Video footage of this interview can be found here but the sound isn't the greatest, so read on for the full take on the current state of the sequel to one of the most popular real-time strategy games of all time.

AusGamers: StarCraft has a massive following in Korea, it's one of the primary e-sport titles there; do you see StarCraft 2 as replacing what they already have going on with the original StarCraft or supplementing that?

Frank Pearce : Definitely as far as e-sport goes, we view StarCraft 2 as supplementing the existing titles that are used. We don't want anyone that chooses to continue playing StarCraft to not have that option and we'll continue to support our titles long after release; we've patched the original Starcraft as recently as a few months ago. It's important that if bugs come up, we address them; if balance issues come up, we address them.

AG: So do you think – I guess I'm focusing specifically on Korea because I know there's so many people there that play it so seriously there and obviously they're going to pick it up pretty quickly – that people will eventually migrate away from StarCraft and move onto StarCraft 2?

Frank: If we do our job well and create a really compelling gameplay experience then that's certainly the hope, but it's really impossible to say. We felt like we did a pretty good job with Warcraft 3 and Warcraft 3 is popular over there, but StarCraft is still the nearest and dearest to their hearts.

AG: One thing that I think Blizzard is renowned for in a truly positive way is how you guys handle issues with cheating – you have a very strict policy about cheating and how you treat those that get caught: disabling accounts and changing ranks on ladders. Did that factor into the development of StarCraft 2 – at a design level? Or is that something that you typically deal with after the fact?

Frank: It's a combination I think - a little bit of design – certainly anything we can do with technology before we release the game we try to contemplate that stuff a bit.


AG: Do you envisage cheating being a big issue or do you think you've got it pretty well covered?

Frank: It depends. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on in the World of Warcraft space that presents certain new challenges – stolen accounts and the like that aren't good for our customers. For example, you now have the option of the security keyring with a password token that updates every 30 seconds, to help secure your account against keyloggers and stuff like that.

Beyond that, it's something that we want to evolve further and definitely want to achieve a point where there's more accountability. A challenge we face with the Internet is that people are emboldened by the anonymity of it all. So we definitely want to make sure that there's more accountability there.

AG: For in-game ladders, are there any major changes over the original StarCraft in terms of how they are being approached?

Frank: It's stuff that we're talking about but we haven't finalised all the details of yet. It's one of the areas that we still have a lot of work to do, so talking about any specific details there would probably be a bit premature right now.

AG: During GDC at the start of the year, Rob Pardo gave a speech about StarCraft 2 development and the thing that really caught my attention was how, during the development phase, you guys had focused really heavily on multiplayer, and the singleplayer - while obviously not an afterthought – is more of a result of what is done in the multiplayer.

It seems really obvious to me that that's a great way to make a long lasting game. If you can make a multiplayer game really captivating, people are going to be playing it for years to come. This is exactly what we see with pretty much every Blizzard title; StarCraft in particular. Does developing a gaming like that pose any unique challenges?

Frank Pierce : It's not really something we're unaccustomed to – it's a process that we've been working with for many years. It's really about making sure that the multiplayer experience – like you see on the show-floor here – is a foundation, a building block for what we're going to do in the singleplayer.

AG: On a slightly related note: The PC industry is coming under a bit of fire in recent months as people talk about the popularity of consoles and one of the main topics that is discussed quite regularly is piracy. Online multiplayer games obviously have a bit of an advantage in that respect, because you've got your CD key that you need to have at all times to play online.

Do you have any thoughts on piracy, PC games in general and Blizzard attitude towards that sort of thing?


Frank: It's obviously a consideration for us, but we're not going to devote an enormous amount of resources toward dealing with it. Ultimately we feel like if we create an online platform and build a compelling experience with full-feature-set functionality, that people will want to play in that space and play with legitimate copies.

We view one of the biggest assets we have – in terms of combating piracy – is our online community and the desire for people to be a part of that.

AG: Probably a really annoying question but just asking out of interest – will StarCraft 2 likely follow the other games from Blizzard in that there will be an expansion at some point in the future.

Frank: We're really focused on completing the first version - StarCraft 2 proper – but it's definitely something that's in consideration. We'll just have to see how things go.

AG: I'm sure you saw that there were some tears from gamers after the first Diablo 3 announcement, in terms of the colour and the art design. A lot of people were disappointed and a lot of us were disgusted at the people that were disappointed. Did that cause any issues internally?

Frank: No, not really. You know, that's a good sign that we have a really strong community, one that's so passionate our game franchises that people would voice their opinions like that. It's not a problem for us. Hopefully, people will respect that this is what we do for a living and give us the benefit of the doubt until they've had an actual opportunity to play the game. Diablo 3 is shaping up really nicely and it's really fun to play, so hopefully once people start playing it and they realise how fun it is they won't be so focused on whether or not the art style is exactly what they expect.

AG: Obviously that was a Diablo 3 question but StarCraft 2 appears to follow pretty closely to the design of StarCraft 1, in terms of art direction. So I guess you guys didn't have to deal with anything like that when you released the first screenshots?

Frank: I didn't see any big backlash about anything like that, no.

AG: In general, from what I can tell from the Australian community that we deal with, everyone is super excited and can't wait for it to come out. It looks like you guys are so on the right track it's not even funny.

There have been rumours floating around – I'm sure this is just as annoying as the expansion question – but is there the possibility of an MMO on the horizon for the StarCraft brand?

Frank: Nothing like that as yet. The World of Warcraft team have their hands full with Wrath of the Lich King. The StarCraft 2 team have their hands full with their project and the Diablo 3 team have a lot of work to do as well. Even if it was something we wanted to do, we don't have the resources to do it right now anyway. It's not something that's on the short to mid-term horizon; it's not even on our radar.

AG: One last question about the online play and match-making. One common problem we have in Australia is being geographically remote. If you want to just jump in an online game, a lot of games might pit you against a player in the US or Europe as a common example. When you're playing with that sort of latency it tends to cause undesirable effects in the game, bits of lag that can ruin your momentum and make the game frustrating to play.

Is there anything in StarCraft 2 that specifically caters to that in terms of matchmaking? Are you more likely to get pitted against a local opponent?

Frank: All the matchmaking stuff is something that we're still working on the implementation of but yeah, the global community surrounding the game is definitely something that we're conscious of and we definitely want to be able to unite them, but do it in a way that doesn't take away from the play experience. There's still some stuff we have to do in that regard.