My major point of excitement when I heard the news that Blizzard had launched their digital distribution store had nothing whatsoever to do with their time gobbling MMO, World of Warcraft. No, what I was thinking of was all the times I had misplaced or lost my Diablo 2 or Lord of Destruction expansion keys and in desperation had driven to Target or Wal-Mart late in the night, desperate to find a copy of the Battle Chest so I could replay the glory of stabbing hundreds of thousands of little enemies over and over. Sound familiar, anyone?
Although the store only launched with three titles (the StarCraft Anthology, Warcraft III, and the WarCraft III Frozen Throne expansion), the beloved old dungeon crawler is sure to soon follow. In the meantime, you can register your CD keys on the site and add selected titles to your library at anytime for free. I've stared at many an empty case wondering where the game made off to, so this ought to be handy for those of you that tend to lose things as well.
In addition to the new store, a beta lottery program has been added which auto-adds registered users to a drawing for beta access. This would be exciting if there were any games open for beta right now, but there aren't...although fans awaiting Starcraft II will likely be able to get a chance at a beta slot this way when the game is ready for that.
Check out the full list of titles that can be registered and/or downloaded after the jump.
[Via Shacknews -- Thanks, Jonathan]
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49 comments + 106006 views
Those can be easily be found on retail stores. And I own most of them so its nothing much for me I guess.
But I like the idea of CD key registration. Steam had helped me replay HL2 without my physical CDs afterall.
YES. This makes my life. Whenever I get the urge to play any of my old Blizzard games, I can never find anything but empty CD cases because my brothers are idiots and don't know how to put things away (I really should hide my games). We probably have 6 different copies of Diablo II lost in our house.
Digital Distribution is amazing. No more do I have to search through countless shoeboxes and tupperware containers of old CD jewel cases scouring for CD keys, only to realize that it was thrown away ages ago because the case was destroyed.
Hauntingly familiar experience here. Blizzard CDs always seem to get lost much more easily than other discs.
I'm registering my keys ASAP!
looks like steam will get some competition soon.
OH GOD YES <3 I can NEVER find the CDs i want when i need them!
GOD FINALLY!
Now I don't have to safe-keep those damn Starcraft Keys anymore in special locations.
This news leaves me slightly perturbed, why does blizzard feel that they need their own digital distribution store? Why couldn't they buckle under, and distribute their wares on steam? Epic and id software have swallowed their pride, why cant blizzard? This sort of attitude isn't helping to save the sinking ship that is PC gaming.
great idea :-)
They're still too expensive. 40 bucks for a game thats around 10 years old is ridiculous.
I guess I'll register my copies of Diablo 2 and Starcraft. Because the D2 battlechest packaging is shit and the discs are all in loose paper sleeves (fuck you blizzard >:\) they're really easy to lose. Took me a week to find my Lords of Destruction disc last time I reinstalled to play with some friends.
wtf, i i i...also hinted on this :(
Boy i'm glad I didn't through out those empty cases
Add me to the list of people who actual have their cases for all the blizzard games but between moves and siblings I'm missing over half the discs. Good work, Bliz.
OMG! This is perfect, I own the cases for most of my Blizzard games, but have lost the discs thanks to constant switching between friends and brothers (Blizzard make the best LAN multiplayer games). The worst thing was when you lost ONE disc of Diablo 2 and spent the whole day looking for it when you could have been LAN questing xD . This just reaffirms my love for Blizzard.
My StarCraft:Brood War CD hasn't been taken out of my computer in about 3 years, so thankfully I won't have to fork over $20.
I got the Diablo Battle Chest super cheap a few years ago but, sadly, never played it. I just couldn't get into it, for whatever reason.
Ahhhh, Blizzard. I had such massive amounts of respect for them until World of Warcraft came out. My collectors edition of WoW still mocks me to this day as I play through the great games I missed over the year and a half of life that game took from me.
This is a pretty awesome way to catch up on old Blizzard games though. Instead of borrowing your friend's discs of various games. I think every group of gaming friends had that one whore copy of Starcraft/Warcraft that was passed around like a dirty tramp.
This is something my girlfriend would like. She loses a lot of stuff.
Go go gadget retail discy lose
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