Starcraft II recently became free to play

Nov 15, 2017 06:21 GMT  ·  By

Following Electronic Arts’ faux pas with Star Wars Battlefront II, which earned them a place in Reddit’s history with the most downvoted comment of all time, Blizzard is now also getting on the hate train, and they are throwing shade over EA with a series of tweets and a new trailer.

EA's decision to make the lock the heroes in Star Wars Battlefront II behind a paywall that takes a long time to break with the in-game currency is probably one of the worst in recent memory for the company. Granted, they made a lot of bad decisions over the years, but this latest one seems to take the cake.

To be fair, Electronics Arts has been doing some damage control in the meantime, and they’ve lowered the prices for the heroes. Although, as if to show that they didn’t really understand what’s been going on, they also reduced the payouts for matches, so it evens out again with the previous situation.

Blizzard is capitalizing with some smart PR

Since bashing EA is so hot right now, it was to be expected that other companies will get on board. The first one to do so is Blizzard, and they started with a series of tweets that underlined the fact that it takes 0 hours to unlock the main campaign, and that it takes zero hours to play with any of the available commanders.

Blizzard didn’t stop there and released a new ad for their “new” Starcraft II free-to-play, and which focuses on the fact that you don’t have to pay anything. It’s an obvious jab at Electronic Arts and at the current business model that seems to be more and more prevalent in triple-A titles.

All of this negative publicity should impact that launch of Star Wars Battlefield II, which is scheduled for tomorrow, November 16, but it remains to be seen if it’s just a too bigger beast. In any case, it’s clear that the loot and credit system is here to stay and it’s not going anywhere, at least not in the near future.