It cannot be denied that Starcraft is one of the great monuments of gaming, or even e-sports in the world. In its heyday, Starcraft always attracted a huge number of players even though the tactical style and content did not change too much over time. Even though Blizzard has announced to stop developing Starcraft 2 since 2020, tournaments still take place, with total annual prizes reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And recently, when Microsoft’s acquisition of Blizzard is coming to an end, many players are expecting that Starcraft will once again be revived, even with a new game genre. While the player base for real-time strategy games may not be as large as many other titles, the latest success of Baldur’s Gate 3 proves that a game with excellent design can absolutely help. can create new trends. However, the future of Starcraft is still very bleak, especially when looking at the revenue this game can bring.
Specifically, although it was launched loudly in 2010 and achieved a significant amount of revenue, Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty still could not meet expectations. In fact, according to a former Blizzard developer, the revenue of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty is even less than the amount of money that World of Warcraft earned when selling a bundle of mount fashion bundles at a low price. $15/box. Reportedly, it was the Celestial Steed mount and its profits that finally convinced Blizzard Entertainment that microtransactions were worth the investment. Of course, along with that, games that do not take advantage of these transactions will gradually be eliminated, of which Starcraft 2 is the most typical example.
Similarly, Diablo Immortal and later Diablo 4 are also making profits in such forms. Faced with two options, working for many years with a large development team, or spending 50 hours to create a new mount to make more money, perhaps Blizzard can easily have its own answer. Therefore, the dream of having a Starcraft game is still relatively far away for fans.