At least someones trying to put out RTS games at a time when RTS's and PC's are supposed to be on their way to extinction.
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm sells 1.1 million in 48 hours
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Blizzard reveals two-day sales of latest RTS exceeds platinum status but fail to match Wings of Liberty.
Blizzard Entertainment announced today that StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm sold through 1.1 million copies worldwide during its first 48 hours. This includes physical and digital copies, though a breakdown of sales between the two was not divulged.
The game did not match the sales pace set by its predecessor, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, which sold 1.5 million copies over the same period of time in 2010.
Heart of the Swarm is the first of two expansions for Wings of Liberty. The third and final entry--Legacy of the Void--is currently in development and has no release date. It will focus on the Protoss race.
For more on Heart of the Swarm, check out GameSpot's review.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
181 comments
I'm sad to see this. Battle.Net 2.0 troubled launch and poor design choices decimated Blizzard's community. No clan support, no public chat channels, no way to share maps with your friends - the list is endless.
While Heart of the Swarm repairs Battle.Net 2.0 and restores it to the state in which Battle.Net 1.0 - which is now 10 years old - was, it just isn't enough.
Battle.Net 2.0 literally ruined StarCraft. Really sad in my opinion. It didn't have to be this way.
3 Like that campaign can't be as fun and interesting as they used to be, when you're limited to only one race per game
I think I barely made it to mission 5 on the first one, but I never bought SC for the multiplayer.
5 Like They probably would've sold more if it wasn't so expensive. I thought expansions are usually around $20.
@tim1935 It's Blizzard, not EA. So people flock and buy like sheeps anyway, no matter what they do :)
That's why they can charge whatever they want, even though it is only an expansion.
@Fanible I'm not saying which price would be right for an expansion, but it just shouldn't be more than full games. Not talking about SC2 WoL necessarily, but I've noticed that I can get a huge load of games, whether brand new, or even pre-order ones for cheaper than HotS would cost.
Now, if that isn't absurd I don't know what is.
Just an example, Bioshock Infinite costs less in quite a few places than HotS. And upcoming Watch_Dogs, which looks awesome, is less as well.
I can't remember exactly how much I, unfortunately, paid for WoL, maybe £35?, but for an expansion to cost about the same, something is wrong.
I don't care if someone argues that it is long enough to warrant the price. Point is, like you said as well, it is an expansion, nothing more.
But, like said, whether you buy it or not, your money, not mine. I won't be. I'm fed with Blizzard, not just SC2.
In my books, their downfall from top to flop in matter of few years has been an achievement on its own :D
@S4E @LJLuz @tim1935
The only notable expansions that could compare at a better value would be that from Rockstar (the GTAIV DLC and Red Dead Redemption DLC). No one else offers expansions like this. EA and the likes offer simplistic DLC. Mostly non-nonsensical add-ons that end up costing even more than an expansion in the end, and offer less content over a great period of time.
Expansions from past games before the stupid (and ironically sheep-following buyers) of DLC became the norm, they were typically $30.00. This was when games cost only $45-50. $40 for an expansion (which is not full price) is right in line when the original games now cost $60. It's virtually no different.
Furthermore the idea that they are splitting the game into three is an exaggerated claim at best. Wings of Liberty had 30 missions, which is normal for a full single player RTS game. The idea that the game should have included all three races with 70-90 missions, while it would have been amazing, is more wishful thinking than a realistic outlook. To attempt such a feat also would have delayed the game by a few more years (if not several).
The best thing about this string of conversation that they would have sold more if it was cheaper, while maybe true, is a minute point. It didn't sell THAT far less than Wings of Liberty, and considering it IS only an expansion, it's quite an impressive number. To expect an expansion to sell the same amount or more as the original game is a bizarre thought.
The biggest problem the expansions are facing is the spread out in time. You're going to have a natural fan base diminish in interest when the expansions are taking so long to produce (which is because they're more like brand new full single player games, not just expansions).
@LJLuz I have no problem with that thinking, and not with people who want to spend their money on this either. Up to everyone themselves how they want to "waste" their money.
What I don't like is people trying to justify the price of this expansion with some ridiculous excuses. Or "do your research" comments. This is not for you LJLuz, but saying that (about research), I can also say, I know exactly how it goes and I don't like it.
