In late November, Blizzard Entertainment released a patch that fixed various exploits and bugs, as well as added new features to 1998's real-time strategy opus StarCraft. With Blizzard’s World of Warcraft a dominant gaming force, and StarCraft II and Diablo III deep into development, why would the studio still be committed to the original StarCraft and other aging titles?
"Blizzard Entertainment has always been committed to fully supporting our products, as we believe it’s our responsibility to our players for as long as they continue to play our games," the company said in a statement to Edge.
The reasoning behind supporting such old games sounds too good to be true, or rather Boy Scout-ish; a mere canned corporate reply. But there is no major, direct financial benefit of maintaining these old but widely played products—other than the brand value added to the Blizzard name; a value that is not lost on millions and millions of consumers. There would appear to be substance behind Blizzard's "we patch because we care" philosophy.
"Millions of games of StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II are still played each month on Battle.net. StarCraft and Warcraft III also remain very popular competitive games in the eSports scene," the statement added. "Continuing to support these games is just one way to show our appreciation for the ongoing support and enthusiasm that our players have for our games."
Blizzard has a number of software engineers who are part of what the company calls its "platform technology" department, which creates patches for older titles and also works on "numerous key projects, including streamlining the patching process for World of Warcraft and creating critical tools for all of our game development teams," among other responsibilities.
Various sources help determine how a game, old or new, should be patched: community bug reports, quality assurance departments, Blizzard's "hacks team," requests from the studio's eSports team, and others.
Blizzard explained, "In the case of bug fixes, the platform technology developers can work on these fairly independently. In the case of balance changes or new features, we bring in our game designers. We have strike teams from the various game-development teams who pitch in whenever we want to include balance changes or new functionality in a patch for an older game."