The Chaotic Origins Of Starcraft

One of the most widely recognized IP's in the gaming industry has a tumultuous origin story, as revealed in an article on the official StarCraft website. The article reads like a short story, featuring interview questions with prominent Blizzard employees spliced in to detail the development process. It's a great read.

According to Adham, this embrace of chaos was—and still is—key to Blizzard’s success. “It’s not what you learn in business school. It’s sort of the opposite to say, no no no, don’t do any of that, just give your guys the freedom to go hog wild for a period of time. Given enough freedom to iterate, and game directors who don’t abuse that freedom—out of that comes Overwatch, and Hearthstone . . . and StarCraft.”

The retrospective look is a rare insight into the creative process and the unexpected success that followed. For a game that's inseparable from my own youth, and I'm sure innumerable other players will agree, it's fascinating to learn just how hodgepodge development was. But when you put the right people in the right seats and let them find a way, they will.

Original Starcraft is free-to-play, and the remastered edition of the game is slated to arrive this summer. I will definitely collect some vespene gas when it releases.

StarCraft Remastered Announcement