About blizzard and starcraft 2

[pauen]

I heard on this forum
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sta...rea,10743.html
that blizzard is giving starcraft 2 for free to koreans. is it true? this was posted 2 days ago soo idk.

[voodoodad]

Aren't China and Korea the homes for most of the WoW gold and gear sellers? Seems kinda strange that Blizz would do this. If it's true...

[Bluspacecow]

To confirm this you would need to ask in a place where you can get an official answer off Blizzard.

Although the admins here might be able to confirm it from "what they have heard" it is limited to what they've been told. Being on the official fan site program does not mean they work for Blizzard nor can they speak for Blizzard.

Following my research nose I found :

http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/110/1102372p1.html

That says :

At a recent StarCraft II event in Seoul, Blizzard announced that any Korean gamers with an active World of Warcraft subscription will be able to play StarCraft II, free of charge

So if you wanted to confirm it dig around in some official starcraft forums and see if you can find the announcement from Blizzard.

IE an official Blizzard press release. if it's on the Korean site you may need to use translate.google.com to read it. That is if you don't know how to speak that language.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by voodoodad Aren't China and Korea the homes for most of the WoW gold and gear sellers? Seems kinda strange that Blizz would do this. If it's true...

China is not Korea and Korea is not China.

I haven't heard of any Korean gold and gear sellers. They are usually from either China, Malaysia or the Philippines.

This news really isn't so strange considering Korea is the source of the most Starcraft players in the world.

It is a practically a national sport over there. Seriously they run national competitions in it as well as huge wide screen TV coverage of bouts. It's as big as football is to the americans

Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCra...al_competition

Professional gamers. Being paid salaries in excess of $100,000. Just to play Starcraft. Most from Korea. Also persue the wiki page on Starcraft.

It's a money decision pure and simple. With the amount of Starcraft players in Korea many Korean players would get a World of Warcraft subscription purely to play Starcraft 2 for free.

More subscriptions mean more money for Blizzard. A sound business decision *kaching* *kaching* *kaching*

[Cairenn]

Rumour guys, rumour and supposition. Keep that in mind when posting, please.

[sacrife]

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=132460

[Psychophan7]

Originally Posted by Bluspacecow Professional gamers. Being paid salaries in excess of $100,000. Just to play Starcraft. Most from Korea.

That's not accurate. BoXeR is (was?) one of the highest paid professional StarCraft players, and his salary is roughly equivalent to 90,000 USD. Totally in excess of $100,000.

It's a money decision pure and simple. With the amount of Starcraft players in Korea many Korean players would get a World of Warcraft subscription purely to play Starcraft 2 for free. More subscriptions mean more money for Blizzard. A sound business decision *kaching* *kaching* *kaching*

I wonder what you're basing this on. Korean players get to play StarCraft 2 as long as they have a WoW subscription active. Let's look at how much it's costing Koreans (or Blizzard) to do this. WoW subscriptions for Korean come in two flavors, pay-by-minute (like a cellphone), or pay-by-days (like US and EU players do).

WoW subscription, by minutes:
5 hours (300 minutes) = 3900 won (~3 USD)
30 hours (1800 minutes) = 14,900 won (~12 USD)

WoW subscription, by days:
7 days = 7040 won (~6 USD)
30 days = 19,800 won (~16 USD)
90 days = 47,520 won (~39 USD)

SC2 subscription, by minutes:
1 hour = ~1 USD (~1228 won)

SC2 subscription, by days:
30 days = 9900 won (~8 USD)

5 hours of SC2 game time would cost about 6142 won, a loss of 2242 won by using a WoW subscription (or 1.82 USD). It indeed looks like Blizzard is in this for the money so far!

Meanwhile, it's clear that having a WoW subscription costs twice as much as a SC2 subscription. But then, why bother paying twice as much for WoW just to play SC2, when just paying for SC2 is cheaper? Only a fool would do that.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by Psychophan7 That's not accurate. BoXeR is (was?) one of the highest paid professional StarCraft players, and his salary is roughly equivalent to 90,000 USD. Totally in excess of $100,000.

My apologies.

I was using this article linked off the wikipedia article on Starcraft :

http://rossignol.cream.org/?p=284

Do you have a more accurate source ?

I wonder what you're basing this on. Korean players get to play StarCraft 2 as long as they have a WoW subscription active. Let's look at how much it's costing Koreans (or Blizzard) to do this. WoW subscriptions for Korean come in two flavors, pay-by-minute (like a cellphone), or pay-by-days (like US and EU players do).

Pretty much reading up how Starcraft is pretty much a national sport over there and spinning out an hypothesis.

Mind you I haven't done any concrete research on the topic so it was just my guy reaction. My apologies for not qualifying it correctly or doing the proper research.

My thoughts were comparing it to Italy. Soccer is the national sport of Italy right ? Imagine if you told every young kid in italy you could get a free soccer if you were to just buy this little bike stand sign. I had no idea it wasn't economically viable.

I should probably shut up now and go get more sleep Thanks for correcting me

[Psychophan7]

Originally Posted by Bluspacecow My apologies. I was using this article linked off the wikipedia article on Starcraft : http://rossignol.cream.org/?p=284 Do you have a more accurate source ?

