Can Blizzard top itself with 'StarCraft II?'

Kristin Kalning Games editor • E-mail

Blizzard Entertainment is one of the most successful game developers in the world, with an unbroken string of hit games including “World of Warcraft,” the “Diablo” franchise, the “Warcraft” series and “StarCraft.”

The only hitch? The company famously will ship no game before its time, which means fans often have a long wait between new releases.

Ask any game fan which Blizzard sequel they’d most like to see and the answer will inevitably be “StarCraft II,” even from the most hardcore “World of Warcraft” addict. Released in 1998, the real-time strategy game about a war between three galactic species is considered one of the greatest games of all time. "StarCraft," and the expansion “Brood Wars,”  have sold nearly 10 million units.

“StarCraft” is credited with sparking the online gaming craze in South Korea and it remains hugely popular in that country’s Internet cafes and on the pro-game circuit. So not many industry watchers (or Blizzard-watchers) were surprised when the company unveiled “StarCraft2” in Seoul.

On May 19, thousands of attendees piled into the Olympic Gymnastics Arena and watched as company executives showed screenshots and gameplay videos from “StarCraft II.” The demo event quickly made its way to YouTube, and the game blogs whipped into a frenzy about The Game That Could Now Be Named. The only thing Blizzard didn’t have for fans that day? A release date.

In a Q&A session, I talked to Bizzard’s vice president of game design, Rob Pardo, about the company’s long development processes, how to keep teams motivated (hint: champagne parties and record-shattering sales), courting casual players and what fans can expect from "StarCraft II."

What took so long? The first “StarCraft” shipped nine years ago. Why has it taken so long to circle back to this franchise?

Mainly because we make our decisions on what game we’re going to work on from a creative standpoint. The team that worked on the original “StarCraft” wanted to revisit the “Warcraft” universe, and they went on to work on “Warcraft III.” When that game finished up [in 2002,] they were excited to go back and work on the “StarCraft” universe.

We did break ground on “StarCraft II” in 2003, but wasn’t in full production for another year or so.

What do you mean by full production?

That’s when you have a significant team size with a full complement of programmers, artists and designers that are working 40 hours a week or more on the game.

In the very early stages of any game development project, you tend to see a more skeleton crew because you’re still deciding what the game is. The first thing you have to develop is technology. The artists can’t put anything into the game until the programmers get some technology for them.

Were you concerned that a title as anticipated as “StarCraft II” might steal thunder away from “World of Warcraft”?

Not really, just because we’ve been doing this for a while, and we’ve done multiple products for a while, so we’re excited to do the next big game.

How’d you manage to keep it secret for so long?

Well, Penny Arcade figured it out!

We keep games under code names and we teach developers to refer to games by their code name. And we’re just really careful about talking about the game internally. We don’t bring external folks through unannounced product areas. But I think even I’m surprised that we were able to keep it under wraps all the way to the end.

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