StarCraft II Free-to-Play Analysis
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- Опубліковано 9 лис 2017
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Hey folks,
Today's video analyzes the StarCraft II free-to-play announcement.
If you enjoyed this video, I'd love it if you followed me here and on Twitter and Facebook to receive regular content updates. The relevant links are above. Thank you and see you next time!
Thanks,
brownbear
One thought I had while video editing: I wonder whether the barrier to entry for new players is intentionally high, in order to dissuade them from playing the ladder unless they really want to. I've noted before that StarCraft II incentivizes the ladder too much, and that new players would be better off spending a lot of time in the campaign and co-op first. If this is the reasoning behind this change, then it makes more sense. In combination with a phone number verification system it would be a great change.
References: Too long for UA-cam's video description. See the bottom of this article: illiteracyhasdownsides.com/20... - Ігри
I never played the campaign or watched it so i'm excited to play it
As someone who played this very seriously and havent touched it for 4 years. Im downloading it now :) wish me luck
Good luck! :-)
do u need to download it in the battlenet app in order to play? or just click ad play?
I don't think that they're trying to get new players so much as they're trying to get back the players who have left after not buying hots or void. I remember the complaints about the expansions being priced as new games, and given the separation between interest in the campaign and multiplayer, for many people it was not worth it to just get the new multiplayer, so they left.
Going f2p with the ladder may very well bring back those players, and at the same time it does more to justify the ridiculous price tags on all the content that they've been adding to the game. It feels off for them to have been charging $7 per coop commander, and lets not click on the collections tab. You're on the mark, that the game was already f2p, but they were double dipping with paying customers.
If they can bring back the old playerbase that have come and gone over the long lifespan of the game, then get every last bit of money out of them as they can, I think that is the goal.
SC 2 is a fun game
I started sc2 ranked because it went f2p...
People ask every single day on the reddit, "what do I get with the starter edition?", "can I play ladder with wol?" On ans on it goes.
The only reason this game gets any new people in at all is because of the super helpful comunity. Remember those people are most likely a small minority. There are probably a lot of people out there who are interested in Sc2 but have no idea where to turn to ask for help.
Agreed on the smurfing issue but I think you highly underestimate the power of marketing.
I just found out accidentally after startint playing hearthstone that the sc2 is free (starter pack) like two years ago. I told to my friends and only 1 of them moved into acutally game, actually it was coop, instead of arcade (which I think is the most fun).
I think honestly why this game is not more popular is because its RTS, people are not willing to put effort to learn mechanics of the game, just casually to roll around and have fun for few hours. I personally like the challenges to learn game and become better to it so for me this is nice change.
I don't think smurfing is a big issue. The occasional smurf will just be someone ranking up a new account - which I don't think is a problem - and people trolling new players. While the latter should be discouraged, I don't think that it happens too much.
I think the big point here, which you mentioned, is attracted younger players
John Gavin it’s the exact reason why I never got Starcraft. Don’t have the money and usually only buy games that I KNOW that I will play. Starcraft was a bit of a love hate relationship so I didn’t know if I should get the second. But at least this lets me play the majority of the game.
Very interesting perspective. :)
This video could use a follow-up.
After 5.5 years of Dota2 and plenty of casual C&C Tiberian sun/Wars, I've recently started playing SC2. It's nice to finally have some understanding of this game and I'm doing decent in ladder as Terran(only played T).
You are correct about there being enough players in SC2 to question the move to F2P. However Blizzard doesn't run their business on random choices. So there must be a better reason than this being a knee-jerk reaction to the 'daed game' meme. I can think of two possible reasons.
1. The eSports scene has reduced in the last few years. There are a lot less viewers, wich means less sponsor money, which means less pro players who can live off earnings. And because Blizzard has decided to be an active part of the eSports scene and make money of off it, it would make sense for them to boost viewership by making the game itself more available. eSports are generally only watched by people who also play the game in question and making SC2 F2P could boost their eSports Divisons earnings indirectly.
2. Coop Commanders is a new mode for SC2, but for all intends and purposes it is essentially a spin-off product to SC2. It has a completely different business model. It always was F2P but players buy new commanders as DLC somewhat similar to LoL. This mode has exploded in popularity and Blizzard has pulled the team repsonsible for making the Mission Packs for Nova to help in development of Coop Commanders instead. However, being part of SC2 makes it harder to communicate the fact that it is F2P and is damagingfor the Coop business model.
I believe #2 is the real reason for making SC2 F2P. I think the succes of Coop has surprised Blizzard and now they are scrambling to undo the Frankenstein monster that they unwittingly created with their 1 game 2 business models.
