Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of a landmark event in PC gaming. On April 1, 1998, Blizzard unleashed its sci-fi real-time strategy game StarCraft upon the world. While the developers knew they had made a great game, no one foresaw what would happen next. As of May of last year, Blizzard had sold 9.5 million copies of the game, which makes appearances on Top 10 sales lists even today. In South Korea, where it's sold almost five million copies alone, StarCraft is practically a national obsession with professional leagues and sponsorships.
Now Blizzard is busy working on the long-awaited sequel to StarCraft, but IGN were able to talk with several employees who were veterans of the original game for their thoughts on this historic milestone. IGN chatted with Chris Sigaty, lead tester; Sam Didier, art director; and Frank Pearce, a Blizzard cofounder and now executive vice president of product development. Bob Colayco of Blizzard PR also sat in.
Even though fans have been clamoring for a StarCraft 3 for years now, it seems like Blizzard really has no reason to spend time making one.
They sort of ran the story as far as it could go.
Also, it seems like blizzard is more busy with mediocrity at this point in time.
The problem with Blizzard is they have franchises that don't need sequels. People are happy playing the games that they previously made. What they need is new games, none of this business of trying to transport the old audience into a new version of an old game which only ends up nickle and dime'ing users.
Jason Hall, currently an indie developer and former Blizzard employee, has been sharing some really interesting stories from his long career in the industry for a while now. Some of them are truly insightful, while others may seem depressing.
I’m a little shocked that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty sold only around 6 million copies. The original StarCraft did over 11 million. Maybe Blizzard was too leisurely in releasing StarCraft 2? Starcraft 2 came out 12 years after it’s predecessor.
and people wonder why we are having mtx in everything. i blame the people who actual buy them.
It's interesting he used Brazil as an example of the importance of regional pricing. Nowadays many companies on Steam are setting their prices in Brazil as high as, if not more than, their price in USA. I simply refused to buy a few games when I noticed that's the case.
Illogical Games has just announced the official release of Star Discord, the one-man indie dev's charming StarCraft lookalike on mobile.