Blizzards gone milk Starcraft turn it into trilogy split up races :(

Since Blizzard announced StarCraft II would be released as a trilogy, with each entry focusing on a single race's campaign, there has been some backlash from Internet goers who speculate the studio is bowing to pressure from new owners Activision to drag out the game with the sole purpose of increasing revenues. "Franchise milking" has been on the lips of more than a few commenters.

But Blizzard's StarCraft rep Bob Colayco told Edge on Monday that it's not like that all, saying that Blizzard's the one "calling the shots."


Some people say that the decision to release StarCraft II as a trilogy is a sign of Activision flexing its muscle over Blizzard-to "milk" the StarCraft franchise. Is the trilogy format related at all to the Activision merger?

No, absolutely not. [Activision] does not play a factor at all. One of the things that [StarCraft II lead producer] Chris Sigaty was saying in interviews this weekend is that we had always planned to do two expansion packs for StarCraft II. This structure just reshuffles how we were going to do things.

Just to give you some context, typically with Blizzard RTSes, we release a single-player campaign that gives players just a taste of each race. The original StarCraft had 10 missions each or so for Terrans and Protoss. When we released the Brood Wars expansion pack, there was another eight or so missions for each of the missions.

All we're really doing is reshuffling how players are going to experience the single-player content. In StarCraft II, we're going to have a campaign that focuses strictly on the Terran. It'll be 26-30 missions long, and you'll play as Jim Rainer. When we release first expansion set, that's going to focus on Zerg. So that's going to be another 26-30 missions strictly focusing on Zerg. When we go to the final expansion pack, it will be the Protoss experience, probably another 26-30 missions.

I think the readers aren't understanding that there's a full, gi-normous single-player campaign experience in each of these three products. Instead of getting all three race experiences at once, to make it a more epic experience, we're focusing on one faction per entry for the single-player
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Personally, doesn't bug me too much. I'm a sucker for the Zerg... So it sucks that I have to wait ages upon ages before I'll be able to play their campaign... I also just view this as a brilliant money-making gimmick...

But eh... Could be worse... At least StarCraft II is on its way...

Hmmmm...still sounds like milking to me...just with more cows...
@ lycan - as long as they are stand alone expansions and you dont require the 1st to play the 2nd or 3rd.

Kage said:

Hmmmm...still sounds like milking to me...just with more cows...
@ lycan - as long as they are stand alone expansions and you dont require the 1st to play the 2nd or 3rd.

Click to expand...

*nod* I understand that - but I'll end up getting all three any way because I'd like to play each campaign. I mean... It's StarCraft for goodness sakes

It depends...

1) Does the storyline/Arc support the three parts? Is it going to be interesting enough?
2) Will the three parts work well enough on their own? Are they self-contained?
3) What will the price be? Are they going to charge full or inflated prices on each of them? Or divide the cost by three?

Seeing that each game is going to have full campaigns of 25-30 missions, multiplayer capabilities that allows one to play as any race and branching storylines I personally don't see it as milking and I think its worth buying each as a standalone game.

MAIN thing about starcraft for me is the multiplayer option if i can ONLY play Terran in first release on multiplayer i will NOT buy it sad but true then ill wayt for all 3 gold edition.
Gone suck 8v8 all terran

Starcraft has gone from a game that I was definitely buying to on that I will avoid on principle, the fact that in order to try each race you must buy 3 all games is rediculous

Multiplayer will have access to all 3 races from getgo, but only the terran single player campaign

Multiplayer will allow you to play all 3 races, but you can only play the single player mission as per the cd you have.
They should have downloadable patches to add the other single player missions...
they may be 2 big tho...

Surv0 said:

Multiplayer will allow you to play all 3 races, but you can only play the single player mission as per the cd you have.
They should have downloadable patches to add the other single player missions...
they may be 2 big tho...

Click to expand...

Yes I realise that, but seeing that each standalone game has a 25-30 mission campaign for each race I feel its worth the dough.

I must say it does smack of a money making scheme to me.
They say Activision has nothing to do with it but I'm sure Blizzard know how to milk the masses without any tips from Activision.
I think WoW turned them greedy (power corrupts and all that).

Lets just hope they don't try pull anything like this for Diablo 3 and keep it pure.

Moo!!!

Just call me Betsy, cos I'll be there, playing away whole weekends when these beauties are released

Why... Hello Betsy... What a pretty little moo cow you are... *RAWR!*

C'mon, each part's going to be released a year apart. How much do you spend annually on games you really want? Even if they are +/- R300 each, I'd buy all 3 or wait for the Battle Chest.

Kage said:

Hmmmm...still sounds like milking to me...just with more cows...
@ lycan - as long as they are stand alone expansions and you dont require the 1st to play the 2nd or 3rd.

Click to expand...

So you're actually saying you don't give tw ****s about the story.

Dont care about the money would easily pay R2000 for full starcraft finished product.

Spliting it like this is just crap was so looking forward to it

Yeah, I'm big on story, so having to wait 1 year between campaigns is the only downside.

All the more reason to play the game more than once during the year

/me puts SCII on waiting list and moves on ...
Waiting list is them games you buy when you come across them 2 years later in the bargain bin for R40

stoke said:

/me puts SCII on waiting list and moves on ...
Waiting list is them games you buy when you come across them 2 years later in the bargain bin for R40

Click to expand...

Haha ill put it on my gold edition list those games that have 5 expansions then ill buy the full game for a reduced price and play all at the same time.

Gaming evolve ALOT in 1 year 3 parts for one game each one year from eachother = fail.