Blizzard

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

Terran marines are treated as largely expendable but efficient cannon fodder. Contrasts to GeeDub's depiction of the ultimate one-man-army super soldier.

Blizzard Entertainment is an American video game developer founded in 1991. They are well known in the gaming community for rising to fame by shamelessly ripping off a long list of things, the most pertinent to /tg being the similarity between its flagship franchises and Warhammer (40k). Note that Blizzard never did anything original ever, yet remains widely popular.

While not as skubtastic as the other things present, it still does cause tensions in /tg/ when brought up. Especially if it concerns one of their games' fluff.

While Blizzard does "borrow" other people's ideas, it's no denying they spend a lot of time and effort studying those ideas, figuring why they are successful, and what parts of these ideas should be improved or removed to make them better. This leads to creating few yet extremely well done and successful games, and in turn for earning a LOT of money. While other studios may create revolutionary content, Blizzard are more about evolution, with their games becoming golden standards of quality, and "easy to learn, hard to master" learning curves. They are also responsible for creating the game-dev meme "when it's done", which means they could literally spend a decade on the development of one game, and another decade to polish the crunch with a shitton of balance patches just for the sake of perfectionism. Of course, they are also greedy bastards with no conscience, and are thus the /v/-fag equivalent of GW, but it's to be expected, given all other major game developers are the same, or much, much worse.

There's contention between the legions of GW and the hordes of Blizzard in regards to copyrights, who invented which idea first, and whether any ripping-off had in fact occurred. Facts seem to lean in the direction of no, but facts are nothing before true faith. It doesn't help that they have their own equivalent of Matt Ward and C.S Goto in the form of Richard Knaak. If you venture into these murky depths, bring something that prevents regeneration. Fa/tg/uys though tend to accuse Blizzard for ripping off most of Games Workshop's content. They often write long angry posts about why Blizzard are bad guys, what was stolen from their precious settings, and why Blizzard games sucks so much. This sound hilarious when you think about Games Workshop, who does steal all of its content from other settings. Blizzardfags do the exact same but in reverse orientation, though since most of them don't give a fuck about fluff, few of them know/care about GW.

If your ever meet raging fan, crying about plagiarism ignore the fucking troll throw oil on the fire and get a-trolling. Alternatively, keep raging about Necron Flyer Lists / Terran Hellion Drop imbalance.

TL;DR: Good crunch, meh fluff (their memorable humor is arguably the best part of it), the Tzeentch to GW's Nurgle.

Franchises relevant to /tg

• Starcraft: Space Marines vs Zerg vs Protoss. Beyond being the national sport of Korea, the Starcraft franchise has its own board game and has its own unique version of Risk which alters the rules just enough so that it isn't merely a re-skinned version of Risk.
• Warcraft: Initially Orcs vs Humans but then later more races were added. Particularly notable to /tg/ because it spilled over into multiple genres: There were two separate editions of a D&D campaign setting, a physical trading card game (that isn't Hearthstone) and Warcraft has its own board game too.
• Diablo: Grimdark fantasy setting involving the wars between Angels and Demons, probably the least skubtastic of the three main franchises because it hasn't really grown out of it's comfort zone of hack-and-slash video games. There was a short-lived attempt to port it into both 2E and 3E Dungeons and Dragons, though the results were not particularly successful or well remembered.
• Hearthstone: MTG with less bullshit and overcomplexity and more balance (still not enough) and random. Also it only cost you one kidney to gather a good card collection rather than both, one leg, one testicle, and the soul of your firstborn child.

Blizzard Successes that weren't rip-offs (/tg related): In 1992, they made Battle Chess for the Commodore 64 & MS-DOS, and also a Lord of the Rings RPG for the Amiga. The LotR game was supposed to be just the first book, with two sequels, but they never got around to finishing it. They did make Rock and Roll Racing for the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive but that's /V/ shit. There's also the a game called the "The Lost Vikings", a puzzle game where you control 3 vikings with each of them has their own special abilities (Erik can move and jump faster than the two, Baleog can shoot arrow and swing sword and Olaf can block with shield.) Since the game has viking in it, /tg/ might be interesting in it due to their viking fetish

Legitimately unbiased comparison

Both of the companies' products have a bevy of similarities and differences that can be factually assessed without any real bias. Beginning here is a comprehensive tiny list of the comparisons between popular topics of much Debate.

Orks vs. Orcs

While it is true that the light green skin, angry porcine face with lots of tusks, and heavyset jawlines are traits shared across the two species of Orcoids, that's about where the similarities end. While Orks are brutal, fun-loving omnicidal maniacs who love the Dakka and only momentarily hesitate to shoot something if it's sufficiently green and orky, orcs in Blizzard's universe actually eventually filled the unique role of being good guys. For the most part, anyway, back when they were first through the portals they were extremely bloodthirsty but as time has gone on they've settled down nicely. This is actually a first, as no other universe is really known for having Orcs who can be described as friendly. In fact the Orcs of Blizzard's universe are the glue of their faction, serving as the lynch-pin by which the other races come together as one Horde.