@S4E @bonzibuddyxxx Well, thinking by their side, I would do the same though. To launch the games periodicaly and at smaller periods of time than larger times between them, see Diablo III for example, over 10 years from the second one
2 Like @bonzibuddyxxx ... speaking of sheeps :D
I guess you are referring to yourself with that 5 year remark, because to me you sound exactly like these people that make the industry go this way? And the part about ignorance fits you quite well as well.
Blizzard splits SC2 in three parts and sells all of them as full priced games, clever business strategy no doubt, when people like you happily pay :)
Blizzard is laughing all the way to the bank.
It' utterly impossible to match WoL as you have to already own WoL to play HotS.
I really enjoyed HotS, i felt their biggest problem was not so much in the writing as it was in the fact it came out 2 friggin years after the first. Everyone's played the crap out of it already.
2 Like 3 reasons why 1.1 million copies are not matched by 1.5 million of WOL .
1)- It's expansion .
2)- Worse marketing campaign than WOL (I read a lot of people on reviews throughout the internet saying they didn't know about the launch) .
3)- Diablo 3 hate .
0.04 million less copies are not a big deal , in this era when game sells more than 1 million in whole year as a multiplatform game is considered a success . Here we have a exclusive to one platform game suffering from above mentioned reasons and sold 1.1 million in 2 days (already earned around 50 million dollars) and that's just a start . Will easily sell more than 6 million copies in a year .
1 Like @Cloud_imperium You also forgot to mention that this should have already been part of SC2, instead of Blizzards' blatant money-making adventure, mutilated game that was spread into multiple parts.
But hey ho, people are still buying it, even though Blizzard screwed them over with this as well.
2 Like Good to see an actual expansion which seems rare these days when companies would rather nickel and dime you to death. Hots adds a great new campaign and makes some great new additions and changes to the MP if your still into SC2 then theres a lot there for you well worth the money imo.
2 Like @Gen007 I agree. I would rather get a $40 expansion that I can put hours into than a $10 dlc that I would play maybe for one hour. Dead SPace 3 DLC is a PERFECT example. All they did was cut the ending and packaged it for $10. But even with this expansion, people still bitch about Blizzard. Why not get whole campaign at once? Why did they break it into 3 episodes? Wahh.
No matter how good you think you are at this game, there's always some kid in Korea that's better than you.
I'm still interested in SC2, even after all the horror stories. Probably wait for the final bundle wholesale.
@DiscGuru101 Most horror stories actually come from D3 and WoW haters/frustrated fans. Of course a lot of people are still idealizing Brood War and think of SC2 as a giant step back. Imo WoL is great and Hots is even greater.
1 Like I am really starting to hate people that call themselves gamers now. Maybe it is just the online comments that I hate, But I miss the days were people knew that the story line of a game is someone's novel and not open for debate. If you like a game fine if you don't like a game fine either way people didn't spend month after month trolling or trashing a game that others will enjoy just fine. They just played something else END OF STORY!
1 Like @Digifox006 There isn't a whole lot to play right now, maybe that's the problem. I understand where you're coming from, there is an awful lot of negativity surrounding forums these days.
4 Like The campaign was good, not great (WoL gave a great feel of the world but this one was back to old style floating heads giving you barebones intel, and it lacked the options WoL had). Still, for the amount of content it had, 40 bucks isn't bad--remember, people complain about DLC now but this is technically an expansion, not DLC, which people used to not have issues with.
I've got problems with Blizzard myself, as I'm not a fan of the DRM, the AH in Diablo III, or this pandering to professional players who make up less than 1% of the population in SCII. However, I'm even more annoyed with people just saying "Blizzard sucks, Diablo III sucks, SCII sucks, everything sucks" with no explanation. They just assume everyone else shares the same opinion as them. It's fanboy myopia at its worst.
1 Like I don't agree with the price point of 40$, so gonna have to shell out 140$ for the complete SC2 experience? Naw, waiting till its on sale.
