• 11Oct 08

  Where will ActiBlizzillionaire draw the line?

  Blizzard has built up one of the best reputations in the business over the last decade. With the release of the original Starcraft and Warcraft series of games, they shot to the top of the gaming world where they've stayed for a very very long time. The Warcraft series continued to produce lots of cash, and next to Starcraft, is probably the most popular RTS around.

  Then of course World of Warcraft came along, and the world bowed down to the awesomeness that was Blizzard. Even with the $15.00 a month subscription fee, people jumped on the bandwagon in hoards, eventually bringing the player base to an astonishing six million strong. It would be naive to say that WoW has become anything but a bit of a cash cow, since if you do some simple math the game is pulling in the insignificant sum of $90 million a month.

  
  "We're worth more than some small countries!"

  Of course, there are plenty of costs that are incurred when running such a massive online game such as WoW. However, I can't see it taking much of a chunk out of that base revenue. For arguement sake, let's say that after everything is paid off for the month, Blizzard takes in $75 million. Even with this more than likely understated figure, that means the company is stacking up $900 million per calendar year. It's safe to say that with that kind of money alone, funding almost anything they want to do would be within their reach...including buying any small countries they have their eye on.

  Why am I stating all these values that most of us already know of? Well Blizzard has just released a couple of very interesting pieces of information. The first is that Starcraft II will apparently be more like Starcraft II.1, Starcraft II.2 and Starcraft 11.3. Blizzard let the world know that SCII's campaigns were so long (up to 30 missions) and they are taking so long, that they made the decision to split the campaigns up and make them all stand alone games. This raised many questions such as how the online will work when only the first of the three campaigns are out, and how multiplayer in general would work. Many people though, are starting to think that this is a bit ridiculous and that this is another way for Blizzard to make unholy amounts of money (which they obviously don't necessarily need). Common knowledge in itself would tell you that even if all the campaigns were cut down a bit and made to be one game, the game would still sell like hot cakes. However, Blizzard seems to be well aware that most everyone will complain about this but in the end...those same people will buy them anyway. This is a bit shady, albeit good business sense in terms of making money, but to some it felt genuine that they really couldn't make it all one game. This made sense until the next piece of news was released early this Saturday.

  
  "For moola!...I mean...For Aiur!"

  Blizzard was asked a very important question: Is Battle.net going to remain free? Now I'm sure they probably faught for hours about who would be the sorry fool that had to answer this inevitible question. Why? Well because apparenty they are looking to start charging for the Battle.net service. Whether or not the use of the whole thing will be subscription based, or if smaller portions of the service will be monitary remains to be seen. Regardless of what part of the service will cost the users money, this is a huge bomb to drop at the same time they just told the world we're going to be spending $180 on Starcraft II instead of $60. According to them they "...kind of have to." I suggest not thinking about that statement for long periods of time as it might cause your head to explode.

  Now, I think that most people can handle the fact they have to buy three Starcraft IIs, but charging for a service that's been free for 10 years (long before they had the economic horse that is WoW to fund it) might be pushing it. I'm sure that even if they do go through with charging for the service, people will more than likely conform and pay for it because let's face it -- they're going to want to play SCII. I know I'll want to.

  
  "If you think Wow made money, wait till I arrive. WoW is my #$@%"

  Wanting and doing are two very different things though, and the combination of these two seemingly wide open money grabbing moves has shook my love for Blizzard a bit. Sure they have the right to milk every game in their arsenal for all they're worth, but is there an ethical line that's being crossed? They know that we'll pay for almost anything they put out, or charge us for because many of us are diehard fans and have been dying for SCII and Diablo III for a long time now. Is that ethically right? I think it's crossing the line.

  Of course, that's just my opinion. What do you all think about the Blizzard situation? Is what they are doing ethical? Is all of this bad business ethics, or just brilliant business action?

  That's all from me for now folks. Have a good one!

  XR

  • Posted Oct 11, 2008 9:04 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
  • 11 Comments
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• 9Oct 08

  First Published Review Is Up!!!

  I'm so insanely pumped that my very first published review is up and being read as we speak, that I can hardly contain myself. Even though the website isn't insanely well know, it does get quite a lot of traffic, and it counts to the games overall critic's score which is sweet.

  So totally go check it out! Also, if you can, digg it like crazy because if it becomes popular enough that's a bonus for me. Let me know what you think of it here and in the comments over at the site if you so wish!

  I'd ramble more about this (and believe me I could) but I have to go to cIass

  Talk to you all soon!

  XR

  • Posted Oct 9, 2008 9:38 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 21Sep 08

  What's this? My reviews may be published?!?!

  Just the other day I logged on to Giantbom.com to check out the latest podcast, when I saw that I had a message in my inbox. This was very strange because although I have a bunch of friends there, nobody ever PM's me. I was intrigued and went to check it out.

  I opened the message, and to my surprise I had received a message from one of the big cheeses from talkxbox.com! Apparently they had come across my reviews on Giantbomb.com and was impressed. They went on to ask me if I would join their freelance team to do some work for them.

  After I had a small heart attack, I continued to converse with them about the opportunity, asking a plethora of questions since I have never been approached for something like this before. After talking for a bit longer, I figured I'd give it a shot.

  I've always sort of wanted to be able to do something like this, and although the website isn't exactly a huge player, they're at least well enough known to count towards overall game rankings and that's pretty awesome.

  Of course, with this comes the unfortunate end to my blog reviews and reviews on gamespot in general. The best I can do is give a brief summary of the review and then link to the review on their website. Unless I review a game that they don't post from me, that'll have to be the case so I guess it's not the entire end to the series haha. I hope haha. I would love for you all to go check them out when they're posted and give them lots of diggs to get my stuff out there!

  Anyway, I thought I'd share this good news with you fine folks! The first review you will most likley see there will be for Silent Hill: Homecoming.

  That's all for now folks. Hope you're all doing well!

  Have a good one,

  XR

  • Posted Sep 21, 2008 3:28 pm PT
  • Category: General
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