Blizzard begins digital distribution

By Robert Purchese Published 6 May, 2008

Warcraft III, StarCraft first on offer.

Blizzard has begun to offer its back catalogue of games as digital downloads via its Store.

The first three to be available are Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and the StarCraft Anthology. The former two cost USD 19.99 (GBP 10), while the latter will set you back USD 14.99 (GBP 7.50).

Blizzard previously sold its games - boardgames and videogames - online and then had them delivered to your house. The developer expects to add many more for digital distribution in the future.

Presumably it will also offer its upcoming titles StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King there, too.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Almyn #1 4 years ago

    Finally. I wouldn't mind playing the original Diablo again so hopefully it'll appear there sometime soon also.

    There is still lots of PC titles i'd love to see appear as downloads though. There really is no excuse for companies not to have a lot of those great old PC titles availble through digital distribution. There is so many great games i'd love to play again, But finding the discs for sale is a real pain, As i'm not really prepared to go through Ebay for them.
    Edited by 1 at 06/05/08 @ 10:16

  • bengray66 #2 4 years ago

    You can also get a shit load of Diablo stuff too, if you click the "Diablo Universe" button!

    Edit, I now see that its not digital download :(
    Edited by 1 at 06/05/08 @ 10:23

  • Kiigan #3 4 years ago

    That's a bargain and a half. Go buy StarCraft, anyone who hasn't played it.

  • Rayn #4 4 years ago

    I'm all for digital distribution, I think it's ace, but I'm beginning to be a bit worried about the sheer number of developers/publishers who make their own apps you need to download and make an account for. I'd love for one of the digital distributors to become the standard, where the rest get their own channel within the app, let's say Steam. So intead of having to log onto steam, blizzards DD app, EAs DD app, those Sam n Max guys' DD app, I'd rather see every title being made available in the same store.

  • Pirotic #5 4 years ago

    The best outcome would be if the game shops themselves started digital distribution stores, then the developers sold the digital distribution rights (and a dd copy of the game I guess) to all these shops. This would hopefully prevent the rrp price fixing which is happening at the moment because developers are too scared to undercut the RRP when selling directly, despite the fact they are often half the price in the shops anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 06/05/08 @ 11:44

  • reality_cheque #6 4 years ago

    Starcraft AND Broodwar for under a tenner? Fucking sold!

  • Pirotic #7 4 years ago

    Only for the US at the moment, the UK blizzard store is down for refurb :(

  • Canyarion #8 4 years ago

    I've seen WC3 and TFT for €15 each. So it's not a great deal in my opinion.
    And I bought WC2, SC and Diablo together for €25 once.

  • Svecke #9 4 years ago

    @Rayn

    Yeah, I already have steam and a heap of games on it, I'm not about to download -other- clients to buy other games. I'll definitely give this a miss.

    Good games though.

  • M83J01P97 #10 4 years ago

    I believe there are a few legal issues surrounding Diablo seeing as the team who actually made the two games are no long part of Blizzard, so while Blizzard hold the rights to the game and the Diablo Universe, I believe they are unable to distribute the game digitally without the consent of the creators...

  • 7creature #11 4 years ago

    Lovely.

  • Danj #12 4 years ago

    Well I managed to sign up for an account, but the damn thing refuses to send out a verification email. I must have tried like 20 times over the past 24 hours and still no sign of it.