Column: Why Blizzard won't wait several years

No release date has been announced for StarCraft II. Some fear it will take several years until the day comes. I believe not. Here's why.

Blizzard surely got owned with StarCraft: Ghost. It was extremely hyped up with the countdown and a lot of people were cheering for StarCraft 2. But the announcement that it would be an XBOX game left the majority disappointed. The game went through several updates, remakes and add-ons. It got delayed, delayed, was playable but didn't seem convincing, more delays and then finally it was canceled.

As far as I know, Blizzard never before canceled a game that had already been announced. It has become standard behavior for Blizzard to announce a game and then release it long afterwards, but never so long that they got outsmarted and the game got outdated before it was released.

Call my faith in Blizzard Entertainment naive, but I do not believe they'll make that same mistake again. No way. Here's what the company recently said to GameSpot after denying the claims that StarCraft 2 would be in MMO-mode:






And that's not to mention the economical and marketing angle of the whole situation.

You want to hear what I think? No way they'll wait five years. StarCraft 2 will come before the end of 2008. Playable.