Happy (belated) 10th birthday to StarCraft

by Alexander Sliwinski { Apr 1st 2008 at 5:00PM }

We know better than to upset StarCraft's Queen of Blades, the femme fatale Sarah Kerrigan, so we brought delicious and moist cake to apologize for celebrating the game's 10th birthday a day late. Blizzard posted a little note yesterday that on March 31, 1998, it gave birth to a little RTS called StarCraft ... and Korea would never be the same again.

Blizzard states that StarCraft has sold 9.5 million copies since release and admits a considerable amount of those sales occurred in South Korea, where the game continues to "enjoy unprecedented levels of popularity." Back in '98, StarCraft was revolutionary for introducing three distinct races, solid multiplayer supported by Blizzard's Battle.net and a variety of other things we pretty much now take for granted. StarCraft II is expected whenever Blizzard gets around to releasing it -- yup, that's the best way to put it.

Tags: blizzard, starcraft, starcraft2, starcraftii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Apr 1st 2008 5:03PM

Nice use of portal cake.

voodoo_craig @ Apr 1st 2008 5:11PM

You mean it isn't a lie?

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 1st 2008 5:41PM

That's not the portal cake. The portal cake is a rich chocolate with cocoa beans pressed into the frosting and strawberry accents...

Or is it sad enough that I thought the cake looked so delicious and moist that I had to make it in real life?

Shagittarius @ Apr 1st 2008 5:05PM

And if your still playing Starcraft let me welcome you to 10 years of advancement in the form of many other RTS games that have since been released.

Pedobear @ Apr 1st 2008 5:12PM

And what are some of these RTS games?

Shagittarius @ Apr 1st 2008 5:33PM

I don't have time to get too far into this but there have been lots of RTS games that attempted to make the genre more than a build queing/RoShambo/Superiority through numbers, that have all failed to capture the market that this very basic and over rated RTS has come to dominate over the last 10 years.

Part of the reason RTS are dead today is beacuse of the blind loyalty gamers have to this relic from the past.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 1st 2008 5:44PM

No, I'd say part of the reason why RTS's are dead today is that they've largely spent the last ten years making the RTS game more and more for hardcore RTS fans only leaving new players completely overwhelmed at the huge fucking wall the developers have built around the genre. Sure, some other examples exist such as Dawn of War and Company of Heroes but the rest of the industry has been going on the whole "members only" mentality like Supreme Commander.

Having said that, however, I am looking forward to Demigod...

Shagittarius @ Apr 2nd 2008 11:14AM

I'm not surprised that the loyalty to this outdated software is as big as it is, but honestly this game wasn't even that innovative when it came out. It was really mostly more of the same comming from warcraft and command and conquer.

Oh well I don't expect most people to have the taste or the intelligence to recognize this. Just stay with the herd and make your 'baaaa' noises.

Angelofwar @ Apr 1st 2008 5:09PM

There hasn't been a good RTS since either. You want eye candy? Go play your supreme commander. However, everyone knows that if you want true strategy, true test of skill, you play starcraft. To ten more years on top (or at least until SC2).

Cheers.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 1st 2008 5:46PM

Meanthinks you need to give the Company of Heroes series a try. I thought nothing could beat Starcraft either... but oh how I was wrong. Advanced military strategy applied to an RTS in conjunction with the complete removal of the resource dependant mentality of old... good times.

Einhanderkiller @ Apr 1st 2008 6:37PM

Eye candy? Supreme Commander?
Huh? I wouldn't call SupCom eye candy. While good looking at times, it is by no means 'eye candy'.

Anyway, although I think StarCraft is the best game I have ever played, it is definitely not the most strategic game out there. If you want true strategy in an RTS, play something like, say, Sins of a Solar Empire. StarCraft is for the most part a tactical game, requiring fast reactions.

Zertoss @ Apr 1st 2008 5:13PM

What's Starcraft?

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Apr 1st 2008 5:51PM

go outside and ask the first Korean you see

mike @ Apr 1st 2008 5:28PM

yeah its funny. Starcraft is still the best RTS game to date, and its 10 years old. Warcraft 3 was fun, so where a few others, but none where like starcraft. Starcraft is also STILL fun to play. Its one of the games that truly holds up to the test of time. Unfortunetly since it was so long ago, theres advanced online stuff you miss like proper networking and voice chat. Starcrafts code is sorta messed up. You cant play with a friend on a lan over battle.net when you share an Ip, which sucks :(. Hosting games online is also difficult if your using a router with a NAT, which mostly everyone is.

Im very excited for starcrat 2. Hopefully it maintains the feel and fun of SC1 while having all the glorius advancements for an online system, like proper network coding and built in voice chat.