5 ms·

It feels like Alibaba fell for Amazon's joke. I wonder how often this happens for companies, where a PR stunt or vaporware press release from company A convinc

by web007 12y ago

It feels like Alibaba fell for Amazon's joke. I wonder how often this happens for companies, where a PR stunt or vaporware press release from company A convinces company B to expend resources to "beat them to market".

TeMPOraL 12y ago
That's how we got StarCraft, and thus modern RTS games. Someone created a fake rendered demo at E3 conference and Blizzard fell for the trick; they believed the awesome thing they saw is real, and they worked their butts off to beat it.
- adrianpike 12y ago
  Got any citations on that? Warcraft, Dune II, etc. all came out way before Starcraft, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard was building SC pretty quick on the heels of WC2.
  - mercer 12y ago
    I think it was a Gamasutra article, but I remember that it wasn't so much that they made Starcraft because of the demo, but rather that they made it a lot better after seeing this fake demo.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      Not Gamasutra, it came directly from one of StarCraft's developers blog. Per [0], StarCraft was supposed to be the "Warcraft in Space" it didn't turn out to be, and it was meant as a quick project to fill the publishing gap. [1] Explains the fake demo thing and its influence on StarCraft development in lenghth. A key quote: "At some point I talked with Mark and Patrick about how Dominion Storm knocked us on our heels, and they let us in on Ion Storm’s dirty little secret: the entire demo was a pre-rendered movie, and the people who showed the “demo” were just pretending to play the game! It would be an understatement to say that we were gobsmacked; we had been duped into a rebooting StarCraft, which ultimately led it to be considered “the defining game of its genre. It is the standard by which all real-time strategy games are judged” (GameSpot)." [0] - http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-starcraft http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-s... [1] - http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-down-in-flames http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-d...

by web007 12y ago

TeMPOraL 12y ago

That's how we got StarCraft, and thus modern RTS games. Someone created a fake rendered demo at E3 conference and Blizzard fell for the trick; they believed the awesome thing they saw is real, and they worked their butts off to beat it.

adrianpike 12y ago
Got any citations on that? Warcraft, Dune II, etc. all came out way before Starcraft, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard was building SC pretty quick on the heels of WC2.
- mercer 12y ago
  I think it was a Gamasutra article, but I remember that it wasn't so much that they made Starcraft because of the demo, but rather that they made it a lot better after seeing this fake demo.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Not Gamasutra, it came directly from one of StarCraft's developers blog. Per [0], StarCraft was supposed to be the "Warcraft in Space" it didn't turn out to be, and it was meant as a quick project to fill the publishing gap. [1] Explains the fake demo thing and its influence on StarCraft development in lenghth. A key quote: "At some point I talked with Mark and Patrick about how Dominion Storm knocked us on our heels, and they let us in on Ion Storm’s dirty little secret: the entire demo was a pre-rendered movie, and the people who showed the “demo” were just pretending to play the game! It would be an understatement to say that we were gobsmacked; we had been duped into a rebooting StarCraft, which ultimately led it to be considered “the defining game of its genre. It is the standard by which all real-time strategy games are judged” (GameSpot)." [0] - http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-starcraft http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-s... [1] - http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-down-in-flames http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-d...