Similarly, Orkzes iz da biggest an' da strongest., with the lowly boy far more buff than your standard human and only getting taller and taller as they age. Orcs, while significantly physically imposing, are roughly the same height as average humans, and are dwarfed by their Tauren allies.

Though is should be noted, that at current state Orcs spawned a total of three BBEGs of the setting, including the Lich King himself, while most other races, except dragons and (technically) draenei, have their count on one or zero. The Orks, on the other hand, are the BBEGs.

Terran Marines vs. Space Marines

This should be somewhat obvious. Space marines, as deigned by GW, are One man armies, raised from a young age to be killing machines and then augmented to become superhuman monstrosities. Terran marines, by comparison, are pitiful. If we're being very generous, they're an analogue for the Tempestus corps, but with a worse track record. They are literally a case of the government or rebel faction finding every hick and criminal they can and shove them in a brainwashing tank, slapping Power Armor on them, pumping them with drugs, handing them a gun, and telling them to Keep shooting until it stops moving. And, considering everything in StarCraft universe can pierce through tanks and giant mechs, not to mention some power armour, those marines aren't likely to survive their first deployment. So, to put it simly, Terran Marines are really closer to Guardsmen or Penal Legionaries, except with better guns and even more drugs.

Zergs vs Tyranids

Both are a races of ravenous fast-evolving beasts under control of supreme intelligence, both use biotechnology instead of tools, most of their units are fast, deadly, fragile and numerous, and they even look almost the same. The last part is actually to GW's shame, since they all but copy-pasted Zerg appearance into Tyranids in 3-rd edition, mostly to capitalize on the Starcraft financial success (yes, they were that greedy and shameless even back then).

Secondly, while the Nids' hive mind is their collective consciousness, zergs have an actual physical entities with emotions and personalities to rule them - from the lowly Overlords, to the Cerebrates, to the Overmind itself (or Overlords - Hive Queens - Broodmothers - The Queen of Blades after Kerrigan took over control), and with that they also get some actual character development and political struggles in their ranks - something Nids solely lack as all their only real agenda revolves around going towards that psychic light known as the Golden Throne, all the while eating everything on the way. Even though most Cerebrates merged into the new Overmind and were killed by Kerrigain (and her puppets) during Brood War, the real reason that they never showed up again was that their hierarchy was similar enough to the 'nids that the Cerebrates were killed off off-screen and cut from StarCraft II as a way of Blizzard playing nice with Games Workshop.

Zergs also do not eat worlds, like Tyranids do - only conquer and colonize them, which automatically lowers their Eldritch Unstoppable Evil level by half.

Burning Legion vs Daemons of Chaos

Both are evil demons, who came from the dimension of magic and want to destroy everything. Burning Legion, however, is everything but chaotic, and is highly organized and structured, and even after their Dark God get himself killed, they managed to keep their shit together. Moreover, unlike Chaos Daemons, who are the manifestations of emotions and magic, creatures of the Legion are mostly normal sapient (or not) biological beings, transformed through overuse of fell magic, or artificial constructs, enliven by said fell magic. Unlike Chaos Gods, who want the eternal conflict just for the sake of it (which makes sense, given they are empowered by emotions, and conflicts stimulate more emotions), Burning Legion have the clear goals, which are: 1) Gather all the magic, 2) Use it to destroy the Creation, 3) Build new, better one, 4) ???, 5) PROFIT!

Protoss vs Eldar

You fucking kidding me? OK, both are psychic race with small numbers and long lifespan, both have tech, superior to everything in their setting (save Necrons and Xel'Naga respectively), and both are quite arrogant about their superiority. And thats it. Protoss are tough as adamantium bunkers, fast as a slime, hit like every fucking one of them is armed with a tank cannon or a power fist and tend to move in in big unkillable all-destroying deathballs of doom, while Eldar are fast as hell, can be killed by a mean look and tend to zoom around in small groups at mind-blowing speed, surgically shooting/cutting down priority targets before retreating to the safety of cover. Culture-wise Protoss are closer to Tau than to Eldar, with rigid caste system and hierarchy, and highly collectivist ideology of the Khala, which is actually almost the same as Tau's Greater Good. From this perspective Dark Templar are basically Farsight enclave, who told the Khala and it's Ethe... I meant Judicators to fuck off and left to set their new home without that brainwashing pheromones psi-internet bullshit. Oh, wait, Tau Empire were introduced 3 years after StarCraft release... OOPS!

TL;DR: Plagiarizing faggots with forgettable premises.