It’s interesting to note that this promotion came at a great time for the franchise, as “StarCraft 2” has fallen off of the radar to some extent lately. While many gamers still play and enjoy it actively, many have all but forgotten about it and moved on to other titles.
The rise of popularity of the MOBA genre undoubtedly contributed to this, and many players have migrated to that scene. But now, with “StarCraft 2” being offered for free, perhaps this situation can be reversed and we’re going to see more attention towards the RTS genre from all sides.
After all, there are few companies on the scene right now that can realistically pull this off, and Blizzard are definitely one of them. The studio has a long history with the competitive gaming scene, and they have a lot of leverage to utilize in getting gamers on their side and excited for a project like that.
The response to the “StarCraft 2” promotion is a clear enough sign of that, which is why we’re as excited as gamers themselves to see where this is all leading to, and what the next step for Blizzard is. 2017 could easily turn out to be a fantastic year for fans of strategy games, all things considered. Who knows, perhaps we might even see a completely different arrangement of genre rankings by the end of this year.