Starcraft 2 is now Free To Play 7 years after launch

[AlTech]

Star Craft 2 is now Free To Play 7 years after the game originally launched.

 

 

Anybody who bought the "Wings Of Liberty" Campaign DLC will get the "Heart of the Swarm" Campaign for free as well as a skin and cool stuff.

 

All players will get "Wings of Liberty" Campaign for free.

 

Quote

If you've been zealously guarding your money since 2010, waiting for the day StarCraft II would finally be cheap enough to try out, you're in luck. At Blizzcon over the weekend, Blizzard announced the game would be transitioning to a free-to-play model, offering significant portions of the single- and multiplayer content for no charge starting November 14.

 

As explained on the Battle.net blog, players will be able to download StarCraft II's original "Wings of Liberty" single-player campaign for free. Players who previously paid for "Wings of Liberty" will be able to get "Heart of the Swarm" expansion for free instead, and players who purchased an expansion previously will receive an exclusive Ghost skin and three new portraits.

Players will also be able to earn full, free access to ranked multiplayer play, including units from all three of the game's expansions. That mode will be locked until players notch a single unranked or AI win on 10 separate days ("our way to preserve the quality and integrity of the ranked experience," Blizzard explains).

Co-op players will be able to use three Commanders completely free—Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis—while others will be free up to level 5, after which they will need to be purchased individually. Blizzard will continue to make money off of StarCraft II by selling those Co-Op Commanders, additional single-player campaigns at $15 each (or $40 for a bundle of three), and other "premium upgrades" like announcer packs, special skins, and War Chests

 

So yeah, despite this we've been told by Blizzard not to expect Overwatch to become F2P anytime soon.

Quote

Last year, Overwatch Assistant Game Director Aaron Keller told Ars that he didn't foresee any eventual free-to-play, DLC-driven pivot for Blizzard's popular first-person shooter. "It was actually a game design decision, a balance thing," he said. "Sometimes you need a different hero on your team. Like if you really need a Widowmaker right now, you don't want everybody saying 'I don't have Widowmaker! We want everybody to always be in the big same player pool and we don't want other players to feel like they're locked out of playing with their friends because they haven't bought a particular set of maps [or characters]," he said

 

 

Cool. Still not gonna play it cos I'm not using Blizzard's App to play their games. If they want me to play them then they need to move them a relevant platform.

 

Source:

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2017/11/starcraft-ii-goes-free-to-play-seven-years-after-launch/

[SansVarnic]

Interesting, I thought Blizzard was not interested in F2P. I guess they finally woke up. Lol.

 

Funny I have been playing LOTRO for years ... and they are doing quite well and still expanding the game. They make plenty of monies on the F2P system.

[Master Disaster]

57 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Cool. Still not gonna play it cos I'm not using Blizzard's App to play their games. If they want me to play them then they need to move them a relevant platform.

I think thats rather the point here.

 

Make one of their most loved RTS games F2P but force anyone who wants to play it into their own app where they can be served ads for Overwatch and WOW  (edit; oh yeah, lets not forget fucking Hearthstone too) and might just make that impulse purchase that they otherwise might not have made.

 

Of course this tactic only works if your target audience likes RTS and SC2, personally I am the worlds worst RTS player and couldn't care less about SC so I am good on this one, thanks Blizzard.

[Master Disaster]

42 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Interesting, I thought Blizzard was not interested in F2P. I guess they finally woke up. Lol.

 

Funny I have been playing LOTRO for years ... and they are doing quite well and still expanding the game. They make plenty of monies on the F2P system.

I guess they saw that the game wasn't selling and saw a three way positive

 

1) Get more players playing SC2

2) Get more people on the Blizzard app, each new player is a potential customer

3) Get more people to buy the other DLC thats not included for free

 

If the game wasn't selling anyway then they literally have nothing to lose.

[RyomaSJibenG]

so far i never seen HotS or Overwatch ads in starcraft...

