No plans for free-to-play Starcraft II

Blizzard has no plans to transition Starcraft II to a free-to-play business model. Game director Dustin Browder commented on the matter during a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything session, saying though such a switch may work for certain games--like Team Fortress 2--it would not work for Starcraft II.

"We have no plans to go free-to-play in the traditional sense. We do have a trial version that allows players to check out the game but it isn't like Team Fortress 2," Browder said.

"Valve did make a lot of changes to Team Fortress 2 to make that game work for free-to-play," he added. "We have not yet found design choices for Starcraft II that we would be happy with to make it free-to-play, so we aren't going to do it."

Team Fortress 2 became a free-to-play title supported by microtransactions during summer 2011. Since the business model switch, the game's player base has jumped fives time over.

In September last year, Browder said Blizzard was "looking at" turning the multiplayer portion of Starcraft II into a free-to-play experience.

The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red recently called the free-to-play model "strange and awkward." Studio head Adam Badowski said though there may be money to be made in this market, it is still "far from perfect."

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm launches March 12.