Curse

Way back in 1998 gamers were first introduced to StarCraft, where Terrans, Zergs and Protoss fought for dominance and survival in a galaxy far, far away. It put Blizzard Entertainment on the map and changed real time strategy gaming forever. With the long awaited sequel finally arriving, here are few things you may not know about StarCraft.

1) High Speed Manouvers:

• Highly competitive players can manage over 300 actions per minute using both keyboard and mouse.
• Highest human typing speed is 212 wpm with 150 wpm being the fastest sustainable speed

2) In Korea StarCraft isn’t just a game, it can be a career.

• There are 300 professional StarCraft players that play for 11 Korean Teams in various pro leagues
• Teams are corporately sponsored, live together and train 12 hours a day.
• It costs $20m a year to sponsor a StarCraft Team
• Facebook spends approximately 20m a year on the data centers that house its servers
• 30,000 fans can come to watch a match  

3) StarCraft’s greatest player

• Lee Yun-Yeol aka NaDa
• Born: 1984
• Statistically is the best StarCraft player in history
• 2005 reported earnings:  $200,000 USD
• In 2007 signed a $690,000 USD contract to play StarCraft 

4) StarCraft has added to the computer gaming vocabulary:

• Gaming lexicon now includes the word Zerging
• It refers to any game where players use a large numbers of low level or weak players to win by volume rather than strategy or skill.
• Named after the Zerg race in StarCraft who first used this tactic to overwhelm the other races in the game.  

5) Sales, Sales, Sales StarCraft is one of the best selling video games of all time

• StarCraft was the best selling computer game in 1998
• Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008 : Best selling PC strategy Game
• Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2010: Top 50 video game series 
• StarCraft (including Broodwar expansion)  9.5 million
• World of Warcraft    10.7 million subscribers
• The Sims (all expansions)   100 million 

6) StarCraft was huge with PC gamers, but never made it as a console game:

• StarCraft 64, the only game Blizzard made for console play, failed to take off.  
• StarCraft Ghost: which was supposed to be developed for X-box, GameCube and PS2 was put on “indefinite hold” in 2006 after being in development since 1999.

7) StarCraft has been played among the stars

• NASA Mission Specialist Daniel T. Barry brought a copy of StarCraft on  space shuttle mission STS-96 in 1999
• The game travelled 3.5 million nautical miles and orbited Earth 153 times
• It now resides in a place of honor in Blizzard’s home office 

8) Korean Airlines has 2 “StarCraft II”  747 Jumbo Jets

• As part of the media blitz for the long awaited sequel, Blizzard and Korean Airlines painted two 747’s in the livery of StarCraft II 

9) You can study the Game Theory in StarCraft course at Berkeley

• In 2009 there was a 14 week, introductory course on the theory and strategy of StarCraft. Though student taught, students registered can receive credits for taking the course.
• Areas of study include Scouting, Deception, Player Mindset and Army positioning

10) Had fans so devoted they started before the game was even out

• Operation “Can’t Wait Any Longer” was a group of fans formed in the StarCraft Forums
• Their goal: to try and liberate the StarCraft game, which was still delayed despite apparently being completed
• They were so influential that the are named in the StarCraft Manual
• They also have a cheatcode named after them. “operation cwal” command will speed up the time to build units in the game.
• Operation CWAL remains as one of Blizzard Entertainment's older and more loyal fan groups.

11) The US Air Force’s Aerospace Basic Course has used the game in their training

• It’s used to teach new officers about joint service teamwork and crisis planning under stress
• The science fiction setting removed real world distractions & allows officers to focus on the tactical training 

[Source: OnlineSchools Blog]