The Technological, and Business Tactics That Lead to StarCraft’s Success Sandra N. Kjono STS145: Professor Henry Lowood Winter Quarter 2001-20022 It’s seen online, in cyber cafes, in the homes of your average citizen from South Korea, Norway, the United States and into other countries. In 1998, 2.1 million people in the United States alone, picked up the year’s hottest Personal Computer game: StarCraft. What was it about a PC game that made the fictitious realm of StarCraft as interesting as the talk of the world surrounding the United States President’s infidelity and scandal? StarCraft was the gamer’s game. StarCraft is a combination of individual and strategy elements, storyline and history, and most importantly, a sense of complete society – community. This sense of community extends beyond the game realm and into the real world of the subculture of a gamer. In other words, while the audience for the Real Time Strategy games had already been established and the plot of StarCraft contributed to its success, the game play is what keeps StarCraft enthusiasts coming back for more. The “gamer” mindset a complex definition, varying from person to person, but defines a subculture in itself. Through examination of the English modern music scene, Hebdige discusses subcultures as a societal phenomenon of youth. His strongest metaphor is the visually striking punks. Through their style of dress and mode of living they challenge the 'norms' of class, gender, and sexuality; they visually express their disdain for the dominant power. However, it occurred to me that there is a subculture of intellectually cohesive gamers that are not quite so eye-catching, yet no less strongly felt. Gamers are, just as are punks, dealing with popular sensibilities in their creation of a variant domain. Gaming is not a visually cohesive subculture. There is no concept of 'style' (as Hebdige defines it) as a dramatized slap in the face of societal norms. Nevertheless, the3perception of gaming by mainstream culture is usually one of vague discomfort or disdain. As a subculture, gaming is a viable scapegoat for any perceived cultural ills, and the gamers are quite aware of this. It is not entirely clear why this is so, although there are several possible reasons. Gaming is a chance to try on a different persona or mask; to be someone you are not. Small groups of young people close themselves away from the dominant culture’s sensibilities in order to play their games. Furthermore they do so by playing 'parts' or 'personas' other than their own, 'rightful' roles within mainstream culture. To the uninitiated individual attempting to understand a gamer in this "role-swapping" context may be confusing and disturbing - just who exactly is this person? As with most subcultures, gaming is a mediated response by its members to the dullness of everyday life. It is far less visually dramatic than many, but still represents an "interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representation in the media (Hebdige 1987)." In its own, very small way, gaming is to culture "a metaphor for potential anarchy 'out there' ... a kind of temporary blockage in the system of representation (Hebdige 1987)." By social story-telling within imaginative, created worlds, they refuse the mundane of capitalistic labor as a goal in and of itself. Instead of commodities, they reposition and recontextualize ideas; their "significant difference" is not visual but mental (Hebdige 1987). Inflections of power are not opposed directly, but rather resisted through a symbolically rich discourse of alternative social possibilities within each created game world and StarCraft provides all of these elements to make it the gamer’s game. StarCraft is a Real Time Strategy game. The player using war type strategy without a turn base is characteristic of Real Time Strategy games. The game seems more4realistic and “real time” because there are no turns. While you may be plotting and “strategizing” your next move, the other opponents can and will try to defeat you in your moment of weakness, making the development of strategy a must in order for the player to survive. StarCraft can be played in a single player or multiplayer mode, each of which are well equipped to keep the player intrigued. “You can continually replay it, because each time is different. I don't really know how to explain that very well, there are different maps for custom games and you can make your own scenarios with the map editor...” claims Eric Kjono, my brother and casual StarCraft gamer. The single player mode features ten missions for each of the three races (Zerg, Terran and Protoss). This means that there are thirty possible missions, each of which are set up with equal amounts of difficulty, tiered so that the challenge is increased as the player moves up in the tiers. Despite the differences of each race, they are an equal match, so the replay value of the game is held high. The Zerg are considered “frightening” and insect-like, the Protoss are the intelligent and hi-tech race, while the Terran are considered the “space trailer trash”, as one player mentioned. But despite the seemingly socially tiered relationship within the game, none of the units in StarCraft are completely useless. StarCraft’s story line is part of what made this Real Time Strategy game stand above the rest. The story line is a clash between three main races of the galaxy: Terran (humans), Protoss, and Zerg. The cultural diversity created by the balance of the three races’ complexities helps to move the game play into a social story-telling, one of the characteristics shared by StarCraft enthusiasts and the definition of a subculture. In the original game (there is an expansion, sort of a sequel but not quite) the main Terran5forces are known as the Confederacy. The Confederacy is a rebel group that left Earth long ago to colonize their own distant planets. The Confederacy is very oppressive of the colonies and people within the colonies begin to rebel. The most powerful rebellion is by the extremist group, The Sons of Korhal. The Sons of Korhal reveal the truth about the Confederacy by discovering that the Confederacy has developed methods to control the Zerg and use the race against the Terran people so that the Confederacy leaders can come to the "rescue" of their people. The problem with
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