Comment by eric-hu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eric-hu | Hacker News Reader

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I'm pretty happy with what Blizzard has done for the StarCraft 2 esports community.

I'm actively trying to get better at it. I got more into following the professional scene over the last year, and I just purchased a War Chest in game this past weekend. It's a skin pack for my units, but 25% of the sale goes towards the winter WCS prize pool for professional StarCraft 2. I bought it to support the top tier competitors.

I also enjoy a game with a good single player mode, but StarCraft is deep mental challenge. There is no pay to win. I have a consistent pool of opponents near my skill level to play against, and the game is balanced enough* that I should be able to climb the ladder with any race.

* I think players will generally whine about balance in the matchups they struggle with. I do too, but this is actually part of the challenge of improving at the game.

my game of choice was WC3, i still watch it played at high levels and it's pretty amazing how well designed and entertaining the game is 15 years on with the 3 unique race systems, beautiful tilesets/models, fantastic music, etc. props to blizzard for keeping SC2/WC3 balanced and trying to bring in a new generation of fans with the graphical refresh

but lets be real about the resources expended on these old games and developing their successors vs. the new generation of money sinks. it's a simple ROI calculation and unless you have an old school game fanatic running the show, i know where you're going to put your money to sustain/grow the studio

4 races: horde, humans, undead & night elves.

you're right, 4 races for WC3. switched into SC2 thinking for a moment

For StarCraft 2, I think they're also doing a good job keeping it alive and relevant with the WCS brand. The collective prize pool for all tournaments is several million dollars. You're right that this is likely a drop in the bucket for Blizzard. I appreciate it anyways, since it's not likely to be a huge money maker for them.

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