StarCraft: The Catalyst of the Pro-Gaming Revolution

STARCRAFT
The Catalyst of the Pro-Gaming Revolution

Less than a decade ago, the term professional (pro) gamer would have almost been a contradiction of terms. Video games were nothing more than a pastime, a hobby and primarily solo affair. The gamers themselves nomadic, moving from one game to another, would encounter few others during their journeys. Then, on that fateful morning of April 1, 1998, a revolution would begin which would change the lives of gamers forever.

With Blizzard Entertainment’s release of StarCraft on April 1, 1998 came many changes to our perspective of gaming, and opened the door to a level of competitive gaming never before possible. StarCraft brought about the completion of a holy trinity comprising also of the WarCraft and Diablo franchises and has allowed Blizzard Entertainment to become one of the most successful game developers in the industry, generating over $1.1 billion in revenue. The release of StarCraft also brought millions of gamers worldwide onto the gaming scene and to the real-time strategy (RTS) genre in particular.

This article will take an in-depth look at StarCraft and the fundamental role it has played in creating an international, billion dollar pro-gaming industry.

From 1995, Blizzard already had established a genre controlling model with their RTS release WarCraft II. Blizzard took their dominance a step further when targeting the realm of science fiction (sci-fi), which held a larger demographic of gamers, with their new franchise, StarCraft. StarCraft is set in the distant future and features three opposing factions, the human galactic presence founded by prisoners exiled from Earth known as the Terran, the swarm of bug-like aliens known as the Zerg, and the ancient, mysterious, technologically advanced race known as the Protoss. This new universe offered a refreshing and welcome change to the development staff behind StarCraft, essentially the same team that created WarCraft and WarCraft II in the four years previous.

The new StarCraft universe was heavily inspired by other sci-fi universes before it. Most apparent and notable are Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers novel from 1959, together with the movie adaptation by Paul Verhoeven in 1997, and Ridley Scott’s Alien movie series which debuted in 1979.

Starship Troopers is credited with defining a new genre in science fiction literature known as military science fiction, construed as an interstellar conflict between military factions and/or aliens. StarCraft certainly fits this bill. The Starship Troopers novel features a human military faction called the Terran Federation which battles an alien threat referred to simply as The Bugs. There are uncanny resemblances between StarCraft’s Terran and Starship Trooper’s Terran Federation (the name alone should be enough to allude to as much), as well as between the Zerg and The Bugs. Perhaps the most prominent similarity is that both the Zerg and The Bugs are high population swarms of bug-like aliens driven only to consume and expand the swarm.

The Alien franchise also played a major role in defining the StarCraft universe. Many of the plot devices and complexions of StarCraft’s characters are drawn from the Alien franchise, the most prominent example being between Alien’s Ripley character and StarCraft’s Kerrigan character. The protagonist of the Alien movies is Ellen Ripley who strives to destroy insect-like aliens who have tormented her thoughts and dreams regularly. Eventually Ripley acts as host to an embryo of a queen alien and develops an emphatic link with the aliens. Kerrigan has a similar personality to Ripley and in StarCraft’s storyline is overwhelmed one battle by the Zerg, captured and transformed into a Terran/Zerg hybrid. Kerrigan is then directly linked to the swarm, eventually rising to become its leader.

Another notable contribution from the Alien franchise to the StarCraft universe are some of the responses the units in the game give after being clicked by the player. Dialogue lines from the Aliens movies are quoted directly by StarCraft’s Terran units. StarCraft’s Terran dropship pilot includes responses such as “in the pipe, five by five” and “looks like we’re in for some chop” which were originally spoken by the dropship pilot in Aliens. Adding to this fact is a nearly identical design in the Terran dropship itself from both universes. Another line taken from one of the soldiers in Aliens, “how do I get out of this chicken shit outfit” can be heard after clicking on StarCraft’s Terran marine several times.

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