Surprising? Not exactly. Disappointing? Absolutely. After what seems like years (and actually was) of waiting for the StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm ‘expansion,’ industry analysts are now predicting that the launch won’t be arriving in 2012 after all. The predictions aren’t based on pessimism, but the amount of time that Blizzard tends to put into testing prior to public release.
StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is obviously much more than a simple expansion, with the developers having promised a full game’s worth of content in each of the three versions. Despite the fact that the game was claimed to be 99% complete over a month ago, signs of an impending launch or even preliminary beta details have been scarce.
That’s causing some analysts to adjust previous expectations, most notably Cowan & Company analyst Doug Creutz. Activision Blizzard’s official earnings call will be taking place this Thursday, but interested parties are already being warned by Creutz that delays are likely to be announced:
“Typically, Blizzard puts its new titles into beta for 3-6 months before they are officially released. With only 5 months left in the year, while it is still possible that Swarm could make the fiscal year, we are now assuming it ships in FY13.”
Cowan & Company had previously projected two full Blizzard titles in 2012, and it seems they’ll still be half right. If you’re not going to make the expected release, why not miss it by months, right? Sadly, fans of Blizzard properties have become all too familiar with that way of thinking, but it’s hard to argue with the results. The most recent example, Diablo 3, had plenty of passionate fans up in arms over issues with both support and game design. Yet even with some fan uproar, the game still looks to exceed sales projections, according to Creutz.
The only real reason that Blizzard has to delay is a need to polish and fine-tune until they are satisfied. Of course, Diablo 3 showed that a quest for perfection more often proves fruitless. The development teams aren’t staffed by the same people, but keeping fans of StarCraft 2 waiting well over two years for an expansion – while teasing the story in numerous trailers and interviews – eventually seems more like torture than marketing.
StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will be playable at Gamescom in August, with any release details still being withheld.
-
Follow me on Twitter @andrew_dyce.
Source: Shacknews
What You May Not Know About The ‘Xbox One’ [Updated] 
Xbox One: Watch The Next-Gen Xbox Presentation Here! 
Electronic Arts Engineer Blasts the Wii U 
Has Microsoft Abolished Used Games on the Xbox One? 
Loading ...
Th only reason thius could be delayed to 2013 is Blizzard not anting to release two games at the same time, meaning this gets pushed back so Panda Powa can stomp through stupid old WoW. I hate WoW so much for this, but without it, Blizz wouldn’t have the extra cash around for other projects… even delayed ones. V_V
Both Cataclysm and SC2: Wings of Liberty came out in the same year, so it could happen again. It really depends on if Blizzard is going to have as long of a beta test for HotS as it did for WoL, and since MoP (Hooray acronyms!) comes out mid September, there’s still time for Heart of the Swarm to come out just before the holiday season (though slim).
But they came out at different times. With Diablo III already out this year, there’s likely only one release left this year. And it will likely be WoW since players burn through WoW content faster with each expansion.
MoP is coming out this year. The release date is September 25.
Heart of the Swarm will most likely come out in 2013 even though I can’t imagine beta testing for an RTS expansion would take as long as a brand new RTS stand alone. However we do need to remember the enormous eSports appeal that StarCraft has, so Blizz will be even more likely to go over this game with the finest of toothed combs.
Also: StarCraft 2 was released July 27, 2010; with Cataclysm being released December 7, 2010. About 4.5 months appart. So, if we go by the exact same time table (which I think is rather unlikely), we should expect to see Heart of the Swarm in early January, 2013. Why would Blizz want to miss the holiday season by so little?
why is this game taking so long to come out, i though it was just an expansion?