So I went to buy SC2 from Blizzard's online store this morning. Shocked to see that I had missed the fact that even the digital licence is $60. I never had a doubt I would buy this game but I am now wondering if this sets a bad precedent. I'm thinking about waiting or perhaps not ever "buying" SC2 just because of Activision/Blizzard's money grubbing attempts here. Does this make me crazy? Is anyone else angry about this? 

In the store I bought it from this morning it was $59.99 Canadian, I got my friends discount so ended up paying $57.50 with taxes, but still...That's cheaper than most new console game releases, and it's pretty fucking good. $60 for a digital licence is perfectly reasonable to me.  
 
It's only a few hours of work for the countless hours of entertainment I will get from this game, so for me it's very cheap entertainment. Still, I wish this game were for sale on steam, and not blizzards battle.net

uh, digital copies are usually same price as retail games on release.  Don't know why this is suprising.

your not getting my point, PC games are $50, thats just how it is. Why is every one so willing to allow this to happen? Soon all PC games will be $60 if this works out for Blizzard.

" your not getting my point, PC games are $50, thats just how it is. Why is every one so willing to allow this to happen? Soon all PC games will be $60 if this works out for Blizzard. "

PC games have been joining the $60 trend for over a year, where have you been?

" your not getting my point, PC games are $50, thats just how it is. Why is every one so willing to allow this to happen? Soon all PC games will be $60 if this works out for Blizzard. "

Its 60 euro. which is roughly $77. You're grand

" @sofakingcool said:

" your not getting my point, PC games are $50, thats just how it is. Why is every one so willing to allow this to happen? Soon all PC games will be $60 if this works out for Blizzard. "

And there was a time when "console games are just 50$, that's how it is." and their price was increased to 60.  Heck, there was a time when console games had erratic pricing and fresh off the shelf you could be charged like 70$ or more for a single game while some other games could be sitting at 50$ or 60$.   
 
What I find funny here is that you are eluding to the idea of trying to pirate the game because of "their money grubbing" - if they're money grubbers for charging 10$ more than what you feel the game should be, then what does that make you for wanting to steal the game just because they want to make a profit off of the game?  I mean, it's not like they're asking 100$ for the base game or anything (though the CE is 100$)  Times change and video games become more and more expensive to make and some games on the PC are priced differently than others.  I mean, you say "pc games are 50$ and that's just how it is." but I'm willing to bet you that I could go on Steam right now and find a wide array of prices for PC games, from 5$ all the way up to 60$ and varying numbers in between.  Your argument holds no water and you're just trying to justify the idea of wanting to steal a game. "

Oh hey, it's this thread again.
 
 
Guess what price Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 were when they were released 8 and 10 years ago, respectively?
 
 
That's right, they were $60. This is absolutely nothing new for Blizzard, and has absolutely nothing to do with Activision.
 
 
 
 
Also, I can only think of three, maybe four PC games that have started at $60 in the past year. Where is everyone getting "that's what PC games go for nowadays" from?

It would make sense to me for Blizzard to charge quite a bit less for the digital version of the game, since those sales are essentially pure profit minus the trivial bandwidth cost. Remember that there are packaging, distribution, and wholesale discounts that all cost Blizzard money. Of course, no one knows what these numbers are, but something tells me that Blizz could sell the digital version of Starcraft 2 for $50 or even $40 and still make more profit per copy than the $60 retail boxed SKU.
 
Of course, no publisher wants to set that sort of precedent because they're all looking forward to the quickly approaching day when all games will be only sold digitally. They have to price them the same as the retail versions now to get consumers used to the idea of paying "full" price for digitally distributed games.

With the amount of time and money blizzard puts into battle.net I have no problem paying that so called 10 extra dollars. Didnt Activision say last week that SC2 has cost over 100 million dollars so far?

oh boy!  the PC game price vs the rest of the world argument. just pay your money and enjoy the ride.

software licenses aren't cheap.

I paid £35/$54. Ha.
 
