StarCraft economy (real-life)

[Kimera757]

Someone wrote a pictorial article on how StarCraft has affected the economy.



43% of StarCraft players are from South Korea. Also includes estimated sales figures for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty in the first year (5 million).

[protoswarrior]

Very cool find Kimera ! And I estimate that the number of units sold will go way up above 5 million in the coming year as more promotions and WoW-like commercials come up, and the growth of e-sports picks up to become mainstream.

[Blazur]

Reportedly Blizz spent over $100 million making this game. That doesn't include all the money they spent on advertising. None of us doubt they'll recoup that money.

[Arachnyd]

Interesting that the most popular games of all time are all exclusive nintendo games except starcraft and tetris : P

[SonOfChaos]

Its amazing how a twelve year-old game can still compete with newer games. And with SC2 coming out, its definitely going to outsell its predecessor.

[newcomplex]

There is no possible way that WoW statistic is accurate. 11.5 Million active subs would logically imply the game has sold more then 11.5 million copies.


SC1 could have sold 12-13 million by now, as that statistic is several years out of date, and based off documented sales.

[Hammy]

There is no possible way that WoW statistic is accurate. 11.5 Million active subs would logically imply the game has sold more then 11.5 million copies.


SC1 could have sold 12-13 million by now, as that statistic is several years out of date, and based off documented sales.

Very true.



Overall, I think this data isn't very surprising, but I like the presentation a lot. Feels like it would decent work if it were cut up into a ppt and presented.

[Kimera757]

There is no possible way that WoW statistic is accurate. 11.5 Million active subs would logically imply the game has sold more then 11.5 million copies.

My understanding is WoW has that many active subs, so the number of sold copies must be much greater. Also, I hear the expansions didn't sell nearly as many copies, surprisingly. I guess they mainly appealed to hardcore gamers who wanted to get to the highest level.

[MuppZA]

Wonder if the number of units sold will be effected by the Wings of liberty collectors edition Jim Raynor dog tag usb with Starcraft and Broodwar.?

Problem with that statics is that almost every player getting the collectors is that they probably already have the original game

[Kimera757]

Blizzard once said (when asked about StarCraft 64) that they have no way of tracking sales they made that way.

Anyway, by this point, while a few people are buying Battle Chests, sales of StarCraft I and Brood War are just gravy. Blizzard probably doesn't expect to make real money off those games anymore, so they might as well give it away.

EA is actually giving away slightly older games for free, too. They gave away three games, sold in 1995, 1996 and I don't know about the third one.