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Blizzard released StarCraft on March 31, 1998, with three factions that played nothing alike and matchmaking built into the game. In South Korea it became the foundation of the first large professional gaming scene.
Competitive gaming as a paid profession, with leagues, sponsors, broadcasts and a governing body, was worked out here first. It also showed that a game's competitive life can be measured in decades if the underlying design is deep enough, which changed how publishers think about supporting a title after release.
Blizzard opened World of Warcraft on November 23, 2004. Forgiving solo progression, a familiar setting and unusually reliable service pulled a genre that had been niche into the cultural mainstream.
A genre confined to enthusiasts became a mass-market product, and subscription revenue from one game became a major business in its own right. It also gave researchers, journalists and the public a concrete example of a large, functioning virtual society.
