MTV Multiplayer writes:
At Microsoft's Expo Night at the 2008 Games for Change festival last week, there were games about global warming, poverty and drunk driving.
Then there was the game about malaria.
More specifically, "Specter" is a game that aims to spread awareness about malaria and show how persistent the disease really is. It was created by four Parsons design and technology students as part of PETlab, a joint project of Games for Change and the New York City university that has its participants develop prototype games and play experiences addressing social issues.
Comprised of Mike Edwards, Chris Hennelly, Eric Nunez and Subalekha Udayasankar, the team made the game under the constraints of a 24-hour game design competition held at the school in late April. The theme of the contest, which they only learned once it began, was to make a game about a disease.
Thus, "Specter" was born. Inspired by titles such as "Advance Wars," "Warcraft" and "StarCraft," the game is a player-versus-player strategy game that has two opposing factions: malaria (represented by plasmodium and mosquitos) and health workers. The game takes place in a village filled with huts, and the point is for each faction to try to take control of the area with its different units. If you're on the health care side, you can place nets to keep mosquitos out, spray pesticides and use funds to train and employ more doctors in the village.
Even though fans have been clamoring for a StarCraft 3 for years now, it seems like Blizzard really has no reason to spend time making one.
They sort of ran the story as far as it could go.
Also, it seems like blizzard is more busy with mediocrity at this point in time.
The problem with Blizzard is they have franchises that don't need sequels. People are happy playing the games that they previously made. What they need is new games, none of this business of trying to transport the old audience into a new version of an old game which only ends up nickle and dime'ing users.
Jason Hall, currently an indie developer and former Blizzard employee, has been sharing some really interesting stories from his long career in the industry for a while now. Some of them are truly insightful, while others may seem depressing.
I’m a little shocked that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty sold only around 6 million copies. The original StarCraft did over 11 million. Maybe Blizzard was too leisurely in releasing StarCraft 2? Starcraft 2 came out 12 years after it’s predecessor.
Im surprised too. Starcraft was still a huge name in 2010. It was kinda the only new RTS around and other genres like MOBAs hadn't really kicked off yet. I do remember at the time sentiment around the game was
pretty angry the game was being split into 3 but I doubt that would have impacted sales to that degree
For a long time I believed StarCraft II sold on par or better than its predecessor. There was so much hype for the game. Plus it had a pretty strong E-Sports scene for a few years.
Myself and half a dozen friends all bought StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and played it religiously for a full year. While I bought the expansions, most of my friends did not. RPGs seem to be a generally low selling genre.
I'm not shocked at all. This was an early example of Blizzard being greedy. Instead of releasing a complete experience, splitting Starcraft 2 in 3 parts so it could make us purchase it 3 times if we wanted to know the whole story and play story mode with the other races.
I originally had that stance. However, Wings of Liberty, was just as long, if not longer than StarCraft 1. The expansions were of decent length too and added a good amount of additional content.
and people wonder why we are having mtx in everything. i blame the people who actual buy them.
It's interesting he used Brazil as an example of the importance of regional pricing. Nowadays many companies on Steam are setting their prices in Brazil as high as, if not more than, their price in USA. I simply refused to buy a few games when I noticed that's the case.
Illogical Games has just announced the official release of Star Discord, the one-man indie dev's charming StarCraft lookalike on mobile.
