StarCraft
Blizzard's genre-defining real-time strategy game — a three-way war between the human Terrans, the insectoid Zerg, and the psionic Protoss. Beloved for its finely balanced factions and bottomless multiplayer, it consumed LAN parties and Battle.net, and in South Korea it became a televised national sport.
StarCraft launched on March 31, 1998, developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, with its essential expansion Brood War following that December. Its hook was three utterly distinct playable races — the adaptable Terrans, the swarming Zerg, and the advanced Protoss — balanced so finely that competitive play stayed viable for decades. The base game sold over 1.5 million copies in its first year.
What truly set StarCraft apart was its afterlife as a spectator sport. In South Korea it became a genuine cultural phenomenon: dedicated cable channels like OnGameNet and MBC Game televised professional matches, top players became celebrities, and the Korea e-Sports Association was founded in 2000 to govern it all. Its flagship ProLeague ran for 13 years, from 2003 to 2016. For much of the 2000s, StarCraft essentially was esports.
Across its lifetime, StarCraft and Brood War sold around 11 million copies, roughly 4.5 million of them in Korea alone. Blizzard released StarCraft II in 2010, but the original's grip never fully let go — it remains a touchstone both for the real-time-strategy genre and for the birth of competitive gaming.
Similar items
Age of Empires II
Age of Empires II was the medieval real-time strategy game that defined the genre for a generation. Released in 1999, it put 13 civilizations at your command across historical campaigns spanning Joan of Arc to Genghis Khan. The Conquerors expansion (2000) became the definitive version, adding five new civilizations and cementing the game's legacy. Nearly three decades later, HD remasters and competitive esports tournaments prove this masterpiece never went out of style.
Diablo II
The dark, click-to-loot dungeon crawler whose endless hunt for better gear defined turn-of-the-millennium PC gaming. You clicked, monsters died, loot rained, and Battle.net kept you up until dawn.
3-D Ultra Pinball
Sierra's Dynamix studio broke the rules of pinball with 3-D Ultra Pinball in 1995—animated spaceships, UFOs, and mining drones appeared on the table as temporary targets, multiple themed tables connected at once, and the whole thing was colorful, chaotic, and absurdly entertaining. It sold over 250,000 copies in its first year, becoming a staple of family PC gaming in the shovelware era. Except it was actually *good*.
Asheron's Call
The cult favorite of the first big three MMORPGs — never EverQuest's equal in numbers, but beloved for what it dared. Asheron's Call ran through Microsoft's gaming service, its classless characters and famous monthly story updates drip-feeding new life into one seamless world that stayed open for over seventeen years.