Free Starcraft 2 Beta Invites

Second giveaway of Starcraft 2 Beta Keys incoming!

2010-02-25T11:22:00.000-08:00

So if you haven't read or heard before, we've been giving out a large amount of Starcraft 2 beta keys to our loyal followers of this blog. We have over 200 followers on our Twitter and Facebook page! The support you've been showing is really amazing.

We've already given out over 20 Starcraft 2 beta keys to people who have been posting on our blog and following us all over the Internet. We haven't ignored your dedication. Normally we were going to stop it at 20 keys but... Due to the popularity of our first giveaway, we're deciding to do another wave of beta key giveaways!

So if you're still interested and didn't get a key before and want to try your luck getting one again, simply click 'Read More' below to try your luck again!
You know what the deal is by now. We don't want to waste your time with nonsense, and we know everyone wants their Starcraft 2 beta keys right away so they can start playing with everyone else, so we'll try and keep it succinct and to the point right now.

THIS IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE. That being said, we do have a lot of invites and we need to be sure that you actually WANT the invite to play the game, and not just sell the Starcraft 2 beta key. You need to follow some completely free steps in order for us to determine that you actually want the invite.

Again, THIS IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE. Tens of thousands of people want beta keys, and we simply don't have that many.

The steps are, again, completely free, and are as followed:

1) Follow us on Twitter, and retweet this Twitter post. If you don't already have a twitter, make one, it's fast, simple, free, and only takes a minute of your time. Join the conversation!

2) NOTE: This one is optional, but it will increase your chances to get an invite if you do it.

Become a Fan of our Facebook page! If you don't have a FaceBook account, make one for free!

3) Scroll down to where you can create a comment on the post, in other words click 'Post a comment.'

4) In the box, you need to write this:

- How long you've been playing StarCraft.

- Your favorite race in the game.

- Why you think you should receive this invite over any of the other hundreds of people who want invites.

- Your e-mail. We won't spam you, but since this page is on the public side of the Internet, others may. Use a throwaway free e-mail account if you are worried.

5) Submit the comment.

We will review all the comments on the page. We will then select bunches of them and contact you via the e-mail you left in order to give you the invite.

Spread the word guys! And once again, good luck!

Current State of Starcraft 2 Beta Invites: 2/19

2010-02-19T16:33:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a few days since the Starcraft 2 Beta has gone live. I've sent out some invites to people who applied to my invite giveaway thread and there's a lot more to be sent out. Remember to follow on Twitter to maximize your chances, and write a good comment! I also commented on the hoarders of invites, so now I'll talk about the state of the beta key scene after a couple of days.

In short, not much has changed. Beta keys are still going for extremely high prices on eBay and other auction forums. I've seen auction finishing in excess of $500 at this point, which is pretty crazy. We can only hope that these types of auctions start to subside as Blizzard cracks down on the Starcraft 2 beta invite sellers and makes more invites available.

But there's another despicable plot starting to surface. Rather than selling invites, now people are outright scamming people out of their keys. This is of course hundreds of times worse than seling Starcraft 2 beta keys, and that's saying a lot. We as a community need to educate others and spread the word about these scams so we can avoid it.

Basically, what scammers are doing are creating a front site that appears to be a Blizzard site. A person is then lulled into a false sense of security by a site that resembles Blizzard, and they go and enter their valuable information, like their battle.net account/password or even their Starcraft 2 Beta invite key. This is known as phishing.

PLEASE help spread the word to help people understand and spot these scams. The one failsafe way to avoid these scams is to:

ALWAYS type "battle.net" into your web browser BEFORE you enter your login information or beta keys. This will make sure your account details are never compromised and stolen.

Again, spread the word about these scams so we can reduce the drama whirlwind created by the Starcraft 2 beta, hopefully they'll be more waves of invites soon so we won't have to deal with these scams any longer.

Hoarders of Starcraft 2 Beta Invites: Why do it?

2010-02-18T01:54:00.000-08:00

I've already began offering my available Starcraft 2 Beta invites here. Now, I'll begin to go offer my simple thoughts about the mindsets of the uncouth individuals who, unlike me, hoard invites for themselves.