It's Blizzard, their games have pretty much always been around £35/£40 new even the really old ones. Heck, I remember when PSX games were around £40 new. 
 
Quit your whining, games aren't cheap to make.

" It would make sense to me for Blizzard to charge quite a bit less for the digital version of the game, since those sales are essentially pure profit minus the trivial bandwidth cost. Remember that there are packaging, distribution, and wholesale discounts that all cost Blizzard money. Of course, no one knows what these numbers are, but something tells me that Blizz could sell the digital version of Starcraft 2 for $50 or even $40 and still make more profit per copy than the $60 retail boxed SKU.
 
Of course, no publisher wants to set that sort of precedent because they're all looking forward to the quickly approaching day when all games will be only sold digitally. They have to price them the same as the retail versions now to get consumers used to the idea of paying "full" price for digitally distributed games. "

"your not getting my point, PC games are $50, thats just how it is. Why is every one so willing to allow this to happen? Soon all PC games will be $60 if this works out for Blizzard. "

They really should start incentivizing direct digital distribution by making it 5 or 10 bucks less.  What the fuck are the retailers going to do about it?  Not sell Starcraft 2?  Come on, that ain't gonna happen.

I hope Blizzard is at least gratefull to all you fanboys,  who are going to defend  their games no matter what. Look at some newly released games or even some upcoming games. Notice anything strange? Yep, they're 50$. What exactly makes Starcraft II so deserving of a 60$ price tag? No LAN? Same 3 races? Lack of any real innovations? New BattleNet (yeah, I guess Blizzard finally realized that voice chat should be part of their games). The only thing sofakingcool did was lament a bit about the price, but all the fanboys took it very personal. Chill people, and face the facts: there isn't any serios reason why this is 60$. This price tag is just another negative in a very long list. Next up, maybe you'll have to pay to play on BattleNet. ;)

" In the store I bought it from this morning it was $59.99 Canadian, I got my friends discount so ended up paying $57.50 with taxes, but still...That's cheaper than most new console game releases, and it's pretty fucking good. $60 for a digital licence is perfectly reasonable to me.   It's only a few hours of work for the countless hours of entertainment I will get from this game, so for me it's very cheap entertainment. Still, I wish this game were for sale on steam, and not blizzards battle.net "

Activision are dicks. No real surprise here.

Like some people metioned ist 60e in the eu. I wouldn't have bought it for that money. But lot's of retailers have it for 40e. I bought it for 39 in store today. Its for 39 on German amazon and its 34 pounds on UK amazon. I guess they will have it for less than 60$ in some retailer in the us, too?
Edit: Btw. Blizzard charge ridiculous amounts for their online store licenses in general.

Yeah, I wasn't about to pay 59,99€ for SC2. I don't really care about the fact that it's a digital release, I just don't wanna pay that much for a game. Happily a local retailer was selling it for about 43€, so I got it from there instead. 
 
Also, looking through upcoming big releases on Steam, all of them are 49,99€. But then again, non of them is StarCraft, yo.

There actually charging £45 in the UK on there store. It's only £30-35 in stores. So even though theres no licence to pay or any packaging they still see fit to charge £15 on top.
 
Anyone that pays that is nothing short of a mug even for a blizzard game.

" So I went to buy SC2 from Blizzard's online store this morning. Shocked to see that I had missed the fact that even the digital licence is $60. I never had a doubt I would buy this game but I am now wondering if this sets a bad precedent. I'm thinking about waiting or perhaps not ever "buying" SC2 just because of Activision/Blizzard's money grubbing attempts here. Does this make me crazy? Is anyone else angry about this?  "

" So I went to buy SC2 from Blizzard's online store this morning. Shocked to see that I had missed the fact that even the digital licence is $60. I never had a doubt I would buy this game but I am now wondering if this sets a bad precedent. I'm thinking about waiting or perhaps not ever "buying" SC2 just because of Activision/Blizzard's money grubbing attempts here. Does this make me crazy? Is anyone else angry about this?  "

60$ for PC if money grubbing in my opinion and here is my reasoning. Console makers get a cut for each unit sold example: Modern Warfare 2 makes a sale on PS3 Sony gets a cut.Dell ,HP, ATI, Nvidia etc.  get nothing from a PC copy of Modern Warfare 2.No one get a fee because PC is a open platform. Inflation seems like bull too if console games are around 70$ then you can argue. Point of inflation is they should both move up not only PC. licensing fees make console games prices higher its that simple.The only reason you charge more for PC games is you want more money.

