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reality, that which belongs to me and generated my cultural references, is
closely related to video games, and, of course, I have been raised in the Epic
Win since as far I can remember.
Many years later, in 2003, I founded my fi rst (and thus far only) com-
pany. For more than seven years, this Spanish-Colombian company of ered
design and programming services for marketing online campaigns. Our
beginnings were rather precarious; with an initial investment of €40 and a
lot of ef ort we managed to build up a little emporium consisting of thirty-
fi ve people working for international enterprises that of ered their ser-
vices in Spain and abroad. None of the three main associates had previous
business experience, but we had an outstanding tool: StarCraft (Blizzard,
1998). This video game allowed us to create a metaphor that matched each
of the situations that arose in our business project: if we needed to train
more units (hire new employees), we required more resources (clients); if
the balance between resources acquisition and units was optimal, then we
could use the surplus to obtain updates (that is, when demand and produc-
tion were balanced and there were benefi ts, it was the appropriate moment
to invest in equipment, courses, etc.).
The most appropriate occasion to put our StarCraft busi ness met hod to t he
test was, perhaps, when we decided to move away from the small town where
we started to the capital city. We had no sui cient resources to maintain two
command centres (as it happens with StarCraft Terran), but we knew that,
in the game, command centres can lift of and settle down again on another
resourceful terrain. In this way, we initiated our video game simulation before
making any actual decision and we researched the consequences and events
our decision might produce. This led us to the conclusions that although the
command centre is in the air, no mineral resources would be incoming; that
the changing process is slow; that the centre must be protected by special
units during its migration; and that it is appropriate that SVC units (collect-
ing and construction units) arrive at the chosen destination point as soon as
possible and wait fully loaded for the landing of the centre for the gathering
activity to resume as soon as possible. Drawing a comparison with what hap-
pened in the “simulation of a command centre relocation” in StarCraft , we
could deduce that a town change may turn out to be a delicate situation for
a young, recently created company like ours, a situation that might generate
frictions among us owing to the economic pressure the process entailed; the
units in charge of searching for resources (sales agents) should be the fi rst
to venture into the new zone to carry out a preliminary prospecting and, as
long as the fi rst resources (clients) were not found, it would not be viable to
start the mobilization of the rest of the team. Unnecessary expenses, such as
the purchase of new equipment, would be completely avoided and even the
salaries may be required to defray the costs of the relocation. Once our SVC
“explorer” had achieved the objectives of creating a base of customers and
of getting several estimates approved and signed, we could continue transfer-
ring the rest of the team (production units).
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