If you don't know already, Starcraft 2 is the sequel to Starcraft, one of the biggest video games in the world. If you don't believe this, run a Google Search on "South Korea Starcraft". If you read through the first couple of results, you'll probably realize that South Korea has national leagues dedicated to Starcraft. These Starcraft games are also televised constantly, by the way. Starcraft 2 is the sequel to that madness.

Now that we've established the titanic influence that is Starcraft 2, let's discuss the Beta. Starcraft 2 has been in production for over 5 years, and Blizzard (the producer of Starcraft) has released a Beta for Starcraft 2. The beta is basically an incomplete version of the game, made available to people in order to evaluate the game so far, and collect data for how to improve it.

Notice how I mentioned that it was "made available to people". Sounds good right? Not that simple. Starcraft 2 is offering a closed beta, which means the list of people allowed to sample the game is exclusive; only people who acquired a Starcraft 2 beta invite key previously are allowed to participate. Without much thought, you can deduce that Starcraft 2 beta invite keys are indeed extremely rare, and extremely sought after.

This brings me to my point: People who hoard Starcraft 2 beta invites. They do it for multiple reasons; to brag about the invites, to sell them, or to simply do nothing with them. It's any unfortunate reality that these types of people exist, because this hoarding is severely detrimental to Starcraft 2's popularity, and the video gaming community as a whole.

Yet little is done about the hoarding of these beta invites. Blizzard may state in their Terms of Service that selling these invites or receiving more than one is not allowed, but punishment can easily be avoided. Sales are being made on eBay for Starcraft 2 Beta invite keys for over $300, which is about six times the price that the full, non beta retail game will be. And all the buzz simply generates interest in Blizzard, which alienates the poor fans of the game who are left in the cold without an invite.

People in the video gaming community must take a stand against these invite hoarders. Encourage people you know with extra invites to give them away for free. Write suggestions to Blizzard to allow more than one user to use a given Starcraft 2 beta invite key. File complaints with eBay or other mediums where sales of invites are taking place. Without the input of the community as a whole, these beta invite key hoarders will continue to proliferate, and damage the community we cherish so much.

Get your free Starcraft 2 Beta invite here!

2010-02-18T00:56:00.000-08:00

We know you guys all want your free invites, and we do have them, so to be frank, let's cut all the bullcrap away.

We've decided to provide some invites to the public, COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE. That's right, we aren't selling them at all. We want to share something that dedicated fans have been waiting over a DECADE for.

THIS IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE. That being said, we do have a lot of invites and we need to be sure that you actually WANT the invite to play the game, and not just sell the invite. So if you're still interested in the COMPLETELY FREE invite, please click the 'Read More' button below to get your invite, and prepare to complete some FREE steps that will only take a minute of your time to prove you actually want the invite.

Basically, a few close friends and I predicted this. We predicted there would be an insanely big invite shortage for people truly wanting to play Starcraft 2, and not just braggers and invite sellers. We hate invite sellers.

So many months ago, we started an extremely time-consuming and taxing effort to amass quite a few invites, using some unscrupulous methods to collect them during contests, conventions, e-mail signups, and other sly methods.

Again, THIS IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE. Tens of thousands of people want invites, and we simply don't have that many.

Okay, so you want your invite. Fine. But we need to make sure you're not some low-down invite seller trying to make a quick buck off of the next $300 quickie fad.

The steps are, again, completely free, and are as followed:

1) Follow us on Twitter, and retweet this Twitter post. If you don't already have a twitter, make one, it's fast, simple, free, and only takes a minute of your time. Join the conversation!

2) NOTE: This one is optional, but it will increase your chances to get an invite if you do it.
Become a Fan of our Facebook page! If you don't have a FaceBook account, make one for free!

3) Scroll down to where you can create a comment on the post, in other words click 'Post a comment.'

4) In the box, you need to write this:
- How long you've been playing StarCraft.
- Your favorite race in the game.
- Why you think you should receive this invite over any of the other hundreds of people who want invites.
- Your e-mail. We won't spam you, but since this page is on the public side of the Internet, others may. Use a throwaway free e-mail account if you are worried.

5) Submit the comment.

We will review all the comments on the page. We will then select bunches of them and contact you via the e-mail you left in order to give you the invite.

Please, spread the word. Not just about our little giveaway here, but against hoarding invites and selling them. It's really stupid... Really.