You guys are over exaggerating way to much lol

The premium maps have been on the cards since before SC2 launched, it is meant to allow the best of the best modders monetise their work. There will be quality assurance and back then they said that even DotA for WC3 wouldn't meet their quality bar.

The real money auction house for Diablo 3 is also not a bad thing necessarily, people have been selling items in Diablo 2 for years and WoW. All Blizzard are really doing is making an official secure channel to do the trades to stop people scamming etc. There is still an in game auction house etc it's totally optional.

The draconian DRM and lack of LAN are the real issues

The SC2 issues is only really a problem if the expansions cost more than $40

Thank you. Everyone is making way too big of a deal out of this.

Well, the consequences of those two are the problem, not that in itself.

- High latency for cross region play where none existed in SC1
- Professional tournaments being interrupted severely by B.net issues
- Needing a constant internet connection to play
- Having to buy new accounts if you want different names, or multiple people in the same house to play against each other, or to ladder as different races

And then 20 years from now, you just want to pull that old game out to how your kid what a hardcore game was like and not some hardcore dancing game but discovered that you couldn't because there's no server for you to play... offline or online.

As a company overall they still make quality games. WoW became the best selling MMO (by far over Everquest , beating it by what, 7+ million subscribers? and now who even plays EQ?) and Starcraft 2 sold quite well and was pretty darn good.

However, in the terms of wallet rape they have become all about the $$$. Look at how many expansion packs they have released since WoW came out. Look at what became of Starcraft 2 (3 seperate campaigns, three seperate wallet rapes of $60 each.)

I'd say It's Activisions fault, because even though WoW had so many expansions thats to be expected of a MMO if you want your content to be fresh and not get people to quit because you lack content.

You may argue that these were planned from the start, but Quiraj, Trolls (forgot name) and Naxtramass were certainly not little expansions to the game... same for PVP arenas.... and all that without payment of a pack.

Now yess the burnig crusade was a consequent expansion with a lot more content... but... yeah well I forgot my point ^^

Unfortunately, CDs and DVDs as a medium do not have that long of a lifespan anyways... (well burned ones are 5 years IIRC, but printed ones are short too no?)

anyways... virtual console of bliz games for massive $$ will be under way by then...

+5 Respect points.

DRM and LAN aside, EA haven't done a terrible job with Blizzard, and let's face it - No matter what they did there were always going to be people kicking and screaming against 'the corporation'.

They said that HotS and LotV will be expansions and each will be priced and have content in line with past Blizzard expansions. They will not be full price and will likely be $40 slim possibility they will go up to $50 as WoL was $60 which would mean I probably wont be buying at launch but definatly not $60.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/starcraftiilegacyofthevoid/news/6325853/starcraft-ii-heart-of-the-swarm-qanda-with-dustin-browder?sid=6325853&mode=previews

http://sc2portal.blogspot.com/2011/05/starcraft-2-q-on-heart-of-swarm.html