WoW In-Game Pet in SC2 Collector Edition

[Fuzzbutt]

What everyone is failing to remember is that prior CE pets have been activated with the account key. The Wrath and BC CEs, for example, added the pet to your account when you activated the key. You may not be able to sell this pet.

The main goal is to interest people who play WoW in playing SC2 and to give people playing SC2 a reason to try out WoW. It's Blizz's product, it only makes sense to reward people for buying other Blizz products.

[Marvdatboi]

Nope, it's still a ripoff

In your eyes you view it as a ripoff then don't bother buying games period. Just download them through torrents but I guess you already do that :.

[Deleted]

Its called cross promotion. Why do you think the original CE pets were mini-diablo and a zergling? They are well known objects from other Blizzard properties that can reel in additional sales possibly. I'm sure the plan was to always include a Wow pet with the SC2 CE just like there will be one with the Diablo 3 CE. People who exclusively play SC2 will buy the game for the game and eBay the pet for people who exclusively play Wow to buy. For the rest of us who play both this is a welcome gift that is liekly coming at no extra cost than the CE already would have.

Touché.

P.S. I just can't help myself having to point out that both the Mini-Diablo and the Zergling were WoW pets from the WoW CE, its quite different. ;]

Anyway, perhaps I saw it from the wrong angle. Lets call it.

[Suicidal009]

OMFG an AHNOLD Ingame pet! Me WANT NAO

[Bloodcharged]

Nope, it's still a ripoff

Made a new account just for that? Troll more somewhere else...

[Undercovercracker]

I just can never get into RTS games...

[Lightbane]

Thors are freaking awesome! If they can be a mini-pet in game then it would fit about perfectly with my goblin.

"What is best in life? To crush the Alliance, see them driven before you, and to hear the swooning of the draenei and belf women at your feet for being that damn awesome!"

8)

Awesome post except.. Dranei?! :-\

[Yetal]

MW2 seemed like a big waste of money to me. Therefore i didn't buy it. Other people flocked to it like sheep. But an 8 hour solo campaign and a bit of online gameplay that still probably gets owned by Counterstrike?

Wow, how did you rack up 8 hours in the singleplayer of MW2? Did you like, take a nap partway through and leave the game running?

I've heard of people clearing it in 3-4 hours.

[Zulrang]

I just can never get into RTS games...

They require much more skill, faster reflexes, and quicker thinking than other games.

About pricing:

When I was a kid (say, 20 years ago), newly released Nintendo and Sega games were $50-$70. Today, games are still the same price. Considering the inflation since then is approx. 61.95%, you should actually be paying around $97 for the standard retail version and $162 for the collectors edition.

Games have largely been unaffected by economic changes. Considering the amount of entertainment value you get compared to other forms, games are DIRT CHEAP.

Also consider the fact that it's free to play SC2 (and likely D3) on Battle.net. Would you pay $60 or $100 for WoW if there was no monthly fee?

[Grocalis]

People complaining about the price, didn't you notice this?

An exclusive 2GB USB flash drive replica of Jim Raynor's dog tag, which comes preloaded with the original StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War® expansion set

That right there is $20 ($25 if you count the flash drive) as far as I am reading. Yes, the idea of selling the old game with the new game, when the CE itself will most likely be desired by SC veterans, is a bit awkward, but I can see why the price is high if they are basically giving you two games (three if you count expansions).

[skyclops]

Thor sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger
rofl

[Jasyn]

They require much more skill, faster reflexes, and quicker thinking than other games.

About pricing:

When I was a kid (say, 20 years ago), newly released Nintendo and Sega games were $50-$70. Today, games are still the same price. Considering the inflation since then is approx. 61.95%, you should actually be paying around $97 for the standard retail version and $162 for the collectors edition.

Games have largely been unaffected by economic changes. Considering the amount of entertainment value you get compared to other forms, games are DIRT CHEAP.

Also consider the fact that it's free to play SC2 (and likely D3) on Battle.net. Would you pay $60 or $100 for WoW if there was no monthly fee?

Gaming industry is affected by economic change, they just also have the benefit of selling more and more each year at the same price, effectively negating inflation.

In other words, sales inflated, not price.

[dyvimtvar]

I didn't take any hours to clear it, because i didn't buy it and i've never played it.

$60 for a game that you can clear in 3 hours is something i would never think to be value for money.

And you think people bought MW2 for the single player? That's laughable.

[cogzwell]

PC games do NOT cost $60, thanks activision now i gotta go burn things down...... >

[secretsound]

And you think people bought MW2 for the single player? That's laughable.

Yeah seriously this game is for the multiplayer as well. Especially with the new map making, SC2 will be any game you want it to be.

Honestly I think the new map making abilities are like 20$ alone in its self.

[Daniri]

Because of Activision. But yeah, w/e, expect to see much much more of this.

[alt]

It's a new trend that's developing. As far as I know, this will be the 3rd recent PC game with a $60 price tag (the other two being Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin's Creed 2). I don't think the other two games sold too well on the PC, but then again, they were mainly just console ports. Since Starcraft is an very popular PC game series, it stands a better chance of establishing a foothold for higher priced games on the PC.

Hopefully it doesn't catch on, but I fear it will.

I'm pretty sure PC games were $54.99 a few years back, the same price as console games. It's just that because of widespread piracy, most PC game developers had to cut their price to be competitive with piracy. It's like iTunes pricing. Songs and albums are cheaper today than in the '90s because they have to compete with piracy.

I don't think Blizzard has the same problems with piracy that other PC game developers have so they're free to price as much as console game developers do.

[Jasyn]

Ding ding ding!!!!

Winnar.



Face it, every Blizzard game is worth the extra money you pay, if only for the unparalleled level of polish they put into their games.

[Warriorfury]

Well is this ironic or what, I just got my Starcraft II ® beta key just a few minutes ago – and here I am reading a topic/blue post about it. I’m not even a huge fan of Starcraft® - or for that matter of fact, ever played an RTG game. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to enjoy playing the Starcraft II ® beta, I just find myself lucky to get it after opting in for only 3 days. :

(yes, this is to rub it in )

[alt]

They require much more skill, faster reflexes, and quicker thinking than other games.

About pricing:

When I was a kid (say, 20 years ago), newly released Nintendo and Sega games were $50-$70. Today, games are still the same price. Considering the inflation since then is approx. 61.95%, you should actually be paying around $97 for the standard retail version and $162 for the collectors edition.

Games have largely been unaffected by economic changes. Considering the amount of entertainment value you get compared to other forms, games are DIRT CHEAP.

Also consider the fact that it's free to play SC2 (and likely D3) on Battle.net. Would you pay $60 or $100 for WoW if there was no monthly fee?

Price is not just about demand. It's also about marginal benefit versus marginal cost. Back then (around the early 90s), Nintendo and Sega used to sell overpriced cartriges for $35 or so to game publishers. Third party game developers weren't allowed to sell games on the Nintendo and Sega consoles without buying those overpriced cartriges from Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo and Sega consequently made a ton of profit from it. That's why games sold for as much as $75 back then, because games had a cost of at least $35 to make for third party publishers.

The reason Sony was able to muscle in on the console business with the original Playstation was that it used CDs that cost less than $1 to make. They'd take a cut from third party game sales without requiring publishers to buy an overpriced cartridge from them. Obviously, many third party developers jumped ship.

The reason games cost $59.99 on consoles is that it costs around $1 to manufacture a game nowadays. So companies just try to maximize the profit by having a price point that they think would result in the most money when they multiply price with unit sales, since the cost to manufacture is almost negligible. When they had to buy $35 cartridges, they had to price it much higher to maximize profit.