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eviltomahawk
United States11135 Posts
SC2 is already almost as free as it's gonna get with the Starter Edition getting the entire arcade and custom games library. The restrictions to ladder play and chat makes sense to avoid abuse, and campaign logically should always be a paid addition. More skins might bring in a bit of extra revenue, but I doubt it's going to bump up the player base much. I'd rather see Blizzard work them into LotV as non-monetary unlocks and leave it at that. | ||
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sc2isnotdying
United States200 Posts
On August 01 2014 00:31 Hider wrote: I don't think they will be able to make millions of dollars with Sc2 F2P 12 months after LOTV has been released. One relevant metric to look at is total HOTS sales relative to current player activity. According to nios.kr there are 183,000 active ladder players out of roughly 3M copies of HOTS games sold. That means 5% of the players who were willing to purchase HOTS plays it today. Why would the random COD/LOL-casual be so interested in playing Starcraft 1on1 when lots of ppl who purchased the WOL and the expansion aren't? My point was that if anything it made more sense to have casuals interested in the arcade, but making that F2P barely mattered. So why would making the very comeptitive 1on1 F2P make a ton of new casuals interested in the game? I am sorry, but I think it's simply wish-thinking. Yes indeed, some extra people will try it out, and a few will stick with the game, howver, overall the effect will be much lower than most people expect. People tend to look at the prime examples of LOL, Dota and Hearthstone as examples of succesful F2P-games while ignoring that not all F2P games are going to be succesful. On top of the fact that Starcraft doesn't fit the F2P model very well comes the trouble that they are not launching a new product as F2P. I don't believe you can just relaunch an old product as F2p without any signifcaint adjustments to the product, and besides that a succesful repositioning also requires a new business model and a new marketing strategy in order to get people's attention and interesting in trying it out. That's quite costly, and as I have tried to argue, the potential benefits are hugely exaggerated. From a monetary perspective, it makes more sense for Blizzard to simply cut costs on Starcraft and try to develop new games which fits into the new F2P-era with optimized business models. And as a noncasual player, I rather have blizzard focus their few Starcraftdevoted ressources on patches and getting out LOTV as fast. You're underestimating the potential for growth under a F2P model and you're also overestimating the costs to Blizzard relative to the size of Blizzard. You could very well be right that it won't end up making sense but the point is Blizzard can afford the risk. Anyways it's normal for a product late in its lifecycle to drop in price. HotS retails for 20 USD now. With very few changes they could just offer up SC2 for free with in game purchases, as part of the product's natural lifecycle. A few hundred thousand active users making occasional micro-purchases is better than a few hundred thousand active users not giving Blizzard any money at all. Making SC2 eventually F2P also allows the game to continue to attract new users long past the point where it could sell a significant number of copies at a retail price and keeps SC relevant during the long downtime between SC2's last expansion and the release of SC3. SC2 going F2P doesn't even need to turn a profit. It just needs to lose less money than the alternative options if it comes to that. None of this means that they're going to take resources away for WoW or Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm or whatever more lucrative projects they have in the pipeline. Blizzard doesn't operate in zero-sum way. Cuttings costs from Starcraft doesn't free up resources for other projects. Every project has to justify its budget and Starcraft certainly justifies it's budget. | ||
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vult
United States9400 Posts
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JonIrenicus
Italy602 Posts
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Banchan
United States179 Posts
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tshi
United States2495 Posts
but yeah, i guess this is where the real money is *points to TF2's unholy hat economy* | ||
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intotheheart
Canada33091 Posts
On August 01 2014 03:26 Banchan wrote: I wish there was a way to disable the current customized skins for zerglings and stuff. It's impossible to count them when they have those gigantic wings. Yeah, I agree with this as well. Pretty annoying in 2v2 in particular, but also frustrating in 1v1. | ||
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InVerno
258 Posts
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intotheheart
Canada33091 Posts
