Starcaft 2: Fun with maths and stupidity

As most of you will know by now starcraft 2 is to be split up in to 3 games, or parts, or episodes for lack of a better word. Expiations might have been best if it wasn't for the fact that they also involve a reorganizing of content from the planned first game.

This is, i'm afraid, where the fun with stupidity starts. When the news was first announced there was an out cry about blizzard being money grubbing ass holes out to rape there loyal fans of all there money. In a short space of time they where called the new EA, or in other words the new Antichrist. Which in part was understandable given the lack of information about exactly what was happening when we first got to hear about this rather interesting move. I myself was some what shocked by the announcement and honestly didn't understand exactly what was going on. Which meant i kept my mouth shut, something which more people should learn to do when they are faced with something they don't quite grasp.

Once more news about what happened started to filter out and i was able to wrap my head around exactly what was going here i started to get angry. Not with blizzard as you might have thought but with the utter amazing stupidity people right across the net seemed to still be displaying about the subject. I was foolish to think that this was due to them still having a lack of information about what was happening and as such felt the need to explain to one or two people. I made a mistake. I thought facts, logic, and common sense where some how meaningful in a nerd debate about video games. I should have known better.

Anyway i will make my case here so that i do not have to keep repeating my self. Before i start i would like to make it clear that this is not me arguing that its a good move for the game, or not. Or even that the games are going to be any good, or not. This is purely a reaction to the idea that blizzard is some how doing something awful and wrong and screwing over there fans.

Firstly a link:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/10/...rcraft-ii.html

go on, read it, it will help a lot. Yet i'll sum up the interesting bits anyway. They claim here that this move was not dreamt up by marketing or as a way to make more money but purely as a reaction to the course the game has taken in development. They found them self's with a terren campaign that was taking on a life of its own, become bigger and more complex than planed and they where faced with a choice. Do they savagely cut back on it and try and fit everything the though was cool in to the 1/3 of the missions they had planned or did they do the unthinkable and make it a full campaign and create the other 2 as there own stand along products with full campaigns of there own?

I think we all know which they felt they should do. So what dose that really mean and why are we talking about it. Well it's simple really, blizzard are not just cutting up game they had and selling it bits, they are expanding on what they had planed to the point to tripling the end content.

Which bring me on to the fun with maths as i start to talk about relative value. what is relative value? well at heart it's taking how much you spent on a product and dividing it by how long you use it for... of course there then comes the judgement about if you enjoyed it (or enjoyment value, it will come up later on) but given that you can't tell if you enjoyed something before you've paid to use it it presents some what of a problem... which is why we read reviews and feedback from people who have.

Still, take how much you spend to go see a film, and divide it by how long that film was... now take how much you spend to get a game and divide it by how long that game was. The point being that games may be more expensive but almost always have better relative value than films. Your 'money per hour' is simply better with most games than it is with most films.

Now lets do some maths:

The relative value of Starcraft 2 as it was:

Price = a
content = b
relative value = c

a/b=c

The relative value of starcraft 2 as it is:

3a/3b=c

in both cases C stays the same... how much you are paying per hour of content is the same in both cases.

in other more simple terms, and i'm sorry for shouting.

YOU ARE GETTING TRIPLE THE CONTENT AT TRIPLE THE PRICE!

Now this is where logic seems to brake down with some people. They still argue that blizzard are some how trying to rip fans of or are being greedy for wanting to be paid for there work. What is odd about that is that people where happy to pay a given amount in the first case for a given amount of content... yet when that content is reorganise and expanded paying the same relative amount of money per hour of play is suddenly the work of the devil.

Which is just stupid.

Now that's out of the way we come to the subjective part. Is this a good thing for the game? is the game going to be better or worse in terms of enjoyment value... or in other words will this bigger game be more enjoyable per hour than it's smaller counter part? i have no idea what so ever. In fact i'm not too sure about starcraft 2... which is something i feel i need to point out as people have this assumption that just beacuse i defend blizzard on the purely logical level i must some how be a fan boy who will love the game no matter what.... which again, makes no sense but can you see a trend forming? i can.

What has happened here is something unique in that we all knew expiations where coming to starcraft 2... just take a look at DoW, the main game and it's first expiation are very much the same thing as is happening here... yet people are more happy with that being tagged on rather than incorporated from the start? i find that odd.

In this case blizzard have been lead to the idea by the course of the design of the game and so have found it best to be upfront about the ideas of expiations and in fact embrace them in a way we've never really seen before. I have no idea how it's going to work yet but it will be interesting to see. It may end up being that the most interesting thing about starcraft 2 is what it tried to do with it's set up rather than anything in the game it's self.

Anyway, i hope i have given you a better understand of what is going on and why people who are blasting the idea with out giving it a second thought are some what... well... dumbasses...

Please, every one, if you are going to argue about why this is going to suck do so on the many valid concerns that exist and not over some fake idiotic idea that blizzard is evil and trying to screw you over.