Photo: mrwynd / Flickr

One of the pillars of PC gaming, Blizzard, hosted its Blizzcon 2010, this year’s leg of its annual conference, this past weekend in California. As always, it was sold out. Fans got a sneak peek at a heap of goodies and games and Blizzard reaffirmed that, for a games developer, it sure knows how to throw a darn good convention!

Highlight of the show: Diablo

With StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty having shipped to an awesome reception, and WoW continuing to wow the world with how deep it has its tentacles in our pockets, fans were no doubt most excited about Diablo III. The RPG, over a decade after its predecessor was released, and many years into its making, has Blizzard fans salivating, even though nobody outside the halls of Blizzard knows when it’ll be released.

Fans got to play a preview build of the title, and were also introduced to the final character class, called Demon Hunter. It seems to rely on ranged magic attacks, so should make for an interesting dynamic.

Other tidbits: WoW and StarCraft II

Those who were at Blizzcon 2010 for WoW and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty news weren’t disappointing, though, with Blizzard pulling back the covers on four in-house developed StarCraft mods, as well as reaffirming the release date of World of WarCraft: Cataclysm. Midnight, 7 December, is when you can grab the title, direct from Blizzard’s website.

Disappointment of the show

It’s hard to be disappointed at Blizzcon 2010, where we got given some StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty mod goodness, hands-on time with Diablo III and finally a firm release date for the next WoW expansion pack, World of WarCraft: Cataclysm, but we were a little disappointed. Why? Well, because it is widely known that Blizzard is working on a new MMO, and we were hoping we’d at least get to know what it is.

Alas, the world does not work that way, and we should make do with the Blizzcon loving we got.

StarCraft II is available right now, while World of WarCraft: Cataclysm will be ready 7 December 2010. As for Diablo III, if you managed to crack Blizzard’s scheduling vault, be sure to tell us when that game releases. We’re dying to know.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

As PC gamers around the world showed up at a myriad of midnight launches, and independent performance tracker VGChartz packed US pre-orders at an almighty 800,000, StarCraft II has finally launched to an unsuspecting world!

A quick refresher

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the first of the three part sequel to one of the most beloved PC games of all time, StarCraft (the other incoming expansions are Heart of the Swarm as well as Legacy of the Void). Released twelve long years ago, now, PC gamers worldwide are still in a state of relative shock that the sequel has finally seen the light of day.

No reviews

In the build up to the release the folks at Blizzard declined the usual practice of sending gaming publications early review copies of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. The company felt it only fair to review the game after extensive and real-world use of Battlenet 2.0, the online protocol the game, has built up.

In addition, Activision Blizzard has neither confirmed nor denied VG Chartz’ estimation of the number of pre-orders, but the company is set to release its own official sales numbers in the coming days. Reports coming in indicate the title could move 7 million units in this fiscal year, with StarCraft’s spiritual home South Korea gobbling up a huge chunk of those units.

Early impressions

Speaking to a handful of friends and gamers alike, who either played the game extensively during the multiplayer beta, or showed up to work with stinging red eyes because they put in an all-nighter, Blizzard has done well not to disappoint. We expect review scores of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (as well as eventual review scores of Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void) to be sky-high when they start trickling in over the coming weeks.

PC gaming lives

The biggest task StarCraft II has is in reaffirming that PC gaming is, in fact, not dead. Many analysts, critics, and gamers alike have proclaimed the economics of PC gaming – where one needs particularly expensive kit just to have the intended experience – just doesn’t make sense. Add to that the rise of the comparatively inexpensive and hassle-free consoles, you’ve had many people proclaim PC gaming is dead.

But between World of WarCraft, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (and likely the inevitable expansions Heart of the Swarm as well as Legacy of the Void) and Steam’s ongoing success, it’s proving rather challenging to claim that PC gaming is dead!

I’ve spent all night with the title and momentarily ripped myself away to write about it. Though this isn’t an official review, my feelings for this game are already evident – buy StarCraft II right away!

Have you played it yet, and was it worth the twelve-year wait?

Photo: Stock.Xchng

We’re getting really excited about StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. With each passing the day, the painful twelve-year wait to the sequel to one of the greatest PC games of all time will sooner be over. And according to the Wall Street Journal Activision Blizzard has spared no expense developing the title, with reports indicating it has cost over $100 million to develop. Yes, to develop only – this excludes marketing and promotions costs.

A fairly safe bet

Given that the first StarCraft, now released over 12 years ago, has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the highest selling PC games of all time, it is a safe bet that Activision Blizzard will recoup this money. South Korea, the spiritual home of StarCraft, alone is likely to take the company a long way towards turning a profit with Wings of Liberty.

The title has been in development since 2003, but was officially announced only in 2007.

A second reason StarCraft II, as a whole, is likely to make heaps of money is because Activision Blizzard has split the sequel into three parts. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, followed by quasi-sequel/expansion packs Heart of Swarm and Legacy of the Void. Long story short, Activision Blizzard has cleverly split a very expensive to develop product into three manageable chunks, while charging their customers three times. Good business.

Seven pillars of opportunity

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick described StarCraft II as one of the company’s seven pillars of opportunity, meaning it has the potential to bring in operating profit of between $500 million and $1 billion. The other six pillars of opportunity for Activision Blizzard are Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Diablo, a new MMO Blizzard are working on, and the new IP by famed Halo developer Bungie. For those keeping score, Blizzard, who are developing Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, have four titles out of the seven. Crown jewel, huh?

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty releases 27 July for Mac and PC and we strongly advise you to pre-order your copy now.