36 ms·

In other news, Blizzard pays less than $1000 to make sure modders can't make starcraft better than they can.

justicezyx 10y ago
I am particularly confused by Blz's rationale. Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. While Blz seems always intended to disallow any modder involvement at all. Most Tower Defense games own their popularity to the early days of SC and warcrfatIII. And Dota is basically just a warcraft III mod. If Blz can learn anything from Valve, it's that they can capitalize on the fan/moder based community, really easy. They just never did anything like that. On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... This does not sound rational to me...
- eropple 10y ago
  > On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... While they've missed a few here and there, their development strategy has served to make them approximately a hojillion dollars. As a fan (I built tower defense, RPG, and Diplomacy maps as a kid--MAN do I miss Diplomacy maps, those were great), I kinda wish they would return to encouraging that stuff and push it to the fore. But I get why they don't.
  - derefr 10y ago
    What is/was a Diplomacy map? Anything to do with the strategy board game of the same name?
    - Sacho 10y ago
      Kinda. I remember mods which featured a World map, where units would spawn at your capital in set intervals, and you would use them to capture everyone else's cities.
    - eropple 10y ago
      Inspired by and vaguely similar to. Widgets (usually those gray domes) would be placed on a map that may or may not look like, say, Europe, and you'd have N players whose goal was to possess (own structures by) as many of them as they could manage. Structures were usually super expensive, and resources (or, in some versions, units themselves) were acquired only by owning those control points. No allied victories. Once the balance was dialed in (lots of maps had nation-specific special units and stuff, which made it tough), it could create some of the most interesting, dynamic UMS games I ever played. Sometimes they'd go literally hours. Early land grabs followed by huge back-and-forths, usually only limited by the sprite limit (my own maps avoided sprite-y units like Carriers, Goliaths, and Valkyries because of it; lots of Marines and Firebats, trying to make them feel like Diplomacy "armies" that could plausibly bounce off one another). The only games I can recall that were more fun were Last Man Standing Regicide ("Shimo-style") games in Age of Empires II.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  >Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. I simply do not understand this. Moders created an entirely new genre and basically brought Competitive Gaming to the masses, yet Blz won't allow modding on Overwatch. I've had discussions with people who support this and their rationale basically boils down to (1) they don't want to fracture the userbase and (2) they love the design and don't want to upset it. Both are ill founded. The userbase is in the millions and mods would get ppl like me to play again. Also, any graphical mods can simply run on my local machine, exactly like DotA2. The game engine itself is superb and possibly hanfles/plays better than any other FPS with maybe Destiny being the only competition. There is no doubt modders would create a superior gaming experience. Learn from Bethesda
  - taurath 10y ago
    I'm not so sure. Skin sales are the entire business model of Dota2 and LoL - the difference is who develops the skins. Valve has shown they rarely want to be involved in dlc and skin creation, they've always been community first in that sense. An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general.
