StarCraft II budget passes $100m - report

A new report by the Wall Street Journal has suggested the budget for Blizzard's PC title StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has already passed $100 million.

The figure is not attributed to any specific source, in an interview with Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick, where the outspoken publisher boss points to the support of the original StarCraft as evidence of a dedicated fanbase.

"There is no shortage of consumers for StarCraft," said Kotick. "For a game that is more than ten years old, there's millions of people still playing it."

The game is released on July 27, with some analysts already predicting it can sell five million units on its first year of release.

At the game's official unveiling in 2007, Blizzard president Mike Morhaine said the company was not concerned about costs and development time, only that the final product met expectations.

"We don't really have a budget; we'll spend as much time and resources as we need to make this game great," he said.