Delimiter » blizzard

Blizzard honours GAME’s Diablo III pre-orders

Renai LeMay — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:12:31 +0000

blog Pre-ordered hit Diablo III from dying Australian video game retailer GAME? Frustrated that you won’t be able to play this year’s biggest game when it launches at 5PM today, as GAME has been blocked from selling Diablo III? Worry no more. Blizzard’s got your back. From the Battle.net forums, via Kotaku:

“We’re aware that some Australian GAME customers have been left out in the cold on what should be the hottest night of the year — the launch of Diablo III. To help with this situation and get these players into the game as soon as possible, we’ve put the following process in place.

Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:
1. Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

2. Download and start playing when the servers go live!

3. Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

4. Receive a credit from Blizzard, for the amount you paid in advance to GAME Australia for Diablo III. This credit will be applied to the payment method used for the digital purchase.

We’ll post further details here on how to submit your GAME Australia receipt to our customer service team as soon as possible. Stay tuned, and we look forward to seeing you in the Burning Hells!”

Now that’s customer service worthy of Deckard Cain. Of course, our advice would have been to just have bought Diablo III direct from Blizzard in the first place like the dark demon gods of capitalism would have preferred in the first place (as yours truly did). But then, there are still many people sacrificing themselves on Australia’s retail gaming altar.

Image credits: Blizzard

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GAME Australia goes into administration

Renai LeMay — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:56:34 +0000

news The Australian division of embattled video game retail chain GAME Group has gone into administration, video game media outlet Kotaku reported this morning.

GAME has been struggling internationally for some time. Earlier this year, a number of major video game manufacturers began refusing to supply the company with stock because of a perceived ability for the company to be unable to pay its debts. In its home market in the UK, GAME went into administration several months ago and was purchased by investment firm Opcapita. In Australia, the company operates some 95 stores and staff numbers variously reported to be between 500 and 900, as one of the major local outlets for video games, alongside rivals like JB Hi-Fi and EBGames. Kotaku reported this morning:

“final confirmation came this morning when all GAME stores were sent an email stating GAME had gone into administration. GAME’s Marketing Manager also confirmed this to Kotaku Australia, but declined to give further details.”

Its financial difficulties in Australia — which resulted in reports that the company was looking for a buyer for its local operations — may have resulted in GAME locally putting some products on sale. In a prominent notice on its website, GAME Australia has published a list of major games which are on sale through its stores at the moment, including copies of major titles such as Zelda: Skyward Sword, Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim and more, for prices ranging from $5 up to $74 each.

In the UK, GAME had reportedly struggled with a speed of expansion which it may not have been able to support, as well as competition from online gaming distributors.

Companies such as Microsoft, Sony, Valve, Blizzard and EA are now distributing a large amount of video games through online platforms, and it is common for video gamers to download new content through the Internet rather than going into a physical retailer to buy a boxed copies of games.

For example, the major video game release this month is expected to be Blizzard’s Diablo III game, the successor to its Diablo II hit released a decade ago. When the game is released tomorrow, a large number of Australians will have already downloaded the game’s final release code and will only have to log in to their Battle.net online service from Blizzard in order to be able to play the game.

It is unclear what impact this phenomenon has had on GAME Australia, but internationally over the past few years, a large number of sales have begun to take place online rather than through physical stores.

Update: We have received the following statement from PriceWaterhouseCoopers:

AUSTRALIA – 14 May 2012– PwC partners Kate Warwick and Greg Hall have been appointed Voluntary Administrators of TGW Pty Limited – trading as GAME.

GAME is a retailer of video games, games consoles and PC software & accessories and operates 92 stores across Australia, employing c.500 staff. TGW Pty Limited is a subsidiary of The GAME Group Plc, a UK public company which was placed into administration on 26 March 2012.

Kate Warwick, PwC partner, said, “Initially we will continue to trade all stores, operating these on as close to a ‘business as usual’ mode as possible whilst we get a clearer understanding of the current state of the business and actively pursue options to secure its future.” Ms. Warwick added: “Prior to our appointment, the company’s management had been exploring interest in investing in the business with a number of parties and we will look to see whether this interest can be harnessed to continue the business or part of it through the voluntary administration process.”

TGW Pty Limited’s UK based parent company faced serious cash flow and profit issues. “While we are still investigating the causes behind the Australian administration; the impact of the administration of its parent, an ambitious national roll-out combined with the current soft retail environment appear to be key factors,” said Ms. Warwick.

