Blizzard Entertainment Makes A Comeback in India through e-xpress After Almost a Decade Of Dormancy

I’ve been a gamer since I was about 12 years old. That was in the late 90s and early 2000s era, when PC gaming was exclusive in every sense, but yet, deeply followed and loved. In those days, I remember buying retail copies of games that I played for literally the next ten or so years. I bought other games too, that I played for maybe an year at most, but the special ones, gave me countless hours of high quality entertainment. These were the Blizzard games, Starcraft, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, Warcraft 3: The The Frozen Throne and Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. All of these games were priced reasonably too. That is a title difficult to give for video games in those days, where they were meant only for the elite.

These were literally the games that made me the PC gamer I am today. In those days, there were only a handful of retailers who sold PC games and video games. But you could bet that you’ll always find a Blizzard game on the shelves of a video game store, such was the reach of Blizzard in the days when even having a computer was considered a super luxury. This presence of the company was a feat in itself, and something that will be close to many PC gamers who belong to the same generation as me.

Fast forward a few years, when Blizzard released World of Warcraft. No single store had a retail copy of this game. WoW later went on to the become the highest selling game of all time. But in India, there was no way people could play it because, well, nobody was selling it. Fast forward another few years, and Starcraft II is released. Another game I really wanted to play, but where do I buy it from? Buying it online from battle.net, Blizzard’s online portal, was the only option. But the price was just way to high for Indian standards, and when compared to other PC games. And spending that much on a digital copy just didn’t make sense. So I had no option but to import the retail copy from the US. Diablo 3 did make it to the shelves, but in extremely limited numbers to really make a considerable impact.

The problem was, Blizzard’s distributor, WWW CD-ROM, was dead. Heck, even the name sounds outdated. Nobody knows what went wrong. I’ve given a couple of attempts of calling their office, but I never got a clear picture of what they were upto. Blizzard’s India arm wasn’t keeping up with the industry. This had to change.

And so it has. e-xpress Interactive Software has officially signed up as Blizzard’s distributor in India. I received the news today and I couldn’t have been more happier. Blizzard is one of the most legendary developers of PC Games. In times where games don’t even have a shelf life of two months, Blizzard’s games are playable for ten years. In times when technology moves faster than the speed of light, Blizzard’s games are playable and fresh even in those fast changing times. Indians need Blizzard. PC Gaming need Blizzard. And Blizzard is here, thanks for e-xpress Interactive.

Watch out for Blizzard’s latest line up of games, Overwatch, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, and Diablo III flounder retail shops across the country, and online e-commerce websites.

For those who haven’t played a Blizzard game, here’s something to get you started. Blizzard has an INSANE free-to-play cross-platform (including mobiles) game, called Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. This game has been my poison since the time it released, about three years ago. This game should get you nicely oriented into the Blizzard world. Also, you can download the Battle.net client and play Heroes of the Storm, a free-to-play MoBA. Blizzard is also generous enough to make you sample Overwatch, its latest first person shooter.

Here is the pricing of Indian pricing of Blizzard’s lineup. These are great prices, better than Blizzard’s online pricing. And hey, you get Blizzard’s retail package, which is amongst the best retail packaging of games.