Cool, I just need a free gaming computer now.
acutally starcraft 2 runs on a potato pc
If there's one thing Blizzard is best at it's code optimization.
overwatch isnt optimized well but starcraft 2 is optimized insanely well
I bought SC2 now because I have a good stable job and I wanted to give back to the people who made my younger years amazing.
Not just I buy 1 game,all other license game already being purchased?that happen when email lost and bank being block.
Don't the expansions have additional unit types.
Can those be used in competetive play and if so, will they be available even if I only have the f2p base version?
yes the ladder is the same for everyone
Mostly i agree, though it's quite hard to lure new players into a 7 years old game, so in going free to play i think the benefits surpasses the negatives. It'll not be frictionless, however.
Why can't i use the forms?
awesome news
Thanks Yoda...
Not just it's can block new player using pop up new registration that not helping new player,it's preventing old player Whit I'd to play,it's can turn license that buy game cannot participate in rank matching,
Hi, back in the day I bought WoL and played for sometime, but got bored and stop playing, but still would spend many hours watching tournaments. With HotS I had no desire to buy the expansion, I thought that the new units weren't good additions to the game. So I waited for the last exp, while I liked it was 3 or 4 years after my last SC2 game and for me, on a third world country, the original price was a bit too high for a game that I wasn't sure I would still enjoy. I think if the game haven't gone f2p I would never get back, and I'm glad it went! Just my 2 cents.
I think the market segment that you neglected is the people who bought WoL or HotS, but never moved on to LotV. Likely because you started in LotV yourself. I am one of those players, I played WoL pretty intensely for about a year, and then off and on afterwards, but I never bothered buying the later expansions. If you look around, you'll find a lot of people like me. This update has been great for me, I tried it out because it was free, and found that LotV had improved the game significantly since WoL, and now I'm laddering again.
Nice))
Any1 plz !!! Where can I play it ??
I can't play into rank Whit my I'd license that I buy,it's request me to pay around rm 4
You sound exactly like chief John.
StarCraft vs Command & Conquer Tiberian sun mash up game. Ehhh?
Insulting rewards for those who bought the game
well i hope you are wrong :/
The graphs tell you everything you need to know why you lost .. if you don't play the game don't talk about those things .
Yeah, what Geoff said it's kinda bullshit. PUBG is yet to prove itself as an esport, as everything related to it it's still in the honeymoon stage, and CSGO is basically so Valve can earn money from cheaters and smurfers, and because it's naturally harder to fund CSGO with microtransactions when compared to dota, for example.
I still don't get it why they called it the starter edition instead of demo.
About the marketing in general, I still remember buying the full price retail version only to realise that I had bought a 6 month subscription to Starcraft 2. Not to mention the always online connection required. SC II is a good game that has trouble attracting non RTS players in part because Blizzard is always playing catch up with the current monetization trend while still trying to figure out how to attract more buyers.
Anyways, awesome video!
Wol released in 2010, HotS released in 2013, LotV released in 2015. what 6 month subscription are you talking about
Back in the days of Wing of Liberty You could buy 3/6/12 months of subscription, wich would give you access to the game for a limited number of months. Before HotS came out Blizzard scrapped that system and made it so that you would only have to pay once.
Khan Khomrad I bought the game the day it came out I was not aware of any limited access version
i bought WOL on release and there was never a subscription to play for me
PC Cafes om Asia, those outside Korea will finaly have this game installed
Too bad there's no skirmish
Hello brownbear, this was a good video but I just want to talk about some of your points. Most people mantion the game as dead because of the very rich competitive community it had years ago, they don't really care that the gamee has 2 or 5 million players a month if the community still *feels* small. Starcraft tournaments used to bring 150 thousand viewers at the wcs finals, that was the biggest esport in existance. Now it brings at most 60k, instead of rising, it fell.
About microtransactions, the community has shown it doesn't care about them, although there is a stigma related to microtransactions in general, blizzard only does it with dlc campaigns and cosmetics, none of which affect wether you win a match or not. Gamers aren't worries about cosmetic microtransations, just ones that keep them for accessing things they feel like they paid for.
About prices, since you said yourself, RTS really is a niche genre, and with a big pricetag such as sc2's, people are less likely to try the game out, csgo prices are low, and it's a really easy game to get into and you can play with friends competitively, such is the case with PUBG as well, they are cheap and easy to play.
About the ladder I mostly agree with you, smurfing will be a problem and the game needs better tools to correctly teach players on how to play the game so they can improve.
All that sc2 players want to see is a rich and growing esports scene that many other games have right now, sc2 was a great esport once, we want it to grow again.
Overall, if I didn't mention anything else you said assume I agree with your point, unless it's conflicting, haha.
rafhalimaxd citation needed.
Where? lol
èeeh, free to play bring hacks since bans means nothing
Blizzard thinks that making this game free to play will revive an already dead game...