Further updates will be made to creditors as soon as more information becomes available.

Ms. Warwick also noted that the company’s customers hold various claims against the company under loyalty cards, gift cards and vouchers. Ms. Warwick said “We are working on schemes aimed at giving customers some return on these claims if they are used to make additional purchases.” Further details will be available to customers on-line or in store from appointment.

opinion/analysis
Well, bookstores all around Australia have started closing as the nation shifts to its new eBook reality (hello, Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks), and now it’s the turn of the video game stores. Personally, I try and avoid buying physical copies of anything in 2012, and I know there are many others like me in the Australian community.

Why go to the trouble of going into a physical store to buy a game, when you can download it, often for the same price, from an online store? Why bother keeping a physical copy of a game on your bookshelf or stacked under the TV, when you own a digital copy, and can re-download it any time, as you can through platforms like Battle.net and Steam?

Perhaps the only reason I would go into retail video game stores in 2012 (and I am an avid gamer; about to finish Dark Souls for the first time) is when I want to trade in old games which I don’t play any more. However, as I often don’t buy new games until their online prices come down six months after launch anyway, I’ve stopped trading in many of my old games anyway. The whole physical gaming thing just seems so antiquated.

Of course, the online distribution model isn’t the only problem at the heart of GAME’s model. They’ve got stiff competition from other retailers anyway and low margins, and it looks like they’ve also botched some of their finances and management to boot. But in the long-term, you can’t help but feel that it’s the online channel which is the biggest threat to video game retailers — and rightly so.

Image credit: GAME Group

Blizzard changes its tune … was it Telstra, or Optus?

Renai LeMay — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:22:07 +0000

blog Jeez, Blizzard, way to win everyone back. First you give Australia a spurious reason why you can’t set up a dedicated local hub in Australia for World of Warcraft and StarCraft II players, claiming that the nation’s “number one ISP” can’t correctly route the fat traffic your legions of loyal fans are able to dish out.

Then — in a move guaranteed to win us all back, you remember that — wait — Telstra isn’t the biggest ISP in Australia after all. You were talking about Optus. Nice one — it’s almost as though you don’t actually know anything about Australia and are just talking out of your behind from an ivory tower in Irvine, California, where your fat sacks of cash are distracting you from correctly interpreting the desires of your Australian customers.

In protest, I’m not playing StarCraft II tonight. Well, for the next 15 minutes. Probably.

(via AusGamers)

Image credit: Screenshot of a StarCraft II beta match between WhiteRa and The Little One, as commented by Husky and HD

iiNet changes routing tables for StarCraft II

Jenna Pitcher — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:35:18 +0000

Two months after the release of the most anticipated real-time strategy game to date, national broadband provider iiNet has amended its network routing path to make the experience of playing StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty better for Australians connecting to regional Battle.net servers in South-East Asia.

“We’ve made a slight change to the routing path used for the Battle.net servers — please note the change will only be noticeable by iiNet customers on the East coast for now,” said iiNet representative, Adrian Arumugam, in a post on broadband forum Whirlpool last week.

“Hopefully this assists in isolating the latency issue that all our subscriber base are experiencing at night. Eastern states customers, please continue to post in this thread as the Operations Centre will be keeping a close eye on it for updates,” he said.

iiNet’s changes come after a number of the ISP’s customers — who play Starcraft II — ditched the company in favour of rivals who offer better ping times to the South East Asian servers in Singapore.

“Because SC2 is a very demanding game in both response time and tactics, the latency that I was getting to both the closed beta servers and SEA/US server post release was extremely frustrating,” said Daniel ‘Unstable’ Siddel, who is a local Starcraft II player and prominent match commentator.

“While it may not seem much to be getting [latency of] anywhere between 200-500ms, once you reach a certain level of competitiveness in StarCraft II it becomes paramount that you have perfect control of the game — even 300ms can decide the result of a win or loss in the game,” said Siddel.

Siddel was with iiNet during the lengthy StarCraft II beta, but — although he loved iiNet’s customer service and stability — ditched the ISP around the 10th August. He cited speed and latency as the two main issues he switched. “Upload speed for the quality of my casting stream, and latency for the level of StarCraft II that I play at,” he said.

However, iiNet’s new approach may win some customers back.

