StarCraft II offers subscription payments in South America

Fri 07 May 2010 11:00am GMT / 7:00am EDT / 4:00am PDT
Games

Blizzard introduces subscription-based access to new game, after six month intro period

Blizzard Entertainment

blizzard.com

Blizzard Entertainment has announced pricing and subscription options for fully localised Latin American Spanish versions of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

The first instalment of StarCraft II was recently announced for an almost worldwide release on July 27, although analysts later suggested a Chinese launch was not likely until 2011.

The version of the game to go on sale in Mexico will be priced at 299 pesos ($23), while the Argentinean version will cost 119 pesos ($31) and the Chilean version 13,900 pesos ($26).

The Latin American versions of the game will include six months of access to the StarCraft II single-player campaign and multiplayer online modes via Battle.net.

To play beyond that time users will have to pay for either a 30 or 60 day subscription, although specific pricing for these has not yet been announced. A one-time unlimited access version of the game, priced similarly to the standard $59.99 U.S. release, will also be made available.

"One of our design goals for StarCraft II was to make it accessible to a wide range of players, from beginners to veterans," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard.

"The same is true with regard to our pricing options - we want to make sure players have the flexibility to experience the game according to their own preferences and play style."

6 Comments

Iulian Mocanu
Writer, editor, and video editor

Does the limitation really apply to the singleplayer as well? If so, it seems a bit harsh.

Posted:3 years ago

#1

Perry Chen
Studying Finance

Boston College

At least they offering the option to buy either the trial version or the full version.

From what I hear, only the trial version will be available in countries like Russia.

Posted:3 years ago

#2

Andrew Clayton
QA Weapons Tester

Electronic Arts

It's not a full version though, this is only 1/3 of the full game. It means that in order to get the full single-player experience you'll have to spend at least $100 ($60 for the unlimited version, plus $20 for each of the two "expansions"). This is getting absurd Blizzard. Just come up with a price or don't release the game until it's really finished.

Posted:3 years ago

#3

Aurélien Dussalve

One can qualify this as... a rip off

Posted:3 years ago

#4

John Amirrezvani

Global Technology Associates

Andrew it sounds like your referring to the fact that only the Terran campaign is available in this release. Blizzard did say that the Starcraft 2 campaigns were substantially longer then in Starcraft 1 as a way to justify the other 2 missing campaigns. We'll have to wait until release day to see if this new model gives consumers more, less, or the same amount of quality campaign content as the original.

Though to be fair, most players are more interested in the online ladders and custom games that are accessed through battle.net than the campaign. So while it is only 1/3 of the campaign, its not 1/3 of the full game. In 4-10 years when people are still playing Starcraft 2, it wont be because of the campaign it will be because of the online multiplayer.

Posted:3 years ago

#5

Troy Walters
Studying Bachelor of Multimedia / Bachelor of Science

Swinburne University of Technology

This seems to be Activision trying out yet another way to charge gamers. Lets hope this pricing beta test fails & they don't roll this method out to gamers world wide.

Posted:3 years ago

#6

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