Blizzard: Hmm, I see what you did there...

Maximilian

http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=60148

A future StarCraft II Marketplace service was announced today at BlizzCon. The Battle.net store, planned to be added to StarCraft II after the game's launch, will allow map makers to publish both free and "premium" maps.
Premium maps will carry a fee, meaning mod and map makers can sell their content directly on Battle.net.


"We want to make sure that the best amateur game designers out there are making maps for StarCraft 2, and not for Kongregate or Steam or anything like that," said Blizzard's Rob Pardo.
"Think about it like this: something like Defense of the Ancients, I think, would be something like a free map because it doesn't have a lot of original content," he added, while noting that Blizzard made the announcement today in order to give map makers time to start thinking about ideas.

"We totally intend for there to be a lot of free content," he assured the crowd.

from Eurogamer:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/starcraft-ii-to-allow-paid-for-mods

The Marketplace would be a forum for publishing and downloading both free and Premium maps. "A portion of the revenue" from Premium maps would go to the creator.

I know Blizzard are saying there will be free content but I can't help but thinking they are trying to slowly change people's mindset to get used to the idea of paying for content that used to be free. I think that has already happened to an extent with this concept of "DLC".

There's so many examples of mods that are almost better than the original games. It stands to reason that some developers would like to make some money out of them.

So the question is: all this stuff we PC gamers get for free at the moment - will we one day have to pay for it all?

Kinetic^

FO Blizzard, FO Microsoft with your DLC. FO!

PogMoThoin

Thing is, the next gen console gamers will happily pay for DLC. Check out the COD forum, a few threads there about how good the map pack for WAW was, that cost a tenner :eek:

Overheal

A fool and his money are soon parted.

ITs a wonder nobody makes a cerebral game experience anymore.

L31mr0d

I'd like to know how they plan on defining "premium" content.

I've seen this model in other places, for other services (stardock springs to mind) and the "free content" quickly becomes stale and tired (it's like the old saying "I'll give you the first one for free..."). Face it, if I'm making maps for a game and there's the option that I can either do it for free or get paid, I'm going to make a map so that I get paid.

Kiith

I think charging for user made content is a disgrace to be honest. Its one thing if its an official map pack, that they spent time/money creating, but charging for stuff created by users is not on.

AlmightyCushion

Kiith wrote: »

I think charging for user made content is a disgrace to be honest. Its one thing if its an official map pack, that they spent time/money creating, but charging for stuff created by users is not on.

I assume the user's who created the content can decide if they want it free or premium. They also get a cut of it. It's similar to how apple's app store works I imagine.

Funky

Considering what Blizzard have said can be done with the SC2 map maker I don't think this is an unreasonable thing to do. You can supposedly make first person and third person games and all sorts of little functions.

During the StarCraft 2 gameplay panel at BlizzCon, Dustin Browder spent much of the time talking abut the upcoming map editor that ships with SC2. If he's to be believed, it's the most powerful piece of software on the planet. Which might be a slight exaggeration. Those developers all have bias running in their veins.

However, we were fairly impressed when they showed us that the editor allows first-person game creation. What?! Yes, that even includes details as far down as UI manipulation and an inventory system. That's a lot more than you'd expect from a simple "map editor." One employee-created game was an FPS featuring a very familiar, bouncing-ponytailed Ghost that was created in just a few days.

Blizzard officially put StarCraft: Ghost on indefinite hold back in 2006, and they've been telling us here that it's still the case. Although some enterprising modder/mapper out there might just want create their own version.

From joystiq:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/22/blizzcon-2009-starcraft-ghost-lives-on-in-spirit/

Maximilian

L31mr0d wrote: »

Face it, if I'm making maps for a game and there's the option that I can either do it for free or get paid, I'm going to make a map so that I get paid.

That's the problem. Would CS or DoD have ever become as popular as they did if they weren't free?

DarthWraak

DLC really is killing gaming. Well for me anyways

ShooterSF

What's wrong with a donate button?

Companion Cube

ShooterSF wrote: »

What's wrong with a donate button?

If anyone thinks they will ever make ANY money from a donate button in a video game are completely deluded.

