StarCraft II game’s next frontier is China

It used to be that if a Western game showed up in China, it was pirated. But times have changed, and Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase.com have announced that StarCraft II is beginning a long-awaited open beta test in China on March 29.

During that time, players can play the multiplayer mode of StarCraft II for free. At some point, though, players will have to shell out money for the game, and that could turn out to be a very big business opportunity for Blizzard, a division of the biggest video game publisher Activision Blizzard, since the game has sold millions of copies in the West.

The reason Blizzard can launch the game in China is two-fold. First, American companies aren’t allowed to operate their own online games in China without a Chinese partner. That’s why Shanghai-based NetEase.com, which operates World of Warcraft in China, is involved in StarCraft II. The second is that Blizzard has developed Battle.net, an online gaming system that allows it to authenticate users and boot anyone who is playing with a pirated copy.

Chinese players can now log into the Chinese version of Battle.net and create an account and download the Chinese game in advance. It won’t become playable until March 29. After the beta period is over, players can then buy the game in 30-day increments for a suggested retail price of RMB20, or $3.04 in U.S. dollars. That allows them to play both multiplayer games and the single-player campaign. The official launch date isn’t set yet.

Mike Morhaime, chief executive of Blizzard, said the company has been balancing the game and making improvements since it was released last July. The original StarCraft game, released in 1998, was one of the classic games that commanded a huge audience in China, said William Ding, chief executive of NetEase.com. In the meantime, Blizzard has given Battle.net a big makeover and built Facebook-sharing and other cool features into it.

In July, 2010, StarCraft II sold 1.5 million units in its first 24 hours, and it has sold more than 4.5 million to date. That’s roughly $270 million in retail revenues, making the game one of the biggest PC titles of the year.