The Devil’s in the Details: What Advertisers can learn from Starcraft 2
For the past 12 years, people have salivated over Blizzard Entertainment making the sequel to its famous PC game, Starcraft. To give you a good idea of why anyone cared, I can point out it basically runs South Korea’s economy to this day. Even organized crime has its hooks in it. So, not surprisingly, when Starcraft 2 finally arrived last week, it sold 1 million copies in a day.
Off Madison Ave did its best to help those numbers, let me tell you. Talented designers and developers had a childhood somewhere, and for many of us, Starcraft was part of that. So as we tore into our new game, what did we find?
We all like it, but no one can identify why.
The game play is identical, the units are the same and even the story is similar. So why play something that’s fundamentally the same experience 12 years later? It boils down to one word: Detail.
Every part of the new Starcraft, from the menu screen to the credits, has an amount of polish that borders on stunning. The smallest object, something a user might see for only two seconds, tells a distinct visual story – one that only devoted talent could craft.
Are there other things that made the game such a sales juggernaut? Sure. But you can’t ignore that so many reviews all say the same thing. Personally, I was so inspired by the creative experience that I was ignoring the game underneath.
Turning old into new
Whether you’re talking about a video game, a website or an ad, we’re always looking for ways to turn the same old product into a brand-new experience.
In this case, Blizzard didn’t want to change the formula of something that was so successful, yet it knew it had to create a sequel. The solution to sell the same game twice was to make it so polished, it actually feels different – separating itself from the now-crude memories of the original, yet being the same thing.
Instantly familiar, yet completely unforgettable. Isn’t that exactly what we need to make our ads and websites things that are used, loved and shared?
In my experience as a web designer, strong sites stem from elegance, efficiency and execution. But you can’t achieve any of those three without caring for the details. When design, development and content teams spend those extra hours to give the project something past the wireframes – to turn pixels and words into stories and meaning – they create an identity that’s complete from end to end. That’s a lesson Blizzard embraces, and so should we.
You may not have 12 years to make the small things stunning on your next project. That’s OK. Because in a world where a website changes every 10 months…being a web designer is all about making good sequels.
About the Author: Eric Covill
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1 comment so far
william says:
I agree. The level of visual polish on the game is incredible. Nice post