This is not the first Blizzard game to be released at the $60 price-point.

I don't know where people are getting $60 from, I can have it delivered to my house for £29.74 including postage and VAT. That works out to about $46.16.

All in all, if Blizzard slights me out of $60 every 12 years for a Starcraft game, I think I'll be OK. I've waited a long time to play SC2, the $100 CE was a non-issue for me. 
 
I'd rather pay 100 bucks for a good game, than 10 for some crap. I know SC2 will get many times that amount in value out of me.

" @Th3_James said:

" In the store I bought it from this morning it was $59.99 Canadian, I got my friends discount so ended up paying $57.50 with taxes, but still...That's cheaper than most new console game releases, and it's pretty fucking good. $60 for a digital licence is perfectly reasonable to me.   It's only a few hours of work for the countless hours of entertainment I will get from this game, so for me it's very cheap entertainment. Still, I wish this game were for sale on steam, and not blizzards battle.net "

What "friends discount" are you talking about? "

" It would make sense to me for Blizzard to charge quite a bit less for the digital version of the game, since those sales are essentially pure profit minus the trivial bandwidth cost. Remember that there are packaging, distribution, and wholesale discounts that all cost Blizzard money. Of course, no one knows what these numbers are, but something tells me that Blizz could sell the digital version of Starcraft 2 for $50 or even $40 and still make more profit per copy than the $60 retail boxed SKU.
 
Of course, no publisher wants to set that sort of precedent because they're all looking forward to the quickly approaching day when all games will be only sold digitally. They have to price them the same as the retail versions now to get consumers used to the idea of paying "full" price for digitally distributed games. "

" @ISuperGamerI said:

" @Th3_James said:

" In the store I bought it from this morning it was $59.99 Canadian, I got my friends discount so ended up paying $57.50 with taxes, but still...That's cheaper than most new console game releases, and it's pretty fucking good. $60 for a digital licence is perfectly reasonable to me.   It's only a few hours of work for the countless hours of entertainment I will get from this game, so for me it's very cheap entertainment. Still, I wish this game were for sale on steam, and not blizzards battle.net "

What "friends discount" are you talking about? "

He works at the store, I was driving to pick up the game anyways, he offered to give me his employee discount.  "

I can't remember a time when digital versions of a game were ever cheaper than their retail packaged counterparts. I paid $60 for the Collector's Edition though; Amazon games credit for pre-ordering various products is just awesome like that.

I never buy $60 PC games. Not to hard to do seeing as those games are mostly games I don't care about. I don't understand why digital versions of things aren't cheaper, even if it's by 50 cents.

" I hope Blizzard is at least gratefull to all you fanboys,  who are going to defend  their games no matter what. Look at some newly released games or even some upcoming games. Notice anything strange? Yep, they're 50$. What exactly makes Starcraft II so deserving of a 60$ price tag? No LAN? Same 3 races? Lack of any real innovations? New BattleNet (yeah, I guess Blizzard finally realized that voice chat should be part of their games). The only thing sofakingcool did was lament a bit about the price, but all the fanboys took it very personal. Chill people, and face the facts: there isn't any serios reason why this is 60$. This price tag is just another negative in a very long list. Next up, maybe you'll have to pay to play on BattleNet. ;) "

Blizzard games have been $60 for many many years now. They pump a shitload of time and money into each one of their games. They have every right to charge you whatever they want. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
 
This isn't EA or some Activision yearly game. The last time Blizzard released a full retail game was six years ago.

