$60 for this particular release - I believe this release only includes the 'Terran' missions - subsequent releases, each $60, will include the 'Zerg' and 'Protoss' specific missions.

Thats what got me...I would have purchased it but the pricing out for each set of missions and removal of LAN play has made me postpone purchase...Shoot, I'll try to wait till it comes out in a 'combo' release in a few years...I'll try!

There is actually nothing but rumors and speculation about the price of the future expansions. Blizzard has said nothing about the price, so it is a little sensationalist to assume they will all be $60.

That's still a lot less expensive per hour of entertainment than most other games, not to mention eating out or seeing a movie.

Still doesn't beat getting a good book at the public library, though...

I have been thinking for some time: is 60 US dollars sort of price limit for a game or have there been more expensive games? I'm more interested in the cases where the price of the game is determined by the merits of the game itself and not by the price of the necessary stuff (controllers, pricey distribution media etc.) that the game needs to operate, so I'd like to factor that out. But It's still interesting to know: how much did they sell for those games that need special controllers to run (i.e. guitar) or those games distributed on cartridges with pricey ROMs and ASICs?

When iPhone App Store came along, it brought with it its own price conventions i.e. it's normal to sell games for $0.99, or $9.99 tops. Does anyone sell games for $60, or at least $30 on iPhone? Form a developer's point of view I see no reason for iPhone games to be priced cheaper than PC or console counterparts. Development of any game doesn't become 10x cheaper because it is for iPhone, does it?

The reason I'm interested in it is the following: I am thinking about how can indie game developers get compensated for their work? There's the notion that if the game is "big and good" ("AAA" titles released by major publishers) it deserves to be paid top dollar for ($60 currently, I assume; though $60 seems to be "very top" by todays standards); indie games from obscure developers deserve much less. I don't see why the opposite couldn't be true; "big" games, though require big budgets for their production, will sell many copies anyway, while indie ones appeal for much narrower audience (that needs them nevertheless), for which they have to compensate with higher price, which said audience will have to pay. Does history have any examples of this kind? If not, maybe, as PG noted[1], we're not actually paying for content in games, not just in music and print?

[1] Paul Graham: Post-Medium Publishing http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html

Not the first launch at $60. Warcraft 3 was also like this. I imagine there are also other titles at the same price point.

the real kicker will be if they do not allow you to disconnect your game serial from your battle.net ID - eg: you can't resell it.

Leave it to Activision to figure out how to screw you every way possible.

It is not going to take long for one or more fake-auth servers to spring up... much like those Windows7 validation-servers-run-locally.

Actually, I'd say games are getting cheaper. In the mid-80s, it wasn't uncommon to see $50-$60 dollar Nintendo games, and inflation has cut the value of a dollar approximately in half since then. Today's equivalent of SMB3 would be a $120 game.

I think that was Modern Warfare 2.