That page is 4 years old, and it says at the top that the article is 5 years old.

Anyways, my source is BoXeR's page on Wikipedia. But I read it wrong. Says he brings in $300,000 annually (which I mistook as being $30,000 from endorsements), and $90,000 from endorsements.

So, yeah. They do have salaries in excess of $100,000 USD.

[sacrife]

And also I believe Flash, reach and stork earns more than Boxer ever did.

[Dawn]

I'm playing the wrong game.

[Geneticus]

Originally Posted by Bluspacecow At a recent StarCraft II event in Seoul, Blizzard announced that any Korean gamers with an active World of Warcraft subscription will be able to play StarCraft II, free of charge

Translation to American:

In the US you pay for the game then, play Multiplayer on Bnet for free.

In Korea you pay for the game then, if you have an active subscription to WoW, you won't be charged for using Bnet.

[sakurakira]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Rumour guys, rumour and supposition. Keep that in mind when posting, please.

I don't think it's that much of a rumor. Actual game news sites reporting something like this certainly should be taken more seriously than some random blog.

http://starcraft.incgamers.com/blog/...-and-lan-play/
http://pc.ign.com/articles/110/1102372p1.html

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...26455468&sid=1
This was the only post I could find on an official WoW site, however there are no blue responses. That is, a blue did not confirm OR deny. Just sayin'...

But here is an MMO-Champion post with a video link, but it's in Korean.

I found all of these by googling "starcraft 2 + korean wow player free."

Also, the does not surprise me in the least, and it shouldn't surprise anyone else either. I'm sure they want (South) Koreans to move away from the original Starcraft and onto Starcraft II and make SC2 as ubiquitous as the original as it moves ahead in the e-sports arena. If they can't get their main audience of SC to move onto the newest version, then it was a waste of money. It's a different mentality regarding gaming in Korea. Western gamers should not be hurt/offended by this.

[break19]

Originally Posted by pauen I heard on this forum http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sta...rea,10743.html that blizzard is giving starcraft 2 for free to koreans. is it true? this was posted 2 days ago soo idk.

My my.

The truth always gets exaggerated.

Yes, in some countries, SC2 will sell for less than retail everywhere else..

However, there's a caveat. It will -also- be pay 2 play at the lower retail price.

This -only- affects a few non-European countries. All US and Europe copies will be full games, buy it once and you're done. Pay2Play is for the few countries that will be released with the lower price release.

And, with the newly released info, anyone in those countries who already are paying for Wow are "covered" and do not have to pay extra.

[EricT]

There's just a basic misunderstanding about how they pay for WoW in Korea and what they are actually doing. In Korea players pay for hours or days played, for example, 0.99$ an hour or 3.99$ for a day (I don't know the actual numbers).

The deal is that those in Korea who have active World of Warcraft accounts will get access to the full version of StarCraft II.

Because both WoW and Starcraft 2 will cost the same amount per hour/day, Blizzard doesn't really care which of their games players are on. If you have paid for the session you can play which game you want to. That's it. It's not free Starcraft 2 - it's pay for something and then play what you like.

[sakurakira]

Originally Posted by break19 My my. The truth always gets exaggerated. Yes, in some countries, SC2 will sell for less than retail everywhere else.. However, there's a caveat. It will -also- be pay 2 play at the lower retail price. This -only- affects a few non-European countries. All US and Europe copies will be full games, buy it once and you're done. Pay2Play is for the few countries that will be released with the lower price release. And, with the newly released info, anyone in those countries who already are paying for Wow are "covered" and do not have to pay extra.

It's not really an exaggeration. The Tom's Hardware piece linked to the IGN article which has all of the information that you just posted. Also, someone else farther up in this thread also linked to the IGN article.


The information I found online (linked in my previous post) regarding this all said a variation of:

Korean only Word of Warcraft players who subscribe for 7, 30 and 90 days flat-rates will be able to play StarCraft 2 for-free as long as their subscriptions are active.

The IGN article explains exactly how the pricing will work for non-WoW-players. You can (read: have the option) of buying the FULL game (more money), OR if you don't have that much money you can buy "passes" to play. The game is installed on your computer and you have access to it whenever you purchase a pass (at a cheaper cost). It's similar to the game cards we have access to in that you add the pass and when it runs out you have to purchase another one.

I would think that might end up with more money in Blizzard's pocket in the long run. Instead of buying the initial full game at 69,000 won, after 8 months of buying monthly passes at 9,900 won, Blizzard has come out ahead than if the person had bought the full game to begin with. However, since internet cafes and the like are so popular there, they can just go there and pay about $1/hour to play instead and don't have to worry about either buying the game or purchasing passes.

It's essentially accurate. In reality, if I piece together all of the bits I've read, S.Koreans have 4 ways of playing Starcraft II:
1. Buy the full game.
2. Buy incremental monthly or daily passes, allowing you to play (like our game time cards).
3. Play at an internet cafe at a much cheaper price.
4. Have an active WoW account.

While they might have more flexibility in their options, I think that it might end up as a win/win for Blizzard and their S.Korean market. The Koreans get pricing they're used to, Blizzard gets them to continue paying for WoW while having them migrate from original SC to SC2, and a fresh version of Starcraft is able to continue to dominate the e-sport arena for years to come.