“The new system that iiNet is releasing is an amazing service that enables Australian StarCraft II players to be on par with the rest of the world competitively,” he said “It is a better, more reliable way of connecting to the other servers without the complications of a proxy but having the same result. It is a definite positive to being with them.”

Australian gamers were sorely disappointed and felt unloved when it was learnt that they would not be getting dedicated Australian servers for the RTS but rather to servers in South East Asia which had the potential to affect game performance.

A number of local gamers criticised a decision at the time by StarCraft publisher Blizzard to lock them to the “local” South East Asian servers — which limited gamer’s choice to play against US or European rivals.

A week before the midnight Monday 26 July launch of Starcraft II Blizzard decided to unlock the US servers to Australians 60 days after the game had launched – which came into effect on Wednesday. Blizzard had notified gamers that while they could play on the US servers, it was still recommended to play on the “local” servers for “lower latency and more action during peak hours”.

Latency has been an ongoing issue with multiplayer Blizzard games over the years.

Three years ago, for example, Internode trialled a free traffic optimisation service — prioritised tunneling to US World of Warcraft servers — for its customers to get around network hassles with the game.

Image credit: Screenshot of StarCraft II

StarCraft II trivia + first Aussie sales: Video

Renai LeMay — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:11:04 +0000

The official launch was in Brisbane, but last night many keen video game fans rocked up at EBGames’ George St store in Sydney at midnight to pick up a copy of Blizzard Entertainment’s latest flagship game StarCraft II.

First the retailer’s staff held a trivia quiz, complete with some tricky questions. Just what was the name of the StarCraft game that was never published? And what are the three abilities of the Zerg Queen in StarCraft II?

But then after another half hour of patience the decade-long wait for StarCraft II was over and the first copies were sold in Sydney.

$6,500 StarCraft II tournament hits Australia

Renai LeMay — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:53:05 +0000

It’s been more than 12 years since Blizzard Entertainment launched the first game in its extremely popular StarCraft franchise. Version 2 will hit Australia at midnight on Monday night — and the nation’s gamers are ready.

From Monday 9 August, e-Sports community CyberGamer will launch a nationwide StarCraft II competition, with the total prizepool stacking up to $6,500 in total. The competition will run for ten weeks, with gamers participating by playing matches in certain video gaming centres located around Australia — in cities such as Sydney and Canberra, but also smaller locations like Geelong, Shepparton, Dandenong and Ballarat.

CyberGamer spokespeople were not immediately able to comment on the competition, but the details of the competition are on the organisation’s site. The tournament winner will take $1,600 away from the event, with second place picking up $700 and third $350.

But there are also prizes for gamers who are ranked the highest in their geography — $150 each, and smaller prizes for those ranked down to 5th best. And those under 18 years of age who do well will also pick up individual prizes.

One foundation sponsor of the tournament is Guf — which hosts gaming centres in Ballarat and Geelong. In a statement on Cybergamer, the group’s director Mark Carter said the company had a long history of organising eSports events in Australia with “big prize money”.

When the tournament was initially announced back in May, it had a prize pool of $3,000. This has since been more than doubled.

“Gaming related companies have always struggled to identify whether competitive gamers are really buying their products,” said Carter at the time. “I’m lucky that I can look around my shops, see the gamers packing the place out, spending their dollars and having loads of fun. It makes it an easy decision to give back some of those dollars in the form of prize money.”

The actual matches in the tournament will be in a best of three format using the maps which Blizzard released for the StarCraft II beta over the past six months — including favourites such as Lost Temple and Steppes of War.

The news comes as interest in e-sports — the name collectively given to professional video game competitions — continues to grow in Australia.

In late April Dell subsidiary Alienware held one of Australia’s largest e-sports tournaments so far, with a combined prize pool of Alienware PC hardware valued at almost $30,000. That event was focused on the first person shooting game Call of Duty 4, but internationally the first version of StarCraft has also continued to be popular in the more than a decade since it was first released.

For example, US-based YouTube commentators HDStarCraft and HuskyStarCraft have each garnered more than 100,000 subscribers internationally for their efforts commentating matches in the StarCraft II beta over the past six months, including their own tournament with its own substantial prize pool.

Image credit: Screenshot of a StarCraft II beta match between WhiteRa and The Little One, as commented by Husky and HD

Blizzard unlocks US StarCraft II servers for Australians

Renai LeMay — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:58:11 +0000

At the last minute, video game giant Blizzard Entertainment has reversed an unpopular decision to block Australians from being able to play its upcoming StarCraft II game on American servers.

