Blizzard wants to let people go and sell mods and maps of Starcraft 2. Selling ‘user generated content’ is something I have always wanted. However, being able to sell it is meaningless unless it can be copyrighted.
I am a long time Blizzard RTS map maker and mod maker. In other words, I know my JASS. The legal issue of copyright is going to be the big issue.
I am not a fan of Blizzard positioning the Starcraft 2 editor in an attempt to leverage consumers to make content for Blizzard. The main reason why is due to the time stolen.
Warcraft 2’s PUDs took hours to a day to make them really good.
Starcraft’s maps took days to weeks to make them really good.
Warcraft 3’s maps take months if not years to make them really good.
Yes, I said years. I know people who have been working on a Warcraft 3 map for literally years. If they spent that time and effort somewhere else, they could have started a business, graduated wtih another degree, had adventures around the world, met a woman, get married, start a family, etc.
If Blizzard did what they did without being able to sell the map/mod, the leverage would have been too steep. It was already too steep wtih Warcraft 3.
A very, very BIG problem with Warcraft 3 map making is the issue of code protection. People would delete pieces of the map so it could not be read in a map editor but played in the game. They called doing this ‘map protectors’. Of course, anything that can be read by the game can be reconstructed back into the map editor (if you don’t mind reading JASS for the triggers). Blizzard says they will have map protection in Starcraft 2, but I doubt they can keep smart modders from hacking into the map code.
The only true protection is legal copyright. I highly doubt Blizzard will allow copyright. Copyright is so critical in content generation. What happens if someone steals your code? Do you write to Blizzard about it? They can’t enforce it, at least not on such a large scale. In real life, you could sue. But without legal protection, there will be no true content generation. It is like asking someone to build a house but they cannot hold the legal papers for it.
Warcraft 3 maps were so complex that not one person could generate all the parts. How complex could a Warcraft 3 map get? Well, you need new models. So you need a model animator. You need new icons, so you need someone to paint those. You need to do new spells and abilities. If you want to do anything remotely interesting, you need to know JASS (I know JASS isn’t used in SC2 but you get the point). Most people don’t know programming. You also need to do the rest of the triggers. Some people even hire map modelers just to model and design the details of the map. It is not unusual to see a Warcraft 3 map have a main director and about a half a dozen other people doing stuff. Remember folks, this is just for ONE MAP. And it would still take months to make!
The problem is that all these art assets, sound assets, and code cannot be protected. And once they are hacked, what recourse does the original creator have in getting them? And with mods being sold, this means the free amount of custom models and custom spells will radically decrease if not vanish.
How do you protect against piracy? What is to stop someone from buying a map and giving out a bazillion copies to everyone else or breaking whatever code and putting it out for free anyway? Any popular map will be broken just due to unhappy mod makers that their map isn’t popular. Since there is no copyright, what recourse is there?
With customers selling mods, the online community may become full of little salesmen instead of players. Sales pitches might very well keep appearing in chat rooms and in games.
Most maps get updated. Do you have to buy the update as well? Or are you somehow subscribed?
DOTA is a prime example of not custom maps working but of why they wouldn’t work. I remember testing early versions of “Aeon of Strife” back in the Starcraft era (though I don’t recall Eul being there or not, I don’t remember most of the names these days). Even to this day, AoS didn’t appeal to me then or now because it was more of a tactical game. I always considered just controlling one unit dumb. DOTA caught on primarily because it simulated the early game gameplay of Warcraft 3 (when you have your first hero popped out and running around) and coordinating with your teammates. While regular Warcraft 3 would advance to multiple heroes and armies and multiple towns, DOTA just had you stuck with your lone hero but with like 20 levels and various items. It was always fun when a DOTA player would appear in a ladder game. They would be running around with their hero, who would be full of items in tier 1, and they simply couldn’t make or play with an army. DOTA is said to be popular but the vast majority of Warcraft 3 players do not play it.
If DOTA was sold, it would be immediately sued in a thousand different directions. DOTA was made by hacking into many people’s protected maps, ripping the spell code, and plopping it in DOTA as well as some models and textures. In the Warcraft 3 map making community, there is a deep hissing resentment against DOTA because of how blatantly other people’s work was ripped into the game. People who are using DOTA as an example of map success would be more accurate to show why it wouldn’t work.
No one is going to participate in a system if code stealing maps like DOTA are ‘protected’ with their stolen code.
I’m going to look into the details some more as well as see what my old War 3 modders think. But this has so many legal issues that I don’t see ironed out. What if someone puts copyrighted assets for sale like Star Wars TIE fighters as a model in the map or music from a Star Trek movie? It is illegal to sell such content for money.
Companies like Paramount would just sue Blizzard. What happens then?
If you cannot copyright something, you cannot truly sell it as your work.
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