It is actually a very good idea. To get content that works, you steal it from other works. For example, the Zerg and Terrans are very much ‘Starship Troopers’. Protoss are very much predators.
With Starcraft 2, it is fun to see the content Blizzard ripped.
Look! The Star Wars Episode 1 Droid is the Protoss Immortal!
Look! It is War of the Worlds! I think the movie wants their Protoss Colossi back.
Look! It is the Warhammer 40k Assault Marine! But Blizzard wants it as the Reaper.
The Hellion and the Banshee resembling units from Command and Conquer is too obvious especially as the lead designer for Starcraft 2 designed Command and Conquer games. A creative director in Blizzard was a creative director for Warhammer.
Look! It is the Robotech Alpha (ahem, Third Generation). Is that the Viking?
Look! It is the M.A.C. II Monster from Robotech! Is that where the Thor came from? Thor is likely too generic to be pinned down to anything. But after the Starcraft 1 “Battleship Reporting…” battleship mimicking Captain Gloval, I demand there be some Robotech in my Starcraft 2.
Twenty years ago, in an interview to Nintendo Power, Shigeru Miyamoto gave advice to game makers to look at what is current in popular culture. Being nerds, game makers probably do not like popular culture. But Miyamoto was right. Mimicking pop culture at least has your game material to start off in the trend of being popular.