The company had been facing a wave of dissent from Australian players furious about its original decision to block local gamers from playing against their friends overseas by locking them into playing through a new server in Singapore set up to serve the South-East Asian region as a whole.

“We’re pleased to announce that all players who purchase the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand version of StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™ will also have the option of playing on North American servers following the launch,” the company said in a posting today on its Facebook group devoted specifically to South-East Asia.

“While we still encourage gamers to play on the local servers, which will offer lower latency and more action during peak hours, we recognize that many players have longstanding friendships and rivalries with North American players, and would like to continue playing with them. Because of this, we’re giving Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand gamers access to both regions’ servers, so they can choose where they’d prefer to play.”

Blizzard’s intention is to make the additional access available within 60 days of StarCraft II’s launch — which will take place on Monday 26 July at midnight — with the official launch day being 27 July.

When the additional functionality is added, the video game giant wrote, players with a South-East Asian copy of StarCraft II would automatically gain the option to download the US version of the game through its Battle.net online match-making platform. They will be able to use either copy at will.

However, the move does not resolve the questions of StarCraft II players who want to play on other international servers — such as in Europe or the highly competitive Korean zone.

“Players who purchase the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand version of StarCraft II will have access to the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand and the North American Battle.net servers. No other multi-region play will be available at this time.”

The news comes as Blizzard has been making wider attempts to resolve the issues of Australians concerned about poor speeds to its international servers for multiplayer games.

The company has long fielded complaints from gamers about the lack of a dedicated World of WarCraft server in Australia, for example. However, it has been working with Australian ISPs on providing the fastest transit path to the new Battle.net server in Singapore, with which it hopes to resolve many of the problems.

Image credit: Screenshot of a StarCraft II beta match between WhiteRa and The Little One, as commented by Husky and HD

EB Games was wrong: No Aussie Battle.net server

Jenna Pitcher — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 01:46:21 +0000

Blizzard Entertainment has declined to issue a new comment on the matter of whether Australia will receive its own servers for the video game giant’s Battle.net online gaming platform —
but it is understood that retailer EB Games’ reference to a ‘local’ server yesterday actually referred to Blizzard’s new datacentre in Singapore.

“New Gameinfomer mag out tomorrow includes a world exclusive article on the new local Battlenet server! A MUST HAVE for all Blizzard fans!” EB Games wrote on Twitter last night, spurring speculation Blizzard would overturn its long-standing policy of not hosting Australian servers for its flagship World of WarCraft, Diablo and StarCraft games.

A Blizzard spokesperson this morning wouldn’t comment directly on the matter — instead re-releasing a statement from April this year relating to the company’s plans to region-lock Australian buyers of its upcoming StarCraft II game — which launches on Monday — to multiplayer games based in the Singapore datacentre — referred to as South-East Asia.

The release stated that Australian players will have “access to play on servers based in Southeast Asia, alongside gamers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.” “This local datacentre will offer players in the region improved latency,” it added.

“Hey guys just 2 clarify, our buyers got a little confused they meant local as in around our region. The server is located in SE Asia not US,” EB Games wrote this morning on Twitter.

Australian players in the StarCraft II beta — which has been active for the past six or so months but which was closed this week — have not been region-locked as they will be when the game hits retail shelves next week, as Australian players are believed to have been accessing the service through North America. However, next week the Singaporean facility will take the full retail load.

Blizzard’s community managers have previously issued a statement that they were working with local ISPs to address bad response times with South-East Asia — however the company has declined to comment which ISPs the statement referred to.

Image credit: Screenshot of a StarCraft II beta match between WhiteRa and The Little One, as commented by Husky and HD

Blizzard to launch Aussie Battle.net server?

Jenna Pitcher — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:16:54 +0000

After many years of waiting and praying, parched Australian fans of video game giant Blizzard Entertainment might finally be about to taste a drop of video game heaven, with speculation intensifying tonight that the maker of the World of WarCraft, Diablo and StarCraft franchises might finally launch a local server for its Battle.net online gaming platform.

According to the Twitter account of EB Games, the news may be revealed in the new issue of Gameinformer magazine — due out on Wednesday morning. “New Gameinfomer mag out tomorrow includes a world exclusive article on the new local Battlenet server! A MUST HAVE for all Blizzard fans!” the retailer wrote online tonight.

