StarCraft II fastest-selling strategy ever

By Robert Purchese Published 3 August, 2010

And biggest PC game this year.

StarCraft II has become the fastest-selling strategy game ever.

Blizzard's latest sold more than 1 million copies in 24 hours, and over 1.5 million copies in 48 hours.

That also makes StarCraft II the best selling PC game of 2010 already.

Those numbers are based on "internal company records, public data, and/or reports from key distribution partners".

Blizzard attributed launch success to a simultaneous worldwide launch in 11 different languages on 5 different continents.

Of course, having an incredible product doesn't hurt. How incredible? Eurogamer's just-this-minute-published StarCraft II review can tell you.

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. @Clert on Twitter.

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

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Comments (26) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • thomaspower0 #1 2 years ago

    Rofl just bought it.

  • bad09 #2 2 years ago

    PC is dead etc.

  • reelbigkris #3 2 years ago

    I bought this the day after launch after a friend and me decided to try and get in on the ground floor, no previous experience of starcraft whatsoever. The reason; Because we wanted to get in before the skill gap was far too large.

    I've been far too lazy to watch people post 'build orders' or to read guides so i have been suffering in silence, hoping that thigns will just click. Anyone else bought this without much knowledge of the original? :p

  • UncleLou #4 2 years ago

    @reelbigkris:

    As nerdtastic as that sounds, I've found commented videos of good matches surprisingly entertaining, and you might learn a lot without having to read boring guides. :)

  • InfiniteFury #5 2 years ago

    @reelbigkris

    Yeah I got into this despite having no real interest in the genre. By get into it I mean I fired it up for a quick game around 11am, eventually dragged myself away to have some lunch and realised it was 4pm.

    It's well worth reading up on some guides, even a small amount of knowledge will give you a big advantage.

  • Cheapshot #6 2 years ago

    Great! Can only hope proper PC games will start coming out again. Actually cater to PC gamers and you'll get your return - I'm looking at you Battlefield 3.

  • mingster #7 2 years ago

    Glad it's sold well it totally deserves it.
    Hopefully the whole PC gaming is dead thing will go away.

  • geeza2020 #8 2 years ago

    once i have a pc/laptop at home capable of running it, this game will be mine!!! And if its not as good as Company of Heroes ( the last RTS i really enjoyed) there will be hell to pay!!

  • Hypercube #9 2 years ago

    It looks lovely, but I'm guessing it would really benefit from a wide screen monitor. Damn it, where's my credit card??!?

  • NimbusTLD #10 2 years ago

    That also makes StarCraft II the best selling PC game of 2010...

    ... until Cataclysm comes out anyways. 1m in 24 hours is peanuts compared to WoW launches.

  • lockload #11 2 years ago

    No halo3 then (2.4m is 24 hours)

  • HisDudness #12 2 years ago

    PC gaming is dead!! Long live PC gaming!!

    Having said that can we get a non-video card melting PS3 edition with Move support?

  • ircaddicts #13 2 years ago

    I guess this is useing the same method of counting that lets blizzard claim it has 54789234275689 million accounts on wow ? when in reality it has about 4. This is basicly the same as star crap 1 with a couple of new units and slighty better gfx. I guess all 13 years and $100 million gets you this days is some crappy code that melts GFX gards.

  • swills #14 2 years ago

    @ircaddicts
    I've never read anyone be wrong so many times in a single paragraph. Grats. :)

  • Scopeh #15 2 years ago

    Until Catacylsm comes out and sells 5+ mill copys in less then 0.002 seconds. 'Pre-ordering its in the game!'

  • Nephirion #16 2 years ago

    Blizzard's latest sold more than 1 million copies in 24 hours, and over 1.5 million copies in 48 hours.

    Good result considering RTS appeals to a smaller audience than FPS.

  • craziii #17 2 years ago

    is that 1.5 million world wide total? even if it is only 48 hours, I expected more :p even if it isn't a fps game, I expected more!

  • Mozz-eyes #18 2 years ago

    Company of Heroes deserved this, there is not a better RTS out there. Despite solid underlying mechanics I think SC2 feels too dated, whereas CoH hits the sweet spot in all areas.

  • Freek #19 2 years ago

    So that would also make it the fastest selling Mac game, right? As it works on both platforms.

  • Dashnak #20 2 years ago

    I love Company of Heroes but I also am liking SC2 so far.There is room and time for both :)

  • DaemonSpawn #21 2 years ago

    best selling PC game of 2010 already
    What about Battlefield: bad Company 2 with about 2 millions of PC copies sold (according to statistics servers)? Or did they mean PC-exclusive games only?

    Anyway, I have to admit Blizzard are some kind of drug dealers - my father has never ever played single-player campaign in RTS games. Only skirmish with bots. Company of Heroes, Dawn Of War with addons, Age Of Empires 3, Command and Conquer 3, Red Alert 2, Universe at War, Cossacks - European wars - every single campaign was crap to him (well, I have to agree in many cases).
    And now he's playing through Starcraft 2 campaign! It's mind-blowing!
    Edited by DaemonSpawn at 03/08/10 @ 22:24

  • Zaiz #22 2 years ago

    @Daemonspawn

    I wasn't going to comment in this thread(since I've trolled SCII too much already) but seriously. Your dad is a dumbass and is only excited because he's playing an RTS campaign. There's nothing special here.

  • geeza2020 #23 2 years ago

    @Zaiz

    I wasn't going to comment again in this thread(since I've had enough of retard trolls already) but seriously. You are a dumbass troll who is only jealous because someone is getting enjoyment by playing an RTS campaign. There's nothing special here

  • ircaddicts #24 2 years ago

    @swils I guess you never read any posts other than mine then. As star crap2 DOES melt gfx cards and IS just the same as star crap 1 with some new units and slighty better gfx and blizzard DO lie about thier wiow sub numbers. So I was wrong on a whole 0 out of 3 thing WOW thats just SOOO many. LOL your blizzard fanbois are SOOO DUMB

  • subedii #25 2 years ago

    Well in relation to the overheating claim, it might be useful to understand what exactly you're talking about. The issue isn't the game somehow causing people's hardware to melt,that doesn't work. If people are suffering problems then it's a result of bad cooling.

    [link url=http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/223306,how-to-dust-away-starcraft-2-overheating-issues.aspx
    ]http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/22330...[/link]

    They put it rather more bluntly than I do:

    "One of the more curious trends emerging from last week's Starcraft II launch is people alleging that the game kills graphics cards. There is no way for a game to physically damage hardware; instead it's a symptom of old and/or poorly cooled hardware rather than some sort of Blizzard-based death touch."


    Any number of games can cause your graphics card to strain to ridiculous levels. The issue is that running the game at 300 FPS (as it can on things like the menus) can be just as taxing on your card as running Crysis maxed out on it. But your card won't go over its own limits, if it's overheating then that's a cooling issue. Think about it for five seconds, how many tech demos are based around maxing out your system? How many timedemos from old games regularly go into the 100's of frames per second? If it was that easy to kill your hardware by doing this, then taxing your system at all would be a big no-no.
    Edited by subedii at 04/08/10 @ 11:05

  • Zaiz #26 2 years ago

    @Geeza

    Clearly, I have never enjoyed the greats like Starcraft 1, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 1 & 2, Homeworld 1 & 2, and Age of Empires. Nope. I just find it hilarious that somebody would claim SC2 is anything special, since it isn't. Also, I got a hilarious PM from him, which makes me suspect I touched a nerve.