Blizzard giving StarCraft 2 players 30 days of WoW
by Mathew McCurley 
Apr 18th 2011 at 10:00PM
Battle.net is a great asset to Blizzard, as it allows the company to easily facilitate subscriptions from all its games and create potential customers to its other games through the common account. Giving away WoW subscriptions is an easy and practically costless move that might get even more people hooked. If you know any StarCraft 2 players who haven't set foot in Azeroth yet, maybe it's time that they gave the game a whirl.
WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Bradley Apr 18th 2011 10:03PM
How about those of us who play both? Are we already hooked?
Skytotem Apr 18th 2011 10:21PM
I just gave it a try, tragically I couldn't log in.
Noyou Apr 19th 2011 12:41AM
F-ing horse shoes. Classy move Blizz. Yet again lets give people who have no business getting something for free- something for free. How about a free Char customization for someone who has 12mo+ CONTINUOUS effing subscription?? How about a little some some for those people who have 5+ years of continuous subscriptions?? Yeah I get it. They would have to buy all the games to cash in. Well played. Make one customer happy and piss off 100. I wish I was the kind of person that stayed ticked off when I get pissed. Sadly (but good for my sanity. I will have forgotten about it in about 10 min :( Eventually though this kind of stuff will come back and bite them in the ass.
Elmouth Apr 19th 2011 1:02AM
This is a PR move to try and compensate for the 2 millions+ lost subs from the disaster that was cataclysm.
It's sad and lulzy at the same time.
Elmouth Apr 19th 2011 10:03AM
This is a PR move to try and compensate for the 2 millions+ lost subs from the disaster that was cataclysm.
It's sad and lulzy at the same time.
Amaxe Apr 19th 2011 11:26AM
OMFGWTFBBQ.
What a slap in the face to us who don't play Starcraft II!!!!11!!!!!
;-)
No I don't think that, but I am wondering if that does show up on some WoW forums.
Ccsdeck Apr 18th 2011 10:25PM
Maybe they will let us WoW players try SC2 next?
Drakkenfyre Apr 18th 2011 10:51PM
You already can. There is an unlimited play demo for StarCraft 2. So since it doesn't require a subscription, the answer they will give to you about that is "download the demo".
Sinthar Apr 19th 2011 8:13AM
Aye,
But there is a perminent free 10 day trial on WoW - are they telling SC2 users to 'download the trial'? Or are they giving them a months free subscription? Bit of a difference there to my mind. And tbh I think a 'unlimited free DEMO' sort of raises questions as to actually what you can and cant do. If I am to try a game (which I prefer before I buy) then I want the FULL game, not a 'demo' version.
Drakkenfyre Apr 19th 2011 10:25AM
It makes more sense to give someone a set amount of time in a subscription game. And since StarCraft 2 isn't subscription-based, the demo will do.
The demo is limited to a set of stages that make up the first 5 or so of the full game, and multiplayer is available, but limited to Terrans.
If these guys are getting a 30-day version of the trial account, they are getting restrictions, too.
As far as demos go, be glad you are lucky enuf you GET a demo. Most developers say !@#$ off when it comes to demos, and unless you are a console gamer, you don't get one. They don't want people seeing how crappy their games usually are, so they want you to buy it, and make them money. Very few developers offer pc demos anymore.
Belghast Apr 18th 2011 10:25PM
considering based on wow census my server is down half its population since the cata peak.... they have to do something to get subscribers back. Just feels like another sad attempt like call to arms to drum up some player buzz.
matthewggrammer Apr 18th 2011 10:29PM
What attempt would you consider 'not sad'?
Drakkenfyre Apr 18th 2011 10:49PM
I wouldn't rely on a website that uses an addon to collect it's data about population.
Someone posted on, I think MMO-Champion, that Warcraftrealms were reporting 50 Alliance players TOTAL for his server.
Those sites are generally incorrect.
And for the story, this is so much a "here, give it a try, then go buy it!"
lazymangaka Apr 18th 2011 11:03PM
Yep. Just a cursory glance shows Archimonde-US, a server which the WoW client reports as having a 'Medium' population, has just 615 Alliance players above level 10.
Less than a guild's worth of Alliance, and no free character transfer in sight. I'd call those numbers a bit fishy.
CrimsonKing Apr 18th 2011 11:21PM
There's a couple of flaws with your post Belghast. First off you're basing your opinion off of only your realm; out of how many? Also your looking for a third party mod to give an accurate depiction of the situation which as some other commenters have already said is not accurate.
Now I'm not oblivious to the fact that WoW has lost people, but here's the thing, this is quite common for any game people will always come and go. Also it's quite common for any company to do something to entice more people to do business with them, this is just one way for Blizzard to go about this.
Bossy Apr 19th 2011 3:20AM
Perhaps you should check the latest updates;
Loggings are UP over the last 4 weeks :))
But as someone stated : on more than 50% of those servers there are samples of ... 1 or ZERO people sampling with the /who command...and the add on...
600+ servers, 2 factions tracked, 70+ zones to track and on 50% of the servers ZERO or one person tracking a supposedly 24 hours each day with an add on that NO new players even know it exists ....
LOL , these stats are simply way to small , ... but like I said: even their loggings show the present day activity is on par with Apr 2010 and Oct 2010, which is not even odd. Even the haters and bored ones came for 2 months to CATA.
The new players don't use a 6 year old add on that has no purpose.
Marcosius Apr 19th 2011 7:07AM
Warcraft Consensus works with an addon that obviously depends on people using it. IIRC it also has an out-of-game activity portion, it won't update information automatically. There are no official numbers AFAIK from Blizzard on realm populations, other than the rather vague text information of "recommended, full" etc. Last I heard an estimate for a "full" realm is there's about 10-15 thousand players online on it. Of course though with server technology having progressed since then it might be a lot more than that.
Aedilhild Apr 19th 2011 12:28PM
Drawing from market segmentation — where the A group represents loyal and active customers; the B group, qualified and likely prospects; the C group, possible prospects; and the D group, unlikely prospects — Blizzard is aiming squarely at Bs, presumably in an effort to leverage brand and crossover appeal. It's sound marketing, and the natural evolution of Battle.net's gathering of all franchises under one umbrella — in the past, Blizzard seemed to rely on Cs through the 10-day trial and recruit-a-friend, almost certainly with mixed results.
This may or may not be in response to suspected losses for World of Warcraft's subscriber base.
On that note, Belghast's derision is unnecessary, but player-side activity data corroborates the general and reasoned perception of Warcraft's activity: after an end-of-expansion lull, log-ins and hours played skyrocketed with Cataclysm's launch, only to begin plummeting at about the same time guild leaders everywhere hit the forums looking for able bodies to keep raids from collapsing. Who here hasn't witnessed significant drop-off? I'm personally enjoying the game (criticisms aside), but the same can't be said for a lot of colleagues; they've voted with their feet.
Are the two related? I don't think we know enough. We'll have to see.
alpha5099 Apr 18th 2011 10:55PM
So, do those of us with SC2 get a free month of WoW, or is this just for SC2 players who don't have an active WoW account?
GhostWhoWalks Apr 18th 2011 11:17PM
I would like to know this as well. Getting a free month would be pretty sweet.