The news comes as Blizzard and partners gear up for what is expected to be one of the gaming industry’s biggest launches of the year on 27 July — the sequel to its immensely popular StarCraft franchise, a decade in the making. EB Games has already received copies of StarCraft II — although it is not yet allowed to sell them.

Blizzard had originally planned to region-lock Australians to only be able to play on to South-East Asian servers for StarCraft II. The issue has whipped Australian gamers into a frenzy, especially on the Blizzard community forum. If the decision was to be enforced Australian StarCraft 2 gamers would only be able to go against South-East Asian players in multiplayer matches — forget it if those Australian gamers had friends in the US or Europe they wished to play against.

The Asian server location also riled tensions for the reported bad response times Australians received to its location compared to the relatively good connection to servers in the US. Late last month Blizzard’s community team followed up on the forums, stating:

“We appreciate everyone taking the time to provide us with their current network paths. Many of the results are showing good pathways and nice pings, as expected. But we’re actively working with regional ISPs to address connections that are not currently optimized. We need to have as much data as possible, so if you live in Oceania and haven’t already, please perform a traceroute and post your results.”

Blizzard would not comment on which regional ISPs it was referring to. However, earlier this month Delimiter contacted major ISPs for comment. A Telstra spokesperson had responded with, “No further comment to add”, Optus did not provide a response and Internode had no comment to make.

iiNet chief executive Michael Malone said: “No, as far as I know, we haven’t had any approach from Blizzard.” He added tonight that it was something the ISP would welcome, however.

Internode managing director Simon Hackett has previously acknowledged the need for Australian Battlenet servers in April this year. “We have held talks with Blizzard about this issue for many years. We continue to engage with them on it,” he said at the time.

Local real-time strategy gamer Leigh Stark said a local Battlenet server would be “excellent”.

“I think Australian gamers are tired of an almost back-handed insult to the lack of a server. Who actually likes lag?” he said tonight, adding: “I’ve not played Starcraft 2, but the last time I played WoW, I didn’t have the greatest ping. This would be a win.”

The Australian competitive StarCraft II scene has started to heat up over the past few months due to the availability of a beta or testing version of the game, which has allowed the video game giant to test and tune the multiplayer functionality of the game over a six month period. A number of competitive players of the original StarCraft and WarCraft 3 games have made the transition to StarCraft II, including Australians known online as Filthy, mOOnGLaDe and inSync.

Some of the players have competed in international tournaments, and at least one local display of Australian talent has been held to great local interest.

Image credit: Screenshot of a StarCraft II beta match between WhiteRa and The Little One, as commented by Husky and HD

Internode has wanted Aussie WoW server for years

Renai LeMay — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:42:33 +0000

National broadband player Internode has discussed the need for an Australian World of Warcraft server with iconic game publisher Blizzard “for many years”, the company’s managing director Simon Hackett said today.

The debate about the need for a WoW server located in Australia received a new lease of life earlier this month, with World of Warcraft production director J. Allen Brack reportedly saying it was an issue Blizzard discussed internally on a regular basis.

The lack of servers hosted in Australia for the game — also a common problem with a number of other online offerings — means that local players must connect to international servers and suffer extended latency compared with players in those countries, which can disadvantage them in-game and cause slower online reaction times.

“We have held talks with Blizzard about this issue for many years. We continue to engage with them on it,” said Hackett in an emailed statement this morning on the issue. “As we run a major Australian national gaming network, we know how passionate WoW players are about the lack of WoW servers here. And we would like nothing more to be a part of the solution.”

Internode runs the games.on.net service which hosts a number of dedicated online servers for Australian gamers for popular games like Team Fortress 2.

Brack had said the issue was a question of local timing and expenditure.

“It has always come down to business case for Blizzard, and I’m sure that’s still the issue — that passion for having a local server cluster is one thing, but they’re expensive, and Blizzard has not to date been able to make the business case for the expenditure stack up, despite the passion,” said Hackett.

“We remain hugely keen to be a part of that solution (including with the provision of data centre facilities and with the use of our national and international network links), but ultimately it’s still up to Blizzard.”

Blizzard has set up ‘Oceania’ WoW servers that target Australian WoW players with local time zones, but the servers are still based overseas.

Image credit: Blizzard