No Advertising in Starcraft II

Last week Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision, soon to become Activision Blizzard, was a guest speaker at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference. Interested gamers picked up some juicy tidbits from his speech, which is to be expected as Kotick is now one of the most important men in gaming. He made some interesting comments on the possibility of a Call of Duty themed MMO, speaking about how much Activision has learned from Blizzard when it comes to the inner workings of such a type of game.

But he also spoke about how Starcraft II's gaming model, which features short, high intensity clashes, is perfectly suited for a business model that involves in-game advertising, with advertisements appearing before and after the match. He made no specific references as to why Blizzard would go with such a model when gamers themselves have not yet embraced it.

Some hardcore fans commented that Starcraft can be monetized in other ways, from sponsored tournaments to advertising pages about the game on the Internet, without going so far as to advertise in-game, a move that limits immersion and the game experience. Now, a Blizzard official has responded to all the speculations that appeared by saying: "We have no plans to have in-game advertising in StarCraft II. We believe Bobby was actually referring to Battle.net, which has always included ads." So it appears fans may have been overreacting and reading too much into what Kotick said.

Starcraft II is due to be released latter this year and is a sequel to the critically hailed and commercially successful Starcraft. It will feature the same three races, namely the Protoss, Terran and Zerg, while greatly expanding the gameplay options and the strategies available in-game.

Those very eager to try the game out can get themselves a ticket for the Blizzrd Worldwide Invitational event, which is hosted, this summer, by Paris. Fully playable versions of both Starcraft II and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will be on offering. AS other details about Starcraft II emerge we'll be doing the reporting.