Thread by @SandyofCthulhu

In 1999, I was assigned to design the expansion pack to Age of Empires 2. I chose The Conquerors as the theme, and wishing to have 4 civs (as we had on Rise of Rome), I chose the Spanish, the Aztecs, the Huns, and the Mayans.

The project went ahead extremely well. We were almost completely finished, 5 weeks ahead of schedule as of January 2000. I was excited to move onto Age of Empires 3.

Then Microsoft called and we had an important conference call.
1/

Microsoft said, "We want you to add Koreans to The Conquerors pack."

I said, "Koreans, greatly to their credit, were not conquerors. They stayed in their lane. While they're cool, they don't fit the Conquerors theme."

Here was Microsoft's argument: "Starcraft sold 3 million copies in Korea."

Here was my counter-argument, which seemed pretty valid to me. "Starcraft doesn't have any Koreans in it, so those sales had zero to do with a Korean civ."

Microsoft: "But ... Starcraft sold 3 million copies in Korea."

I could see where this was going. Once someone simply repeats a previous argument, it's clear they are no longer functioning from logic or intelligence.
2/

So I went ahead and we crammed in the Korean civ in the last 5 weeks we had. No Microsoft didn't give us any extra time. We made what apparently were three mistakes. We used the wrong art for the turtle ships (we used a legitimate source, but apparently Koreans didn't like that source), we named the Sea of Japan "the Sea of Japan" (it's called that in every nation except one. Yup.), and we said there was a Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592-98 which for some reason in 2000 was controversial. A Microsoft representative in Korea actually got arrested and detained for a while.

And in the end, we didn't sell 3 million copies of Age of Empires 2 in Korea after all. Don't get me wrong, Age of Empires 2 sold super-well, and so did The Conquerors expansion. But Starcraft was impossible to topple from its Korean throne.
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