Blizzard to sell modded maps for StarCraft II

[Kalros]

ANGER. TAKING. OVER.

http://kotaku.com/5343006/blizzard-you-may-sell-your-starcraft-2-maps-on-battlenet-eventually

I've said it before on other threads: This is NOT the Blizzard we grew up with. This is now Activi$ion Blizzard. And they are going to do whatever they can to bleed as much money from a franchise as possible.

I'm still fuming over the removal of LAN play from SC2, http://kotaku.com/5304113/no-lan-play-for-starcraft-ii
And now THIS?!

[mmcookies]

This is bad, how?

It's just like Steam or AppStore

[Bigfish]

ANGER. TAKING. OVER.

http://kotaku.com/5343006/blizzard-you-may-sell-your-starcraft-2-maps-on-battlenet-eventually

I've said it before on other threads: This is NOT the Blizzard we grew up with. This is now Activi$ion Blizzard. And they are going to do whatever they can to bleed as much money from a franchise as possible.

I'm still fuming over the removal of LAN play from SC2, http://kotaku.com/5304113/no-lan-play-for-starcraft-ii
And now THIS?!

Bleed money? This is a purely optional feature that promotes creativity and quality from the modding community. You don't want to buy modded maps, don't. Its that simple.

[Kalros]

They never had to offer money for the Mod Community to make quality maps in the past. And pay close attention to one little sentence

"with a portion of the proceeds going to the map's creators"

Meaning Blizzard will be pocketing a good portion of it. They are basically going to be making money off of other people's work without having to do much.

I'm telling you, this is just the beginning. Mark my words. You will not see a new Blizzard game that does not attempt to continuously take money from you (subscription fees for WoW aside) in some way. I would not be surprised to see a "Premium" subscription service for Battle.net, more microtransactions for WoW, paid downloadable mod maps for both Diablo III and of course StarCraft.

Activi$ion does this with every successful franchise they get their greedy little hands on. This is why we get multiple iterations of Call of Duty and Guitar Hero on a yearly basis.

[mmcookies]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNPrnY4K_4#watch-vid-title

A professional and highly flexible engine/asset manager/editor like this would run well into the thousands of dollars in licensing fees.

Blizzard is giving this away with their game, and you share profits IF you want to make money off of it.

On top of this, Bnet marketplace has a huge potential audience. Instant exposure to millions of gamers looking for something new? Fuck yes!

As an amateur modder myself, this is a dream scenario.

Now if you want to complain about splitting SC2 into three games, I can understand that, but this is NOT something to complain about.
This is REDEMPTION in my eyes for SC2.

[Bigfish]

They never had to offer money for the Mod Community to make quality maps in the past. And pay close attention to one little sentence

"with a portion of the proceeds going to the map's creators"

Meaning Blizzard will be pocketing a good portion of it. They are basically going to be making money off of other people's work without having to do much.


1. The previous presentation of Quality maps says nothing about the number that may be produced if the creators are able to capitalize on their work. How many quality maps did we NOT see because the creators had to go make a living doing something else?

2. "A portion" entails anywhere from 1-99%. Given that you don't have details on the exact proportions of what goes where (and lets not forget while we're on the subject, Blizzard has to drop money on these things ensuring they are quality releases, as well as providing bandwidth, storage space, and general IT infrastructure) I would call your assumption that Blizz is just pocketing all the money silly at best, and far, far more mean things at worst.

3. The model operates on the inherent function that Map Creators will be able to make enough money to cover their invested time. If not, they would just release their map outside of the Blizzard-Pay channel. Will Blizz make a middle-man fee? Of course. Whether that fee is an acceptable cost lies directly on how much they are paying creators and how much the are charging players. Shutting out either side though means Blizzard makes NO money, and that would be coutner intuitive.



I'm telling you, this is just the beginning. Mark my words. You will not see a new Blizzard game that does not attempt to continuously take money from you (subscription fees for WoW aside) in some way. I would not be surprised to see a "Premium" subscription service for Battle.net, more microtransactions for WoW, paid downloadable mod maps for both Diablo III and of course StarCraft.

Activi$ion does this with every successful franchise they get their greedy little hands on. This is why we get multiple iterations of Call of Duty and Guitar Hero on a yearly basis.

Believe it or not, Blizzard is in the business of making money. Get off the "people shouldn't charge me for things" boat and realize that subscription fees, download fees, and so on are all legitimate forms of entertainment transactions that ensure quality and continued support.

I mean, seriously, how is ANYONE worse off? Aside from "The Man" making money, which nobody likes and is an evil on par with rape.

There is nothing here that offers a detriment to your experience. It is a market place set up to facilitate creation and distribution of content. It is 100% optional. So again, how is anyone worse off?