@Talok Would have bought it for $19.99. Will wait too. How $140? Did you buy the Limited edition? With the price now I come to $100
1 Like I got HOTS and WOL as well. I never played Starcraft but i did play Age of Empire's, Age of Empire's 2 Age of King's, Age of Empire's 2 Conqueror's, and Age of Empire's III. Which were made by Ensemble Studios. i also was into Age of Mythology and the Titian's expansion which was also made by Ensemble Studio's. Another RTS that i played was also a game called Empire Earth. Can't recall the dev from that one because well it's been a long time since i played Empire Earth. Another one is Lucasart's own literation of Age of Empire's but with a Star Wars twist. It was called Star Wars Battle GroundsThen there was Warcraft but i never played the first two i think. I have played Warcraft 3 The Reign of Chaos and the expansion pack Frozen throne.The point that i am trying to get across is i like Starcraft 2 and it's sadly the last franchise or even publisher that is still willing to contribute to it's franchise that played a part in establishing the RTS games that are around today. Blizzard maybe making some questionable business decision's but at least Starcraft is still around which carry's alot of the past RTS games that also was one of the puzzle piece's to today's RTS games.
This comment has been deleted
@ewjiml It's funny how he says "Campaign sucks and fanboys and bla bla bla" While he is PS3 only gamer .
1 Like Just finished HOTS and I thought besides the usual, cliched action scenes and dialogue (which was still entertaining btw) it was very well done. I kind of got bored of Wings of Liberty because I thought the characters, besides Tychus and Jim, were lame-ducks. Definitely, not the case with this one. The cutscenes were superb....my favorite one being Shifting Perspective. She was so badass in that one....
8 Like What a complete turn around for Blizzard. They used to be THE name in gaming. Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 weren't anywhere near their predecessors. Blizzard spent too much time milking World of Warcraft. Also, I can't believe people are saying cutscenes are streamed and not on the computer? wtf? What a waste of a company.
8 Like I'm not one of those 1.1 million. I'm done with Blizzard and the lazy arsh attitude they have.
WOW is a joke any more, D3 was a failure of epic proportions and SC just doesn't interest me any more.
@MatrixGamer78 @Truth_Hurts_U Just Origin not steam . If you are saying X rocks that doesn't mean that you must say Y sucks because X rocks .
Conversation powered by Livefyre
Content you might like…
-
Starcraft II gets spawning for non-upgraded players
Players now able to access additional Starcraft II content when in a lobby with friends.
- Jun 4, 2013
Users who looked at this article also looked at these content items.
Hot Stories
Newsmakers
-
Preowned games on Xbox One decided by publisher
Microsoft confirms that it won't charge any fees for any titles eligible for resale. Full Story
- Posted Jun 6, 2013 4:00 pm PT
-
Microsoft confirms required 24-hour check-in for Xbox One
Playing Xbox One games on somebody else's console will also require a check-in every hour. Full Story
- Posted Jun 6, 2013 3:41 pm PT
Featured Stories
-
PlayStation 4 will cost $399
Sony confirms a $399/€399/£349 price for the PlayStation 4 hardware, $100 cheaper than Microsoft's Xbox One. Full Story
- Posted Jun 10, 2013 11:19 pm PT
-
New Halo coming to Xbox One; runs at 60fps
Will be coming in 2014. Full Story
- Posted Jun 10, 2013 11:11 am PT
-
Del Toro calls BioShock Infinite a 'mindf*ck'
Pan's Labyrinth director praises Ken Levine and Irrational Games for latest BioShock, says he would consider large-scale Pacific Rim game "God willing." Full Story
- Posted Jun 13, 2013 8:53 am PT
-
Microsoft: Xbox One will be leading product people love and embrace
Xbox boss Don Mattrick believes concerns over connectivity are overblown, recommends Xbox 360 for those without an Internet connection. Full Story
- Posted Jun 11, 2013 5:52 pm PT
-
New Mirror's Edge is open-world
EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau describes new project as "open-world action adventure game." Full Story
- Posted Jun 12, 2013 10:45 am PT
Submit News
Related Game
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm
- Publisher(s): Blizzard Entertainment
- Genre: Strategy
- Release:
- ESRB: T
Recent News
-
Sony on why it won't hinder PS4 used games--flexibility creates value
PlayStation boss Jack Tretton says ability to freely resell games creates value in the initial purchase; PS4 won't require online check-in because many...
