Blizzard takes a swipe at pay-to-win games in its latest Starcraft 2 ad

By Asher Madan
last updated

Over the past few days there has been a lot of controversy surrounding Star Wars: Battlefront 2's microtransactions, and there's at least one major publisher taking a swipe.

The beta test was basically a match between who could unlock the most loot crates faster. Despite EA's promises to ease concerns about its pay-to-win loot crate system, it's still a fact that players can pay to gain power and other advantages over non-paying players.

The publisher recently said that they would lower the requirement for unlocking heroes by 75 percent, but the backlash continues across social media sites, particularly Twitter and reddit.

Blizzard seems to have noticed EA's recent public relations misfortunes and put out a series of posts on Twitter comparing the company's practices to their own. Recently, StarCraft 2 adopted a free-to-play model for the base game. Anyone can download the title and play it without feeling like they're at a disadvantage. You can read Blizzard's hilarious posts below.

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Blizzard highlighted the fact that StarCraft 2 doesn't require you to earn the Wings of Liberty campaign. Aside from that, there are no requirements when it comes to unlocking playable characters. There aren't any pay-to-win mechanics either. In essence, the game is the exact opposite of Star Wars: Battlefront 2. That's definitely one way to promote a title!

StarCraft 2 continues the saga of the Protoss, Terran and Zerg. Those who have played the first game all those years ago will recognize these races immediately. These powerful forces clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy game. Be sure to check out the title and its expansions at retailers.

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Asher Madan
Asher Madan

Asher Madan handles gaming news for Windows Central. Before joining Windows Central in 2017, Asher worked for a number of different gaming outlets. He has a background in medical science and is passionate about all forms of entertainment, cooking, and antiquing.

14 Comments
  • It would be helpful to highlight that along with cutting 75% of the credit requirement for heros, EA also cut 75% of the credit earnings (for campaigns at least), essentially nullifying the change.
  • Lol, seriously? So instead of 200 credits average that it was per match I think now it's 50 credits?
  • Roughly, yes.
  • The average credits per match are the same. I am still averaging 2-300 credits per match. the campaign has been dropped dramatically but so has the cost of the hero's. After the ten hour trial and a few hours last night I had more than enough credits for Luke Skywalker while also buying crates with in game currency. I might add that this includes completeing challeneges for more credits as well which I did not go out of my way to accomplish and those net me between 250-1000 credits if i remember correctly. I also unlocked most of the weapons provided in the deluxe edition with pure gameplay of a certain class. Its definately not given to you but its no longer the massive grind previously thought. 
  • That's really misleading
  • Plus you will now have a 3-hour cooldown for earning credits, at least in Arcade mode.
  • No way? Really?
  • I think Game of War brought this upon us...
  • Everyone is flipping out about this paying $60 for 1/3 of a game B.S.....you'd think the companies would get the message and knock this crap off already.
  • They won't. Especially BF fans are idiots and don't play for fun but for unlocks. A lot of them told me that unlocks are what keeps them playing. When they unlock everything they don't feel a reason to play. I don't know how others feel, but I used to waste hundreds of hours in old fps games like HL, UT and I didn't mind that my stats didn't record, that I didn't get achievements. We actually even chat during a match instead of playing... Look at modern gaming... I need to do my daily quest and you are slowing me... Essentially I am playing because I don't want to, but the game forces me to do that quest so I can have more heroes for the time when I actually want to play... This is wrong, but it won't change imho...
  • Howdy
  • All I can say is well done Blizzard, pay to win sucks and is as bad as cheating.
  • I am glad to see EA changed the things they did. Honestly, I think a lot of the hate is because it's EA. There are plenty of games that people pay 2 win, they apparently don't like to admit that. I don't mind the game as is. Free DLC, so I am getting the 'complete' game. After the campaign, I get enough to unlock the main campaign character, Iden. Sad to see all this annoying 'frustration' after EA made decent changes. EA can never do right by these types of jilted gamers, other than making the game completely free and losing money. Some of the more recent complaints are kinda ridiculous.
  • No, they can start with gamers first attitude. CD protect red is doing quite well and they have no pirate protection or bs microtransaction. So how can they profit? EA is money hungry company that doesn't care a bit about your experience...