pure.Wasted]

Never said that. Collector's Edition.

Oh and for the people complaining about pricing, in Australia the regular version costs $100 which is about 93USD and the Collector's Edition is $150, or 139USD. Yet still I am compelled to get it...

While I've played WC2 in the past, I didn't own it at the time I purchased the WC3 CE.

Feel free to try again.

[newcomplex]

You should be buying SCII because you want to play it, not because you don't want to fight "the man".

It isn't about fighting "The man". Their is no omnipresent metaphorical representation of authority. This is me not liking a price hike as a consumer, and resisting to the best of my ability.

I'm not Naive. Its clear theirs no hope here. I thought more people would be angry, considering how angry people were at MW2. If their was a chance we could collectively change the price, why wouldn't you take it? Why choose to be complacent?

So I'll probably buy it. No point in a 1 man boycott. Oh well. :/

[Nicol Bolas]

Blizzard is not dependent on this extra 10$ neither to survive nor to profit.

How do you know that? They've put no less than 4.5 years into this game, and possibly more. How do you know that the $10 isn't necessary for Blizzard to profit on SC2?

This 10$, as a whole, benefits mainly people who had nothing to do with the physical making of the game. A very small amount will actually end up in the hands of artists, producers, developers, level designers. Most of it will go overhead.

I love how you make all of these proclamations without even the slightest shred of proof or evidence. Not having to substantiate your statements must be pretty liberating.

Furthermore, those "artists, producers, developers, level designers" have salaries. They've been getting paid in advance for at least 4.5 years, since development of SC2 started. They've already gotten theirs; before they get any more, they have to pay the company back for 4.5 years of salary before the product was produced.

The point of contention is:

You as a consumer, do not benefit from this 10$.

You seem to be picking an arbitrary number here. If you can say that Blizzard doesn't need to price the game at $60 (based on nothing, of course), then why can't they price it at $40? How do you know that they wouldn't be able to profit from it then?

My point is that you're picking an arbitrary number and stating that Blizzard doesn't need to price their games more than this. This number is based on your own flights of fantasy and sense of entitlement, not the realities of game development. So unless you have some evidence that Blizzard doesn't need the extra $10 per sale to profit from the development of SC2, I'm calling BS on your line of argument.

You have no rationale for defending their corporate interests above your and ours collective consumer interests.

And that's the problem. You can't tell the difference between "arguing against person A" and "supporting person B." It's not zero sum.

If you make an irrational point or argument, it is irrational and you should be called out on it. See, I'm not defending their interests; I'm saying your attacks on their interests are stupid and based on nonsense and a stark unwillingness to see the world for what it is. This doesn't mean that I'm happy to see the game at $60 or that I somehow want to pay more money for it. It only means that your arguments that it should be $50 don't hold water.

As for any alleged "defense" of their actions, it's going to happen sooner or later. It's called "accepting reality." Prices for things will go up; that is the nature of inflation. Games were never going to be $50 forever. I don't personally see the need to push back against the inevitable; that smacks of denialism and intellectual sloth.

Having recognized the nature of reality, all that I need to ask myself is this: is the value I expect from the game worth $60? Considering that I paid more than $100 to get the opportunity to play a rough version of only a portion of the game for at most 6 months? Well, I think that speaks for itself.

I thought more people would be angry, considering how angry people were at MW2.

People were angry over MW2 because they were being hosed over features that PC FPS games were expected to have (servers and mod support). They expected the sequel to retain those features and it didn't. The price was merely icing on the cake.

[Moradon]

I was actually going to not buy SC until I realize I was like the only person doing so, at which point I decided just to screw it, your right, we don't have the power to change this decision unless theirs a very large boycott.

Their won't be a boycott right now. Most people don't care.

Change has to start somewhere, and changing attitudes is a good place to start.

I'm ok with people not caring really, though why anyone would defend this is beyond me.

