What's Missing From StarCraft II's Launch? Pirate Copies
StarCraft II has been circulating in beta since February 2010. A preload version's been downloadable for the past week. Boxed copies of the game went on sale last night at midnight. The game code's been hypothetically available, more or less in full, to software pirates for some time now.
All that, and still not a (successfully) cracked copy in sight. That's not a little surprising, given StarCraft II's PC pedigree and offline play options.
StarCraft II doesn't require an internet connection to plumb its solo mode. Unplug your computer from the net, fire up the game, type in your Battle.net account name, and once the game realizes it's been untethered, you're offered an offline play button. The game doesn't support local area network (LAN) play, and your achievements are obviously held local until you reconnect, but the solo campaign's all there and fully playable.