On August 01 2014 03:54 InVerno wrote: I've already 2 expansions full price on my shelf looking for a third .. exactly how hats can turn this game in a Free to Play, they're giving me the money back? I think that they're gonna consider all the loyal fans who paid for the game already. A couple of solutions might be: 1. Keep the game as it is right now and have hats added in 2. Make the game free to play and reimburse with some sort of Blizzard Wallet (I think they have one already) I feel like it's also way too early to determine how this would be implemented, since they're only now discussing the idea more seriously. | ||
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GrapeApe
1053 Posts
...now I know...Silly Blizzard, they look ridiculous lol | ||
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okramv
Cuba30 Posts
On July 31 2014 18:09 TheBloodyDwarf wrote: Fuck no. If they add skins/hats, I want button to switch them off so I don't need to see them. I am pretty sure that's the point of skins, to show off. It won't work otherwise. None of the new games with skins have the option to turn them off. | ||
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Mistakes
United States1105 Posts
On July 31 2014 18:34 LastManProductions wrote: Why are people against skins/cosmetics? If they are distracting you to much, maybe you should look into some ADD medication... I'd prefer not to look at (imo stupid) party hats and other things like that. Not that they're omg so distracting I can't play, just dumb to where it doesn't fit the feel of StarCraft. Add them, make people pay for them, reduce the price of SC2 overall, and give us an option to turn them off. But also like someone else mentioned, add legacy BW sound effects to the game (units and spells) and I'll pay for it. Haha. | ||
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Terranist
United States2496 Posts
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SC2Towelie
United States561 Posts
On July 31 2014 18:09 TheBloodyDwarf wrote: Fuck no. If they add skins/hats, I want button to switch them off so I don't need to see them. Yes, please. I'm all for Blizzard adding in little cosmetic things that some people enjoy, as long as there's an option for the rest of us to disable them. | ||
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SlatMan
29 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46719 Posts
On July 31 2014 18:09 TheBloodyDwarf wrote: Fuck no. If they add skins/hats, I want button to switch them off so I don't need to see them. Completely agree with the toggle option. I don't care if other people want to use them, but I might not want to be forced into that distraction. | ||
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okramv
Cuba30 Posts
 In other news, according to the SteamAnalyst.com website CSGO has raked in 10m Euros through the skin market in the last 180 days. More info here. | ||
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blade55555
United States17423 Posts
Always surprised me blizzard doesn't do this because it's insane how many people actually pay for that kind of stuff. So much money potential. | ||
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FlowOfIdeas
30 Posts
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ElBlanco
Australia140 Posts
On August 01 2014 03:59 IntoTheheart wrote: I think that they're gonna consider all the loyal fans who paid for the game already. A couple of solutions might be: 1. Keep the game as it is right now and have hats added in 2. Make the game free to play and reimburse with some sort of Blizzard Wallet (I think they have one already) I feel like it's also way too early to determine how this would be implemented, since they're only now discussing the idea more seriously. Why would the game going F2P really be a bad thing for people who have paid for the game? Presumably if you're a loyal fan than you've had the game from the start and have already had your moneys worth. More importantly though the game going F2P is a good thing for existing players. I want more people playing the game, it adds positvely to the experience of playing SC2 (particularly for multiplayer and arcade games). That plus adding in things like skins and the like makes the game better imo. I do think they should give something to people who already own the game but it doesn't have to be much. There is no way blizzard should reimburse people who have already bought the game. On August 01 2014 11:05 blade55555 wrote: I am surprised they haven't done this yet similar to valve and CS GO (I imagine it's the same way in dota as well). You can buy skins, sell skins and valve gets a % as well as the buy a key and try to get a skin in a lottery type of way. Always surprised me blizzard doesn't do this because it's insane how many people actually pay for that kind of stuff. So much money potential. It always makes me wonder why people say SC2 couldn't work as a F2P. There are plenty of ways to make money using things like this. Lets not also forget that they can sell the SP campaign as well. Would it work as well as some other F2P games? Maybe not but i still think it would make more money than the current model. | ||
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