Mod makers put alot of work into their projects, some of which have surpased the popularity of the original games themselves and they should be rewarded for that.

BlitzKrieg

hmmm

the argument from a mod perspective I might understand, but I would perfer to see something similar to valve's policy which was they openly supported mods they considered worth supporting and these later went on to become products you paid for when with valve's support they were improved substantially (debatable in some cases I know with CSS vs CS 1.6 etc). But they start free and the original mod stays free. Much like how with warcraft DOTA is still free but now we have full fledged titles using the same system.

But how do you define a premium map? The problem I personnally find with custom maps is that they are custom, people wont play them unless they are worked into popular rotation, and thats usually done by the developers relic have been very good with this by working in the best community COH maps into ranked play, even then the maps are automatically downloaded with each patch update.

I play a good bit of COD4 on my 360 and I never have to worry about me not owning the extra mappack for it and all my friends do because the reality is its easier and usually better to stick with the normal rotation maps as we will get more consistent numbers and everyone is comfortable with the maps.

Other ways of working around maps is the PC way of having maps you dont own automatically download when you join a server, takes a bit of time but you only need to do it once.

But charging for maps, I still cant see it taking off much and the only game I know of that *I think* its somewhat worked with is Gears 2, but I put down to the achievement whore incentive that they ship with each mappack

Incentive is needed for custom maps to be even played let alone paid for.

Companion Cube

Maps are one thing, a map really does need to be something special and balanced for word of mouth to start saying, "hey download this, we'll get a better game out of it".

But if anyone watched the live feed from the blizzcon showroom floor this year, you'll see the level of customization and professionalism that has come out of the box with their new editor.

Within a couple of days, albeit with alot of experience, blizzard employees whipped together a first person shooter and a top down space invader style scrolling shooter using nothing other than the boxed in editor.

This a an obvious attempt to recreate the creative spark that came with the genesis of the original tower defense and DOTA mods with warcraft 3. And the level of customization back then doesn't even approach what is available now.

Some really unique and awesome games can come from this, but it requires alot of work to make it possible and this is what the whole deal of payment is about.

I mean come on, the games will not work out to any more than a fiver for a creative addition to a game, and would you pay 5 euro for another DOTA? How about warcraft 4 built from the ground up with the starcraft 2 engine?

Alot of the content will still be free but some stuff is really worth paying for and many mod creators aren't as lucky as the people who created DOTA, who put so many hours into building a free addition and got a career out of it.

And finally NO, you will not be charged 10 euro for an existing map with a few extra resource points on it, because there will be an approval process and blizzard aren't idiots.

Its a good idea.

Kinetic^

This is one of the reasons I don't play consoles anymore. Micro transactions are killing gaming. Take Halo 3. if you don't have the newest maps it can be hard to find a game through the matchmaking system so you're either forced to stop playing or buy the maps.

Maximilian

Kinetic^ wrote: »

This is one of the reasons I don't play consoles anymore. Micro transactions are killing gaming. Take Halo 3. if you don't have the newest maps it can be hard to find a game through the matchmaking system so you're either forced to stop playing or buy the maps.

I completely agree with you on that score. My 360 is gathering dust and my ps3 is a bluray player.

My feeling/fear is publishers have made a ton of dosh out these things on the consoles and are slowly, slowly trying to foist the same system on PC users.

This Blizzard move is just the start. Sure there will be lots of free stuff at the start I'm sure - but in a few years time? Once people get used to the idea, it will be more paid-for content than free. Then all the other publishers join on the bandwagon and one day, the entire landscape has changed.

Once Valve start doing it, I'm ripping my PC insides out, planting a tree in it and taking up knitting. Action knitting.

BlitzKrieg

Kinetic^ wrote: »

This is one of the reasons I don't play consoles anymore. Micro transactions are killing gaming. Take Halo 3. if you don't have the newest maps it can be hard to find a game through the matchmaking system so you're either forced to stop playing or buy the maps.

As I said, I find it the opposite (though I haven't played halo 3 in a while so it might be like GOW2) that mappacks end up gathering dust because not enough of the playerbase bought them so people opt not to play them over the originals that were included (COD4 being an example of this.)