A couple of days ago a StarCraft loving developer showed off a video of a rather impressive MMO-styled mod he had created using the StarCraft 2 editor, one that he called the World of StarCraft. Blizzard, or Activision Blizzard, is one of the biggest publishers in the industry, and is not generally known for its benevolent attitudes towards modding, hacking or user-created content.
[RELATED_ARTICLE]As expected, the video was soon removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement, and the developer, Ryan Winzen, received a cease and desist letter. Winzen was more hurt than offended, a sentiment he made clear by stating emphatically on his forum that he would stay true to Blizzard’s core philosophies: “I know it’s hard to trust someone you’ve never met to piggyback on your own legacy… Let me assure you that I am in no way shape or form going to deliver anything less than complete perfection (edit: close to perfection)…. Furthermore, if you like this idea and would be willing to grant me a seal of approval to continue… that would be wonderful. I won’t let you down.”
In a true reversal of fortunes amidst massive community interest that is a heart-warming story of independent developer success, Ryan got himself a job offer from Riot Games, before now being called by Blizzard to their headquarters to meet the game’s development team.
Regarding the mod itself, Blizzard now says it has given the World of StarCraft mod a thumbs-up for further development: “’It was never our intention to stop development on the mod or discourage the community from expressing their creativity through the StarCraft II editor…As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods for StarCraft II, as we’ve done with our strategy games in the past.”
Read Blizzard’s full statement below:
“Earlier this week, a player-made StarCraft II mod called World of StarCraft and described as a StarCraft MMO was featured on a number of prominent gaming news sites, catching the attention of gamers as well as our own. With the name so closely resembling that of World of Warcraft, we wanted to discuss the title of the mod with the developer, and as part of our routine procedure, we contacted YouTube to request the video be removed while that discussion took place. We were also curious about the project and wanted to discuss with the developer what the mod entailed.
“It was never our intention to stop development on the mod or discourage the community from expressing their creativity through the StarCraft II editor. As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods for StarCraft II, as we’ve done with our strategy games in the past. That’s why we release an editor with our RTS games, and why we feature top player-created content in the custom game search. It’s also why we held a contest to spotlight the best community-crafted StarCraft II mods at last year’s BlizzCon, and why we’ll continue to improve Battle.net to better showcase player-created content.
“Like many players in the community, we’re looking forward to seeing the continued development of this mod, and as part of our ongoing discussion, we’ve extended an offer to the developer to visit the Blizzard campus and meet with the StarCraft II development team. As always, we appreciate all of the efforts of the talented and enthusiastic mod-making community, and we look forward to seeing and playing what they create using the StarCraft II editor in the future.”