The Zerg Have Landed: StarCraft II is Here

From PC World: Last night, as the clock ticked midnight, after over a decade nervously waiting, PC gamers began snapping up copies of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

Blizzard's sci-fi real-time strategy sequel to 1998's StarCraft went on sale at special midnight openings across the country, and with sales expectations high: At least one analyst at Janco Partners, Mike Hickey, thinks the game could sell 7 million copies worldwide in 2010 and pull in revenue of $350 million, netting Blizzard $171 million in the bargain.

Most of that won't come from the U.S. StarCraft is even bigger in South Korea, where Blizzard could sell as many as 5.5 million units, carving off a grand $225 million slice of the total revenue pie. Those crazy South Koreans--they actually consider StarCraft a national sport.

StarCraft II should provide a shot in the arm for the flagging traditional PC gaming industry. Games like StarCraft II used to come along several times a year, flanked by dozens of alternative or sleeper hits. Now they come along once or twice, with mega-publishers like Activision (World of Warcraft) and EA (The Sims) pretty much locking things up.

To be clear: Boxed copies of the game went on sale last night at midnight. Digital copies of the game, which gamers have been able to download for a while now, can't be activated until today at 10:00 AM PDT. It seem press accounts went live at midnight, however, since my digital copy unlocked and I could play as soon as it finished downloading.

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