I've played SC1 and SC2. Grinded both games for quite a bit, and find that you've given quite a bit of sweeping statements; especially the way you say how the mechanics are changed by a bit. Trust me, you can't have a direct transition from being a SC/BW champ into SC2 and expect to win the same way. Except for the familiarity of the lore; its like taking C&C Tiberian Dawn skills into Tiberian Sun. There's still a certain degree of learning curve everyone has to go through. Is that fun or boring? Well. I'd say its a bit of a grind, but to alot of people in the gaming community, they seem to like it.

When you say that if we're not into the community, you won't buy it. True.

Its the same marvel everyone gets when they look at people spending money on a booze in a club just to get drunk. Its stupid to spend money on something that is detrimental. but it doesn't reflect on the quality of the product, or the amount of money that is spent investing on the development of the product. Better, cheaper drinks out there, with better value per litre. then again, its not always about that.

Its the community that supports the product too.

if you don't engage the community, basically you're not leveraging on what can give you the most bang of your buck. other than the custom base building games you hate, there's also dota mods, RPG mods, tower defence mods and all that shenanigans. All these have been done, yep. but we all will never know, the next counterstrike, DOD, DOTA or custom game idea might just be birthed out from this game. And then it might be a different story.

There are so many reasons its priced at RM250. I don't work for blizzard, but I work in the creative line- and I can tell you, if only you knew, they're actually not milking you like a swindle. Getting a team to work at a game that pays itself off after 10+ years... well. You need to make sure all the work pays off to feed these fellas families and keep the dept. running.

I'm in no way trying to convince you otherwise tho. I'm just saying that there's ways for you to make that RM250 worth. Its never the issue of ramp strategies or cheese rushes or single unit massive void rays. If one pays RM250 just to play 6 pool rushes in every game, yeah. sucks to be them. But is it blizzard's fault? err. Well.

I'm a casual player btw. but "casual" itself is so broadly defined. I'd say that really- RM250 can buy you alot of games. Just like how RM50 can buy you 10times more chicken rice and protein value than a Chargrilled Steak. Its what we're looking for in life that counts.

-edit: added note: Since you're in a forum about starcraft, your post is instigating this game's lovers to respond defensively about the game... I don't think you'd really find any answer really getting you anywhere close to loving the game tho. haha. Its like going into a gay forum and commenting how you don't understand why men can get aroused by each other. Its just... you know. weird.