    - ajmurmann 10y ago
      > An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general. We got some awesome FPS mods in the past though. Team Fortress and Counter Strike stick out as the most prominent examples.
      - croon 10y ago
        Left 4 Dead too. I see a pattern. But other stuff like modes in games: Capture the flag, Gun Game, etc would probably not be a thing without mods for Quake and original Counter-Strike.
        ajmurmann 10y ago
- downrightmike 10y ago
  Blz isn't Gaben. Gaben makes it rain. http://whenisthenextsteamsale.com http://whenisthenextsteamsale.com
- EGreg 10y ago
  Warcraft 2 Map Editor :)
- scrollaway 10y ago
  They did capitalize on the modder community in World of Warcraft (almost by accident, thank you Sam Lantinga! and what a success it turned out to be). But what you need to understand about Blizzard is they are extremely conservative about the game experience. They're proud of their work and while they never consider it perfect, they want the one experience for all their players to be consistent and to have the consistent feel of Blizzard polish (which lacks with mods). They're the Apple of game design. It's also a bit of a different question when you're talking about pre-wow and post-wow Blizzard. Pre-wow it's also a matter of "it's hard". Nowadays it's easier, and their philosophy is I believe slowly changing.
- nomercy400 10y ago
  The source code shows all details of one of their most popular products. If it got out you can guarantee there will be new exploits, new ways of breaking the game, which in order to keep the game 'fun', will have to patch. Also, don't forget they re-released Starcraft with better textures recently, so having your sources out there isn't going to improve that game. Plus, it's their stuff, they decide what to do with it. You can ask all you want about the source code of a piece of software of 1995, but I bet you won't get it from any company just because it is part of history. I don't see the source of Windows 95 lying around on the internet either.
chrismcb 10y ago
That is $1000 more than Blizzard was obligated to pay. Of course in the long run Blizzard is spending more than $1000 on this guy.
- devwastaken 10y ago
  No, actually, if they want their product back, they are obligated to pay however much is necessary to do so. They have no leverage other than that. They're spending a very tiny amount of money to repress something that would become quite popular without them.
  - eridius 10y ago
    That's actually probably completely wrong. Just because the guy got it off of eBay doesn't mean it's not actually property of Blizzard. That's like saying that just because you bought a stolen phone from some guy in an alley, the rightful owner can't demand it back.
    - croon 10y ago
      That's a bad comparison. A stolen phone is 1) Likely reported stolen. 2) A finite resource. This is a printed CD-R that Blizzard likely didn't know existed.
      - crimsoneer 10y ago
        It really doesn't matter. If they go to the police and say "we believe that to be stolen property, he's refusing to give it back", they're going to come and this whole argument will be rather specious.
      - eridius 10y ago
        Just because someone doesn't know it's missing doesn't mean they give up their claim on the property.
  - corobo 10y ago
    They could have paid the same or less to get a lawyer to send out a letter demanding their property back
madshiva 10y ago
seriously ? do you want I made the same game than starcraft? because it's quite easy... more easy than other RTS.
tripzilch 10y ago
To be fair, I'd estimate about $5k, considering the flight + hotel fees.

