StarCraft 2 Available Digitally on Day One; New Website Launches

StarCraft 2 will be available digitally on release day, July 27, and is available for pre-loading at this time. The digital copy will go live at 10AM PST on 7/27/2010 (for US and Latin American customers), but can be downloaded now with any purchase commitment.

The digital release was said to arrive "shortly after [the retail] release" when the game's Collector's Edition was detailed, but it appears that "shortly" actually does mean "shortly". Activation times vary by region so please check for yourself if you live outside of the US or Latin America.

Additionally, the beta version of the new Battle.net website has launched, with an interface matching the in-game screens for StarCraft II. Other Blizzard games currently display links to the old pages and are not yet supported with the new look. New forums are also available, sans real names, with some of the features mentioned to be in development including content voting and search, though conversation threading does not appear to be active yet.

Posts are attributed to character names (not including the 3-digit identifier) and displays a player's achievement score. Sadly missing is any way to "friend" someone from the forums or community site. It would be nice to be able to meet up in-game if both players agreed to it, though not at the Real ID level.