[MegaDave91]

Now Cliffy B just needs to make Lawbreakers F2P, also.

[Ryujin2003]

2 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Interesting, I thought Blizzard was not interested in F2P. I guess they finally woke up. Lol.

 

Funny I have been playing LOTRO for years ... and they are doing quite well and still expanding the game. They make plenty of monies on the F2P system.

Easy for them to support FTP when they can monetize Activision's micro transactions future.

 

But sarcasm side, I may have to call in sick to work to play this. I only played the original and it was amazing.

[AlTech]

8 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Easy for them to support FTP when they can monetize Activision's micro transactions future.

FTP and F2P are totally different things.

 

FTP is about networking and F2P is a business model.

[mrchow19910319]

The other day DansGaming talked about the reason there is not warcraft 4 is because SC2 sells like crap and it took them a ton of money to develop. 

 

Also RTS games are always harder to play in my opinion.... maybe I am too lazy to learn all the moves,  but still, you need to be constantly playing it and learning all the micros/macro plays not even mentioning the mechanical plays. 

 

A LOT TO INVEST in to actually enjoy the game...

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, RyomaSJibenG said:

so far i never seen HotS or Overwatch ads in starcraft...

Not in the game but in the Blizzard launcher which is REQUIRED to run the game?

[AlTech]

Just now, mrchow19910319 said:

The other day DansGaming talked about the reason there is not warcraft 4 is because SC2 sells like crap and it took them a ton of money to develop. 

 

Also RTS games are always harder to play in my opinion.... maybe I am too lazy to learn all the moves,  but still, you need to be constantly playing it and learning all the micros/macro plays not even mentioning the mechanical plays. 

 

A LOT TO INVEST in to actually enjoy the game...

Yeah. I've been thinking of buying XCOM 2 but the amount of time required to get into it and enjoy it seems too high for me.

[Ryujin2003]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

FTP and F2P are totally different things.

 

FTP is about networking and F2P is a business model.

Free to play. sry, m8, my phonetic sklz  aren't as gr8 as they should be. I'll study up on the proper lingo. I have a very hard time using numbers to substitute words. It's something I've avoided doing since my first phone.

[mrchow19910319]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Yeah. I've been thinking of buying XCOM 2 but the amount of time required to get into it and enjoy it seems too high for me.

SC2 tournaments are really entertaining though... I've always enjoyed watching those. 

Seeing all the professional players guessing each others' moves and counters each other is really fun. 

 

Till I opened SC2 and have to figure out where did I put the assembly point of my main army and why the hell after a team fight all my army and my BUILDINGS are all in the same group.... 

[TetraSky]

Oh neat, so this takes the already free arcade edition and adds the first campaign on top of it, but those of us who had the first campaign (wings of liberty) and never bought the expansions, gets Heart of the Swarm for free. (If I understand this correctly)

I might just restart playing. Just to play the campaign and the Arcade, never touching the "competitive" aspect of it.

[Ryujin2003]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

personally I am the worlds worst RTS player and couldn't care less about SC so I am good on this one, thanks Blizzard.

I like Age of Empires. My favorite RTS. (I don't think Tropico counts?) But I only play then if there are cheats because I always get stomped by the AI, and that takes the fun out of it.

You're not the worst. Maybe second worst

[Taf the Ghost]

7 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

The other day DansGaming talked about the reason there is not warcraft 4 is because SC2 sells like crap and it took them a ton of money to develop. 

 

Also RTS games are always harder to play in my opinion.... maybe I am too lazy to learn all the moves,  but still, you need to be constantly playing it and learning all the micros/macro plays not even mentioning the mechanical plays. 

 

A LOT TO INVEST in to actually enjoy the game...

Management RTS games are a genre from a different computer age, realistically. They're fun, but it's not a mass audience appeal. Though SC2 sold really well, being one of the best selling games of the era. However, there's no way they're getting WoW levels of money from it, which is why WC4 probably isn't happening anytime soon.

