blizzard-entertainment posts

Blizzard is currently targeting the release of StarCraft II for the first half of 2010 and their next World of Warcraft expansion pack, Cataclysm, is due out sometime in 2010 as well. But what about Diablo III? Blizzard first announced the action-RPG sequel nearly 18 months ago but has yet to give any hint on a ship date for that highly anticipated game.

The newly launched Techland web site (run by Time magazine) has posted up some quotes from Blizzard exec Rob Pardo on that subject. He admits that Diablo III " . . . is not going to be out next year." So why announce a game that is going to take so long to develop? He also admits. "We always announce all of our games too early. We realize that and go, 'You know what? Next time we're not going to do that.' And then we always fail at that." However he says Blizzard would rather be late in releasing a game like Diablo III than releasing a game on time that just doesn't work. In fact going forward Pardo says their attitude when revealing a new title is, "Here's the game we're working on, we're going to start talking about it and who knows when it ships."

It's been a few months since there's been a lot of new content uploaded to Blizzard's StarCraft II web site. That changed today as the site added an additional 17 new screenshots for the upcoming sci-fi RTS blockbuster (we have reproduced them and put them in our ever growing StarCraft II gallery). The shots are a mix of gameplay visuals with some in-game engine cinematics like the shot you see above.

In addition to the new visuals, there are also some articles on the process of making 1v1 multiplayer maps for the game as well as how Blizzard's development team will be creating the single player story/campaign. There's even a new StarCraft II-based short story to check out that focuses on the new Zerg Changling unit. And no, there's still no word on the beta test . . . sorry.

Blizzard fans who had hoped to be rolling sevens and pulling on some one armed bandits in Las Vegas next year during BlizzCon can now hold off. Our sister site Wow.com is now reporting that their previous story of BlizzCon 2010 being held in Vegas in late July isn't happening after all.

The Las Vegas Convention Center's web site did indeed show that Blizzard's annual fan event was booked for their venue for July 30 and 31. However the venue's reps have now admitted that due to human error, they had listed the convention on the site when in fact no such confirmation had been made.

Interestingly the convention center rep did say they had one conversation with Blizzard about having BlizzCon come to their venue which may indicate that Blizzard might still move BlizzCon away from Anaheim, California to a new location for the 2010 event. Of course we will post up any BlizzCon news when it happens.

It's not been a good fall season for StarCraft II fans. We've learned that Blizzard's upcoming RTS sequel won't be released this year but has been pushed back to the first half of 2010. We've also learned that not even the beta test will happen this year either.So when something new is revealed about the game we all sit up and take notice.

In this case the game's official Twitter web page has a link to a new screenshot from the game that shows off for the first time the Brutalisk, a new Zerg unit that gamers will have to deal with in the single player campaign. As you can see it towers over the puny Terrans. Details about the unit have yet to be revealed.

Several months ago, back when Blizzard was still targeting a release of StarCraft II by the end of 2009, Pocket Books announced plans to release a prequel novel, StarCraft: Heaven's Devils, by author William C. Dietz, in December. Now that Blizzard is targeting a first half 2010 release date for the long awaited sci-fi RTS game, Pocket Books has delayed the release of the novel as well.

According to Amazon.com, the new release date for the novel is April 6, 2010 which certainly is in that broad time period that Blizzard has stated publicly for the game's release. It's possible that Pocket Books may know something about Blizzard's tentative specific release date for the game and adjusted the novel's release date accordingly . . . or they could just be guessing.

If you were hoping that maybe, just maybe, Blizzard might give its long suffering StarCraft II fan base an Christmas present by launching the multiplayer beta for the long awaited sci-fi RTS game before the end of the year . . . well, it looks like it's not going to happen.

Fan site StarCraft Legacy, getting info from a Russian games convention that Blizzard attended this weekend, is reporting that the game's lead producer Chris Sigaty admitted during a presentation that the multiplayer beta, previously planned to launch last summer, won't start until sometime in 2010. As we reported last week, Blizzard has now said they are targeting a release date for the full game for the first half of 2010. If the multiplayer beta doesn't start until 2010, that likely means the full game won't be released until sometime in the April-June 2010 time frame.

[Via Eurogamer]

During Activision Blizzard's financial conference call. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime stated that they are currently targeting the long awaited sci-fi RTS sequel StarCraft II to release sometime in the first half of 2010. Previously Blizzard would only admit to a release of the game sometime in the 2010 time period.

While Morhaime stated during the conference call that the development team is working towards the game's beta test launch, he would not confirm any dates on when the beta will actually begin. Last June at E3 the company stated they hoped to have the beta launch during the summer but had to retract that plan when their plans to release StarCraft II changed from their previous fall 2009 date.

Publisher Activision Blizzard has released its latest financial results for the quarter that ended on September 30 and as it turns out their revenues came in better than they had previously predicted. For the quarter the company brought in $703 million compared to their predictions of $680 million. However the revenues were still slightly lower than the $711 million that the company recorded for the same time period a year ago. Activision Blizzard recorded a profit of $15 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $105 million for the same period a year ago.

Activision's only new PC game product for their current quarter is, of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which the publisher has high hopes that it will be one of the biggest game launches of all time. Their overall game line-up for 2010 includes the release of StarCraft II, World of Warcraft Cataclysm and a new Call of Duty game, among others. We are currently listening in on Activision's conference call to see if they will reveal any more info on their future game launches.

Since its release in 2004, Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft has stayed on the monthly subscription business model for the most part. While Blizzard does charge its players extra for things like faction or race changes in their characters, they have not gone into the business of selling in-game items for real money as other MMOs have done.

That may finally be changing, however, as Blizzard has now introduced a way to buy in-game pets for your World of Warcraft character via Blizzard's online store. Currently only two pets are available for $10 each; Lil' K.T. and Pandaren Monk (shown to the right) Blizzard has also announced that from now until December 31, half of the proceeds from the purchase of the latter character will go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

[Via Wow.com]

After weeks of waiting, Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft finally came back online in mid-September in China after reported issues with that country's government kept the transition to a new provider, NetEase, from, moving as planned. Now our sister site WoW.com reports that there could be problems in China yet again.

According to the article, China's General Administration of Press and Publications have ordered NetEase to suspend taking new accounts and stop taking money from current subscribers. This is apparently at odds with another government entity, the Ministry of Culture, who have called their fellow government division's action's "not appropriate." Sounds like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.