In all honesty it will probably change naturally. Trying to "force" the market to behave in a certain just doesn't work unless a company goes extremely overboard. People already tried to boycott both Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2, both of which were miserable failures, especially since most of the "boycotters" were caught playing the game anyway.

Some time in the future, either the economy will spring back from the recession, or some kind of technological advance will warrant another price change, and maybe then we'll start seeing lower prices. Or maybe they will rise, but regardless of the case, it's best to not get stressed out because a product is not at your ideal price. People have been complaining about Blizzard charging $60 retail since Diablo 2, and it's just a waste of effort since it's obviously working for Blizzard. It's been a decade already, so I really don't think it's worth the constant stress arguing over it.

[Crazy_Jonny]

It isn't about fighting "The man". Their is no omnipresent metaphorical representation of authority. This is me not liking a price hike as a consumer, and resisting to the best of my ability.

I'm not Naive. Its clear theirs no hope here. I thought more people would be angry, considering how angry people were at MW2.

So I'll probably buy it. Oh well. :/

I'm not too sure MW2 has much to do with this. What, because its published by Activision? Are people really that bitter towards them? They didn't develope the game or anything, they're basically just business partners with Blizzard.

The only thing I've seen people get mad at when it comes to SC2 is the Trilogy, followed by LAN. So where does MW2 come in really?

[pure.Wasted]

This number is based on your own flights of fantasy and sense of entitlement, not the realities of game development.

Fancy*.

An excellent post, sir.

[newcomplex]

In all honesty it will probably change naturally. Trying to "force" the market to behave in a certain just doesn't work unless a company goes extremely overboard. People already tried to boycott both Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2, both of which were miserable failures, especially since most of the "boycotters" were caught playing the game anyway.

Some time in the future, either the economy will spring back from the recession, or some kind of technological advance will warrant another price change, and maybe then we'll start seeing lower prices. Or maybe they will rise, but regardless of the case, it's best to not get stressed out because a product is not at your ideal price. People have been complaining about Blizzard charging $60 retail since Diablo 2, and it's just a waste of effort since it's obviously working for Blizzard. It's been a decade already, so I really don't think it's worth the constant stress arguing over it.

I'm not getting stressed out. I just think its amusing how people will go far as to support blizzard on this crap. Yes, I understand why some people won't boycott for this, but even if everyone just vocally opposed, their would be changed.

How do you know that? They've put no less than 4.5 years into this game, and possibly more. How do you know that the $10 isn't necessary for Blizzard to profit on SC2?

Because blizzard is wholly funded, as a division of Activision-Blizzard, by Activision Blizzard. MW has sold 25 million copies have been sold.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/09/mo...-bowling-says/

The only expectations here isn't to keep the company afloat. Unless their is something seriously fucked up inside ATVI that is kept secret from any sort of mainstream news, they don't need that money in order to remain profitable, competitive, least of all afloar. You'd be hard pressed to explain how 11.5 wow players with 15$ a month and 25 million unique sales of a 60-40$ would indicate "financial trouble".

The expectation is to be a profitable venture in itself. You have to make the argument that SC2 needs a 60$ price tag in order to be profitable. This is highly doubtful.

Sales projections for SC2 can't be possible lower then at least 3 million. (around what all recent EA games have had, ie: ME, Dragon Age, BF:BC, since your always bugging for evidence, here, http://play.tm/wire/3268042/dragon-a...s-2-7-million/)

Development costs would need to exceed 150 million. Since no major advertising has been done for this game, (MW2 spend the bulk, 200 million, of its 250 million budget on advertising), unless you forsee a 200 million advertisement budget for SC2 (Entirely implausible, SC will yield a multi-million revenue.

A 200 million development cost alone simply is not close to plausible.

Prior to MW2 enormous advertisement campaign, this is a charge of development costs alone.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_games

I love how you make all of these proclamations without even the slightest shred of proof or evidence. Not having to substantiate your statements must be pretty liberating.

Furthermore, those "artists, producers, developers, level designers" have salaries. They've been getting paid in advance for at least 4.5 years, since development of SC2 started. They've already gotten theirs; before they get any more, they have to pay the company back for 4.5 years of salary before the product was produced.

