StarCraft Is Now Free, Nearly 20 Years After Its Release (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Nearly two decades after its 1998 release, StarCraft is now free. Legally! Blizzard has just released the original game -- plus the Brood War expansion -- for free for both PC and Mac. You can find it here. Up until a few weeks ago, getting the game with its expansion would've cost $10-15 bucks. The company says they've also used this opportunity to improve the game's anti-cheat system, add "improved compatibility" with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, and fix a few long lasting bugs. So why now? The company is about to release a remastered version of the game in just a few months, its graphics/audio overhauled for modern systems. Once that version hits, the original will probably look a bit ancient by comparison -- so they might as well use it to win over a few new fans, right?

Comments

Free still means freedom to some of us

[jdavidb]

I found this headline confusing, because when I started out here on Slashdot many of us used "free" to mean "available under a license that preserves your freedom to view source code, modify, and redistribute for any purpose" rather than merely "gratis."

There doesn't seem to be a license or source code available, so I'm thinking the article just means available with no charge.