" @JackPack said:

" I hope Blizzard is at least gratefull to all you fanboys,  who are going to defend  their games no matter what. Look at some newly released games or even some upcoming games. Notice anything strange? Yep, they're 50$. What exactly makes Starcraft II so deserving of a 60$ price tag? No LAN? Same 3 races? Lack of any real innovations? New BattleNet (yeah, I guess Blizzard finally realized that voice chat should be part of their games). The only thing sofakingcool did was lament a bit about the price, but all the fanboys took it very personal. Chill people, and face the facts: there isn't any serios reason why this is 60$. This price tag is just another negative in a very long list. Next up, maybe you'll have to pay to play on BattleNet. ;) "

Are you serious? Whether you can figure it out or not, SC2 is a triple A title. A game doesn't earn a huge following and continue to be played a decade+ after it's release by being a giant steaming pile. What is your master plan on what SC2 should be? I think it's brilliant the way it is.  I do however agree that digital copies should be cheaper than retail boxes. They save money on packaging/shipping/ etc. If they pass part of that along then the market has a higher saturation point. More copies sold. More $$$. "

" Blizzard games have been $60 for many many years now. They pump a shitload of time and money into each one of their games. They have every right to charge you whatever they want. If you don't like it, don't buy it.  This isn't EA or some Activision yearly game. The last time Blizzard released a full retail game was six years ago. "

Prices in the UK are interesting. Lets look at Steam first, most new games come in at either £29.99 or £35 for new releases. Online retailers will stock the same games for between £25-£29.99 normally because their warehouse (Play,gameplay.co.uk)  is on that island (Guernsey?) which is exempt from some form of tax which explains the discount. Amazon seems to price very erratic in the UK, sometimes you'll get a good deal, other times a terrible deal. Retail shops will normally sell for £35-£40 for new titles. In the UK it seems that retailers (for PC market anyway) seem to take the hit on new releases (well normally £5-£10 under the RRP). Although even 15 years ago these prices were near enough exactly the same, the only large difference being the introduction of online retailers doing discounts off the RRP.  Now what I don't get is how fast titles come down on price, Dawn of War 2 had gone from £35 in shops down to £10 from February to November, but other titles had stayed at £30. 
 
Still £45 is asking a bit much, considering that its near enough a 29% price rise from a  pessimistic price. This is especially true when retailers make nothing on games as it is but the digital download lines Actizards pockets. Still, I am going to end up picking it up, probably at £35 from an online retailer, I see no reason to buy a digital version with less worth for more money.

What would I have with a boxed copy aside from a box and a DVD? Both of which are useless.
 
I'm paying $60 anyway - this way I am paying it to the game company that made the game I wanted. I'd rather support them in this purchasing endeavor than any number of retailers and distributors. 

The boxed copy comes with a crappy note pad though! 
 
ADVANTAGE: RETAIL. :D

" The boxed copy comes with a crappy note pad though!   ADVANTAGE: RETAIL. :D "

Well, I went to buy my digital copy, had the website throw out a ton of errors and then attempt to charge my credit card 12 times for the game.  So I'm going to be fine once I get it reduced back down to just $60.

In this thread, we find out gamers who either just started to play Blizzard games, or started to play on consoles and now are looking into PC games. 
 
Diablo II and Warcraft III were both $60, 10 years ago.  Both the BattleChests for both games on their digital store are the stock price of retail and they never discount.  For the love of god, stop complaining about it by making another thread.   Blizzard never discounts because people keep buying at that price, and their games sell...let alone have the longest legs for pretty much any other company (I guess Valve is up there too).   
 
Pro Tip - If you want to protest what Blizzard has been doing for 10 years, don't buy their games. 
 
Pro Tip 2 - Most long time Blizzard fans already locked down their Battle.net Real ID, and registered all older Blizzard games.  We can now freely re-download them with our correct serials at anytime for both PC and Mac, hell...I could do it a hundred times a day.  There's no DRM, it's all tied to your account so it's safe.