Your 2nd point was my 1st point. -_-.

IE: People involved in the actual making of SC2 have flat salaries. Bonus may be like, a thousand dollars at most, if their lucky.

My point is that you're picking an arbitrary number and stating that Blizzard doesn't need to price their games more than this. This number is based on your own flights of fantasy and sense of entitlement, not the realities of game development. So unless you have some evidence that Blizzard doesn't need the extra $10 per sale to profit from the development of SC2, I'm calling BS on your line of argument.

Because 50$ is a long established value for PC games. We don't know how much their profiting from it, but it is the convention. If they break from it, they do so under a reason. In this case, clearly, it is not to keep the company afloat.

If you make an irrational point or argument, it is irrational and you should be called out on it. See, I'm not defending their interests; I'm saying your attacks on their interests are stupid and based on nonsense and a stark unwillingness to see the world for what it is. This doesn't mean that I'm happy to see the game at $60 or that I somehow want to pay more money for it. It only means that your arguments that it should be $50 don't hold water.

They're not invalid though. And your line of reasoning is. In the end, while my point is perfectly valid, even if it was not, you would have nothing to gain by attempting to deride it, assuming my point was invalid in all except the "You have nothing to gain" part. As a consumer, you have no reason to pursue the higher price option.

View Post
This number is based on your own flights of fantasy and sense of entitlement, not the realities of game development.

The closest we have is



The publisher is clearly taken the excess money (In this case, the ~7$ royalty). We don't know how much of that money goes back into blizzard salaries. Not a lot I'm willing to bet. We do know that the publisher claims 34$ per purchase. 10$ because of our extra 10$.

You'd need to argue that a noticeable amount of that 10$ becomes directly reciprocated back towards the game developers themselves (ie: People who you have personal interest vested in).




At the heart of the issue, you are actively rally against people arguing against a price hike in which no reason has been given.


As a consumer, how is this not conflicting to your interests? Do you want a more expensive game? Do you feel the need to defend blizzards financial decisions? If you do, stop, its utterly irrational. ATVI is not your personal friend.

[Xyvik]

Okay, Nicol, accepting your arguments of games being more expensive (as an actual game developer, I disagree, but I'm a small operation as opposed to a big one and I therefore see things differently) and accepting your arguments that inflation will raise all game prices eventually...

EVEN if I accepted all of that (which I don't entirely, by the way) we have here an excellent example of "denialism and intellectual sloth."

What, exactly, are we getting with SC2? We're getting a 3D StarCraft that does not play vastly different from the first one (despite 10 years of development) and a game that has no support for LAN. How is this, at all, different from MW2? There are no dedicated servers. There is no LAN. We have to wait for expansions to even get the full story. We have to deal with a BNet2 that will not move the PC gaming scene forward one iota, instead of having choices to get it through Steam or Impulse. We are forced to be online every single time we want to play the game.

And on top of that, we now have to pay $60 for it? We are paying Blizzard, and by extension Activision, for them taking things away from us. How can we, as gamers, stand idly by and watch this happen?

But unfortunately, as newcomplex says, what point does any of this make? Gone are the days where "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Nowadays it's more akin to good men CAN'T do anything, even if they wanted to.

(BTW, Nicol, your claim that PC is by definition multi-platform is laughable. If you follow industry standards (openGL, DX, to name a few) there is very little coding, if any, that you need to do to make a Windows product work on Intel versus AMD or nVidia versus ATi. You seriously need to do some more work making games if you believe that. It is a dozen times more difficult to try and make a PS3 game work on the X360 and on the PC than it is just to get it to work on PC/Mac. Trust me...I'm making a game and I went through preliminary work on doing it for PS3 as well. I dropped that second part almost immediately.)

[Pandonetho]

We are forced to be online every single time we want to play the game.

Hey... not with singleplayer at least. Although it does require a 1 time activation.