When the Baneling’s in your mineral line pull them like it’s hot, as the old saying goes. Blizzard have been sending out some surveys to a select few StarCraft II players to investigate the possibility of additional monetization options for their RTS. We heard at Gamescom how more single-player content isn’t in the game’s immediate future, and presumably they’re looking for ways to replace and improve upon that revenue stream, in line with the games-as-services model.
Which moderately intoxicated rappers would you add to the best strategy games?
The surveys, which were meant to be left unshared but you can’t stop Reddit, ask for opinions on a number of topics. Among these are the possibility of announcer packs, featuring everyone from in-game and wider Blizzard universe characters like the Hearthstone announcer to celebrities and streamers. It’s unlikely that deals have already been struck for this sort of thing, but Blizzard want to check how much interest split there is between Stranger Things actor David Harbour and balance designer David Kim each telling you to construct additional pylons.
Also featured were chat emoticons based on popular web series StarCrafts and new skins. This album has one example of a new stalker that is a minor modification on the original, while another post has a much more complex (and better) redesign. Each email had different prices listed, so it looks like Blizzard’s plan is to get a huge batch of feedback ahead of announcements in the near future – oh look, it’s two months until Blizzcon. What a coincidence.
As far as the content itself, they’re all good ideas to continue to fund development, though do seem to hit a bit late. If there had been, for example, a Day[9] voice pack back when he was one of early-Twitch’s biggest stars (and SC2 had a little more limelight on it) that would have been a serious draw. Five years later, not so much. Still, that Stalker is sweet.
As far as official Blizzard response, we’ve reached out for comment and will update when they get back to us. There was also a joking reply by community manager Rackle to the original Reddit thread, so they clearly aren’t that annoyed it’s gotten out there.