Starcraft II- Can Blizzard do it?
by the gibb
With labor day weekends' announcement of Warcraft III, Starcraft news sites and message boards were clogged with messages in the couple of days before the announcement, when, on the Blizzard site, it said "The World will Change 9.5.99. Many said it would be Starcraft II, and why not? Starcraft was the game of the year and got many " Best RTS" awards from different magazines Many (including me, I must admit,) were disappointed that the mysterious new game would be Warcraft III. Even on Gamesurge, the first mentioning of the Warcraft III announcement simply stated, "Damn you Blizzard! It's not Starcraft 2 :)"
Blizzard has made millions of dollars off of Starcraft, the Warcrafts, and Diablo. Since they're now producing Warcraft II, Bnet Edition, the long expected and delayed Diablo II, and of course Warcraft III, they pretty much got they're hands full.
Lets make up a fake scenario for the sake of conversation. If Blizzard has a yearly revenue of 100 million dollars, primarily from the sale of games, then we'll assume that they have a yearly expense of 75 million, for staff wages, production expenses, Battle.net, capital improvements, etc. We'll also assume 5 million goes to Uncle Sam. Then we'll assume they put the rest of the 20 million "in the bank" (we'll assume they're getting no interest on it.)
Now it's the year 2000 and Diablo II (hopefully) is out and Blizzard revenue and profits are up. Now lets say its 2001 and Warcraft III has been released. Blizzard revenues and profits are again, up. Let's assume that around 2000 or 2001 another game (that appears totally awesome), which could be Starcraft II, but if its not, people might just forget all about Starcraft and the possibility of Starcraft II.
Here's my point. In our scenario,( and probably in real life too) Blizzard has millions and millions of dollars to work with but by the time Blizzard has enough manpower to work on Starcraft II, Starcraft may be out of style! Yes, I know what you're saying, SC2 will be a whole different game, and that's true, but maybe people will start to get tired of RTS's. A prime example of this is Half-Life. Half-Life was the game of the year, and arguably the best first person shooter ever made. People couldn't wait until Half-Life II came out, or even started into production. Valve probably just didn't have enough manpower to make a Half-Life II, and since Team Fortress II is nearing completion, that will be the hot new game, and people will forget about Half-Life II altogether.
The point I'm trying to make in this editorial is not the lack of money a company has, but the manpower. Unemployment (in the US) is at a 29 year low. Most companies look for computer science majors, and as Bill Gates admitted, they are scanty.
Copyright Brian Gilson 1999. All Rights Reserved. No part of this may be mirrored or copied in any way, shape or form without the consent of the author.
-I know I'm going to get a lot of feedback because of this editorial. Most of it I'm sure being negative. Let me say this- I have nothing again Starcraft and it is the game I've played for the longest on a regular basis. Please remember, this is my opinion and my opinion only. Please don't condemn it for me. This is a different kind of editorial. Like the Fox news motto, "We Report. You decide" That's the kind of thing I was going for. Also, I'm sure there will be the few that condemn me for my lack of exactness, if you will. I don't know a whole lot about the gaming industry and business in general.
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