6 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Yeah. I've been thinking of buying XCOM 2 but the amount of time required to get into it and enjoy it seems too high for me.

Great game, it's pretty fun from the early hours, but you can spend 20 or 100 to beat the campaign, depending on how you like to play.

1 minute ago, mrchow19910319 said:

SC2 tournaments are really entertaining though... I've always enjoyed watching those. 

Seeing all the professional players guessing each others' moves and counters each other is really fun. 

 

Till I opened SC2 and have to figure out where did I put the assembly point of my main army and why the hell after a team fight all my army and my BUILDINGS are all in the same group.... 

SC2's pro scene doesn't quite have the staying power of SC:BW, but that's because the games are fairly different. The brutality of managing your economy in SC:BW added an automatic balance level to the game that SC2 doesn't have. Which is why LOTV has actually been pretty fun to watch at a professional level. Though I truly wish they had left the economy changes from the LOTV Beta. That was some of the best SC2 we've seen.

[Taf the Ghost]

6 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Oh neat, so this takes the already free arcade edition and adds the first campaign on top of it, but those of us who had the first campaign (wings of liberty) and never bought the expansions, gets Heart of the Swarm for free. (If I understand this correctly)

I might just restart playing. Just to play the campaign and the Arcade, never touching the "competitive" aspect of it.

Campaign in SC2 retcons pretty much all of SC1, but it's really a lot of fun. I can highly recommend them. SC2's single player experience is still really good.

[davrosG5]

SC2 is good fun although I get roundly stomped any time I try and play on the ladder. The Battle.net launcher (or whatever they've decided to call it) can be readily ignored. I've had it since they launched SC2 and the only thing I've bought was SC Remastered.

The campaigns are good although the story maybe isn't quite up to the same level as the original, cut scenes are up to Blizzards usual standard as well.

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

snip

LOTV?

[Taf the Ghost]

5 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

LOTV?

Legacy of the Void, the 2nd "expansion" or 3rd part.

 

Basically, SC2 is actually 1 game in 3 parts. They wanted to put so many cinematics into game that they needed to break it up to cover the costs. There's something like 4+ hours of rendered CGI or something nutty with all of SC2. It was Blizzard's last time trying to storytell in that manner. Notice what they've done with Overwatch? Yes, they produce character stories/videos, but they do most of the work in other ways. Ways that are a lot cheaper.

 

SC2's campaign took a bit too much of a Kojima + "We're Close to Hollywood" approach and really ballooned the cost & time frame for development.

[TetraSky]

That's what I get for not reading the article. Thought this was implemented in the game already. Nope, it starts November 14... Wasted 10 minutes downloaded the latest update for nothing.

[RyomaSJibenG]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

That's what I get for not reading the article. Thought this was implemented in the game already. Nope, it starts November 14... Wasted 10 minutes downloaded the latest update for nothing.

eh you can still play arcade and vs AI, if you have other friend who have starcraft2, you can party with them and play 2v2, 3v3, 4v4

[Cheezdoodlez]

So do I get anything cool if I own WoL, HoTS and LoTV?

[ccm1092]

9 minutes ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

So do I get anything cool if I own WoL, HoTS and LoTV?

Sadly, I do not think so. I as well have bought them as they came out. Finished campaign on all of them and did some online play but honestly I got the game to play the campaign, I wanted to see what happened from the first game and expansion. I mean I have like 6 copies of the original game still working on CD with keys. 

[TimeOmnivore]

5 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Cool. Still not gonna play it cos I'm not using Blizzard's App to play their games. If they want me to play them then they need to move them a relevant platform.

What's the issue with their launcher? I haven't seen any issues with it. If its about the ads, you can completely ignore their promotions in the center of the app and go directly to the blue "PLAY" button in the bottom corner - I don't remember the last time I took more than 1/2 a second to glance over them. Of all the things I've heard people complain about in regards to Blizzard stuff, I gotta admit, I've never heard people having issues with their launcher.