According to a Eurogamer report, Blizzard has told journalists that it will not allow reviews of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty to be published before the game's launch next Tuesday (July 27). Eurogamer said that, from its conversations with people at Blizzard, that much of it has to do with Battle.net.
Blizzard has told Eurogamer that the new Battle.net and the online features that will be introduced with it are "so integral to the game that it would be both impractical and undesirable for press to review it before servers go live." While a good portion of multiplayer in Starcraft II has been revealed thanks to the public beta test for the game, Blizzard has done a good job of keeping the game's campaign mode secret, as well as the game's "challenge mode," which allegedly bridges the gap between single and multiplayer.
For a more colorful take on this story, we offer this from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
In what journalists are calling a “Dick Move”, Blizzard has announced that there will be no reviews of StarCraft 2 before lunch. Would-be reviewers are going to have to wait until after everybody in the office has had lunch before posting their review of the hotly anticipated RTS.
Wait, hang on. Sorry, I misread my RSS feed. Blizzard has announced there will be no StarCraft 2 reviews before launch. Before the game’s launch, on Tuesday, when the BattleNet servers go live. According to Eurogamer Blizzard was “unable to offer an official comment at the time of writing”, though they gather that it’s to do with Blizzard not wanting anybody to play the game without the full suite of BattleNet features. What did you have for lunch today, readers?
Source: Eurogamer
Comments
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Frankly I don't care about them breaking the game into 3 parts as we have seen with other games one can do a sequel every 1-2 years with the same engine. The main problems I have with SC2 is no lan and everything goes threw Bnet. If they do MP demo that is like the old spawned copy then there will be little to complain about but until they show more varied support I am just not in the buying mood.
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Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
More BS from Blizzard.
No surprise by now. Kotick really fucked their integrity.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
It would be like reviewing an Xbox 360 game that was heavy in Xbox Live features without internet. It would just be stupid to do it, but every site would want to be "First!" because of the massive traffic it would drive in.
After playing the beta I can safely say it's not going to be a let down.
Pwnage of Empires
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Might be for good reasons, but I doubt it. SC2 has been on my radar for a long time, but the more info I heard about the more I grew displeased overall with the way it was shaping up.
I am going to pass on the game now, too many good games are on my plate already for me to chance it with this product.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
What didnt you like about it? Just curious.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Some little ones here and there, but the biggest contributor to me not touching the game is the way the campaign is being split into 3 full priced games.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Blizzard haven't said that the other two campaigns will be full price. And if all you care about is MP then you only need one game.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
It worked with Half-life 2 - I'd prefer to have the story a bit at a time, rather than wait years more to have the whole thing at once, and probably an out-of-date game.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Problem with that is we've been waitign years for the next installment.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Giving that Blizzard is now hooked up with Activision they could very well be tryign to hide a bad game, or they just don't ant anything spoiled, at least the optimist in me says that.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Considering that, thanks to how they distributed keys through battle.net accounts this time, the SC2 beta was probably Blizzard's biggest yet with the possible exception of Cataclysm, I doubt they'd get far trying to hide a bad game. People who were barely aware the game existed would already know it was bad.
While I'm at it, they DID do the same thing with Starcraft, Warcraft III, and the expansions to each. Activision wasn't a factor in either decision, and it wasn't even that heard of back when SC1 came out.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
I call bullshit. They don´t have the right to demand to the press what the have to publish. It looks like they don´t have confidence on their product or it is just simple bad and they are waiting for the public for just buy it because is Starcraft.
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Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Well its more a sign the review industry is not independant of the publishers.....
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-is-cigital-disobedience/
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
I will still play it long befor I buy it.....
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-is-cigital-disobedience/
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
I really could not care. At all.
I either get a mix of trustworthy and untrustworthy review sites to tell me whether or not something is good, or have people it buy it first and tell me it's good before I make a move. If I wanted it badly enough not to wait, I'd have it by now, but if one thinks a 3rd-party review is going to change people's minds...?
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
I get what Blizzard is saying, but most of the review is written before it is posted. Unless the Battle.net suite is a great improvement it won't change much of the review.
Or this could be a tactic to hide a bad game so more sales are made before the news gets out.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
"Or this could be a tactic to hide a bad game so more sales are made before the news gets out."
Normally I would agree, but this is Blizzard we're talking about. They don't release anything before it's ready. And I would be very surprised if SC2 turned out to be bad, besides the backlash if it was bad would be tremendous regardless of reviews.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
We've seen this all before... when a company holds back the reviews, it almost consistantly means the game is not nearly as good as promised. Blizzard is a shadow of what it once was... not that that is saying much. Diablo was a very fun series, but as far as Starcraft and Warcraft go, they're pretty generic RTS games.
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
Jeez what a bunch of cynical people on here. Just because Blizzard joined with Activion doesn't mean it's going to effect their games. WoW is awesome (and constantly being expanded and updated) andStarcraft is STILL being played by millions of people.
Personally I don't need reviews to tell me it's awesome and don't care what others think. I'll be getting my collectors edition on day one baby :D
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
The amusing thing is that people are busy speculating that they're hiding a bad game. This is despite the fact that people have been playing the Starcraft 2 beta for months now. If the gameplay sucked, we'd know by now.
What this really amounts to is that there aren't going to be any reviews of the single player aspects before launch. They aren't forbidding people from posting reviews, they simply aren't shipping any early copies to the press.
-Gray17
Re: No StarCraft II Reviews Before Launch
they're hooked up with Activision now if you forget, anything can happen.