I am particularly confused by Blz's rationale. Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. While Blz seems always intended to disallow any modder involvement at all. Most Tower Defense games own their popularity to the early days of SC and warcrfatIII. And Dota is basically just a warcraft III mod. If Blz can learn anything from Valve, it's that they can capitalize on the fan/moder based community, really easy. They just never did anything like that. On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... This does not sound rational to me...

eropple 10y ago
> On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... While they've missed a few here and there, their development strategy has served to make them approximately a hojillion dollars. As a fan (I built tower defense, RPG, and Diplomacy maps as a kid--MAN do I miss Diplomacy maps, those were great), I kinda wish they would return to encouraging that stuff and push it to the fore. But I get why they don't.
- derefr 10y ago
  What is/was a Diplomacy map? Anything to do with the strategy board game of the same name?
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Kinda. I remember mods which featured a World map, where units would spawn at your capital in set intervals, and you would use them to capture everyone else's cities.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Inspired by and vaguely similar to. Widgets (usually those gray domes) would be placed on a map that may or may not look like, say, Europe, and you'd have N players whose goal was to possess (own structures by) as many of them as they could manage. Structures were usually super expensive, and resources (or, in some versions, units themselves) were acquired only by owning those control points. No allied victories. Once the balance was dialed in (lots of maps had nation-specific special units and stuff, which made it tough), it could create some of the most interesting, dynamic UMS games I ever played. Sometimes they'd go literally hours. Early land grabs followed by huge back-and-forths, usually only limited by the sprite limit (my own maps avoided sprite-y units like Carriers, Goliaths, and Valkyries because of it; lots of Marines and Firebats, trying to make them feel like Diplomacy "armies" that could plausibly bounce off one another). The only games I can recall that were more fun were Last Man Standing Regicide ("Shimo-style") games in Age of Empires II.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
>Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. I simply do not understand this. Moders created an entirely new genre and basically brought Competitive Gaming to the masses, yet Blz won't allow modding on Overwatch. I've had discussions with people who support this and their rationale basically boils down to (1) they don't want to fracture the userbase and (2) they love the design and don't want to upset it. Both are ill founded. The userbase is in the millions and mods would get ppl like me to play again. Also, any graphical mods can simply run on my local machine, exactly like DotA2. The game engine itself is superb and possibly hanfles/plays better than any other FPS with maybe Destiny being the only competition. There is no doubt modders would create a superior gaming experience. Learn from Bethesda
- taurath 10y ago
  I'm not so sure. Skin sales are the entire business model of Dota2 and LoL - the difference is who develops the skins. Valve has shown they rarely want to be involved in dlc and skin creation, they've always been community first in that sense. An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general.
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    > An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general. We got some awesome FPS mods in the past though. Team Fortress and Counter Strike stick out as the most prominent examples.
    - croon 10y ago
      Left 4 Dead too. I see a pattern. But other stuff like modes in games: Capture the flag, Gun Game, etc would probably not be a thing without mods for Quake and original Counter-Strike.
      - ajmurmann 10y ago
downrightmike 10y ago
Blz isn't Gaben. Gaben makes it rain. http://whenisthenextsteamsale.com http://whenisthenextsteamsale.com
EGreg 10y ago
Warcraft 2 Map Editor :)
scrollaway 10y ago
They did capitalize on the modder community in World of Warcraft (almost by accident, thank you Sam Lantinga! and what a success it turned out to be). But what you need to understand about Blizzard is they are extremely conservative about the game experience. They're proud of their work and while they never consider it perfect, they want the one experience for all their players to be consistent and to have the consistent feel of Blizzard polish (which lacks with mods). They're the Apple of game design. It's also a bit of a different question when you're talking about pre-wow and post-wow Blizzard. Pre-wow it's also a matter of "it's hard". Nowadays it's easier, and their philosophy is I believe slowly changing.
nomercy400 10y ago
The source code shows all details of one of their most popular products. If it got out you can guarantee there will be new exploits, new ways of breaking the game, which in order to keep the game 'fun', will have to patch. Also, don't forget they re-released Starcraft with better textures recently, so having your sources out there isn't going to improve that game. Plus, it's their stuff, they decide what to do with it. You can ask all you want about the source code of a piece of software of 1995, but I bet you won't get it from any company just because it is part of history. I don't see the source of Windows 95 lying around on the internet either.

chrismcb 10y ago

That is $1000 more than Blizzard was obligated to pay. Of course in the long run Blizzard is spending more than $1000 on this guy.

devwastaken 10y ago
No, actually, if they want their product back, they are obligated to pay however much is necessary to do so. They have no leverage other than that. They're spending a very tiny amount of money to repress something that would become quite popular without them.
- eridius 10y ago
  That's actually probably completely wrong. Just because the guy got it off of eBay doesn't mean it's not actually property of Blizzard. That's like saying that just because you bought a stolen phone from some guy in an alley, the rightful owner can't demand it back.
  - croon 10y ago
    That's a bad comparison. A stolen phone is 1) Likely reported stolen. 2) A finite resource. This is a printed CD-R that Blizzard likely didn't know existed.
    - crimsoneer 10y ago
      It really doesn't matter. If they go to the police and say "we believe that to be stolen property, he's refusing to give it back", they're going to come and this whole argument will be rather specious.
    - eridius 10y ago
      Just because someone doesn't know it's missing doesn't mean they give up their claim on the property.
- corobo 10y ago
  They could have paid the same or less to get a lawyer to send out a letter demanding their property back

madshiva 10y ago

seriously ? do you want I made the same game than starcraft? because it's quite easy... more easy than other RTS.

tripzilch 10y ago

To be fair, I'd estimate about $5k, considering the flight + hotel fees.