Blizzard ready their next moves
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26 Sep 2012, 08:34
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News
Blizzard, famed developers of the Starcraft and Warcraft series and fresh from the new WoW update are readying their next moves in the games sector. In an eSports sense the developer, despite being a profound supporter of eSports, have recently been overshadowed by moves made by Valve and certainly RIOT. Now the boys in blue are ready to strike back...
The first announcement came at last weeks Valencia eSports Congress where Blizzard big wig Dustin Browder confirmed his interest in moving Starcraft 2 into a free to play model at some point. Blizzard have been out maneuvered in the Free to Play movement and still charge either on a monthly subscription basis or in the case of Starcraft 2, initial fee and then expansion packs.
Dustin said of the challenges in the move: "We don't know how [Blizzard] would monetize it. While it might be good fun for me to play against someone with only half the units available to them, that's not going to be an enjoyable experience for them."
The second announcement was more direct to those currently challenging their domination as a whole when Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime states "We're ready to support [Blizzard All-Stars] as an eSport". With Valve offering a yearly $1.6m in DOTA2 on top of the best feature set for eSports (Items & Spectator) and RIOT Games offering $25m in Season 3 of League of Legends - Blizzards efforts, once revered throughout eSports are now falling behind. While little is actually confirmed for Allstars, its rumoured to be headed our way in 2013 with a 15 minute match limit. Does this latest statement say they're willing to bust the bank to get it to the top of pops?
:: Source
The first announcement came at last weeks Valencia eSports Congress where Blizzard big wig Dustin Browder confirmed his interest in moving Starcraft 2 into a free to play model at some point. Blizzard have been out maneuvered in the Free to Play movement and still charge either on a monthly subscription basis or in the case of Starcraft 2, initial fee and then expansion packs.
Dustin said of the challenges in the move: "We don't know how [Blizzard] would monetize it. While it might be good fun for me to play against someone with only half the units available to them, that's not going to be an enjoyable experience for them."
The second announcement was more direct to those currently challenging their domination as a whole when Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime states "We're ready to support [Blizzard All-Stars] as an eSport". With Valve offering a yearly $1.6m in DOTA2 on top of the best feature set for eSports (Items & Spectator) and RIOT Games offering $25m in Season 3 of League of Legends - Blizzards efforts, once revered throughout eSports are now falling behind. While little is actually confirmed for Allstars, its rumoured to be headed our way in 2013 with a 15 minute match limit. Does this latest statement say they're willing to bust the bank to get it to the top of pops?
:: Source
Interesting to see how this will develop.
must developers really throw this much money at the players rather than their business modell and marketing in order to attract new players?
i mean riot and valve are putting those numbers out there simply cause they can and cause it makes for incredible headlines. people start to realize how big gaming/esports actually is. but the number of games/publishers that can do that is so limited. i just cant see sponsoring prizemoney being the most effective way to invest funds into esports.
Dont like the way of putting money in it makes the game and not because its such a great game.
If I were a dev id be really pissed if people held me accountable to invest money into events.
it should really not be their job bur riot forces it onto people cause they have the money and realized theyd like to have esports aswell, so they went ahead and out right bought it.
i dont agree with the purses being this high in the first place. some ugly ass basement nerds from soviet russia keep winning millions cause they move around some dota heroes? come on, get real.
its aritifcially inflated to show off who got the most cash (riot does) but real esports doesnt need that sorta thing.
and agreeing you or not, gaming is a growing industry, where a lot of cash ll be invested and taken, not because of you or me wanting or not, but more because of sheer numbers. number of players,viewers, sponsors or whatever u want...because often it looks like: numbers=money
and about russians controlling dota heroes, yes i agree there with you. 2bad such a stupid game got a huge attention, but they made it profitable and it's up to others if they gonna keep up with it or simply disappear.
pls also dont take the following personal: from the stuff you write it is easy to see that you have no degree in economics neither have you ever had any interest in it.
5-10million dollars matters to pretty much every single entertainment company in the world, let alone game publishers.
the only ones who can put up big prize money are valve, blizzard and riot (and get those 5-10m out of your head, that is just naive).
i still remain positive that publishers should not be sponsoring anything other than launch tournaments. and for years the recepie has remained the same: third parties sponsor feasible amounts of money to get involved in events.
all this "publisher needs to put millions out there in order to make big headlines" is a cancer to the industry. by that deffinition: how can small games (like ET) ever be competitive?
ur rant about blizzard holding back on functionality to sell it later makes me feel sick. you display some greedy, communistic attitude that i strongly dislike.
you also dont seem to know much about the gaming industry in general claiming that numbers = money. the situation has changed. more games = community spread out further (it is harder to sell original IPs than it was). f2p and other monetizing models are where its at.
"2bad such a stupid game got a huge attention, but they made it profitable"
how little can one person know and still run around aritculating their oppinion?
that is wrong on every single level.
LoL is a trash game which got huge attention and is profitable. dota2 isnt in any way profitable for valve atm, no humanly conveable way. vavle spend millions to make a game that is perfectly balanced and has an array of functionality yet to be matched.
please dont talk if everything you say is bitter rage or plain wrong.
"free to play models" is really bad for the future of gaming though, hope they stick with retail and expansions.
Sc2 becomes free to play, 15 mins left so let's prepare an all in.
The pace of game could be increased without any damage to the gameplay, cut the creep spawn timers, increase movement speed of both creeps and players, maybe re-balance item pricing and you can easily fit into 15 minutes/game.