Blizzard All-Stars development slowed down by free-to-play experiments

The development of the long in-development Blizzard All-Stars is slow due to Blizzard's experimentations with a microtransaction-based free-to-play business model being planned for the title, StarCraft 2 production director Chris Sigaty told Eurogamer.

According to Sigaty, Blizzard is "actively working" on the title; however, the developer is still working on what is necessary to design a game with a business model Blizzard has yet to use first-hand.

"We're actively working on it," he said. "That I can confirm. A lot of the stuff that's remaining right now that we need to focus on are the systems necessary to pull off a game with a different business model than StarCraft 2.

"StarCraft 2 is a box. We intend to do something different with the business model in Blizzard All-Stars, something more closely resembling the other types of games in that genre, the MOBA-style games that are out there today, and being able to sell smaller amounts of things to players, the things they want."

Blizzard All-Stars was initially named "Blizzard Dota" prior to Valve's adoption of the Dota title. Blizzard All-Stars was once one of four internally-developed mods planned for release on or near the expansion of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. It appears to now be a standalone title.

"We'll go into more details about that in the future but I suspect you will not have to have StarCraft 2 to play [Blizzard All-Stars]. We're definitely emphasizing it as its own product in the future," said Sigaty.

Blizzard All-Stars has no official release window. Its website states the game is "coming soonish."