Quote from Mozared: GoAnd you think this is a good thing? That's an idea you'd want to enforce? Fuck trying to make everyone's life more fun, it's way better if we force eachother into jobs we don't give a shit about? For the sake of... I dunno, showing off how tough we are by being able to cope with that kind of shit?
You're literally argueing against a free market economy here. Don't get me wrong, I see your point and agree with very much with a lot of that. What you're missing though, is that none of this applies to the SC2 map marketplace. The problem with games like COD and Mario is one where contracts and brand popularity are literally keeping the cash-stream afloat. This kind of stagnation only occurs a long way into a market system. There are no contracts in the SC2 Map Marketplace, nor are there likely to be any. And as for brand popularity - do you honestly think someone's going to create a map style that will become the new Mario and ends up so popular that they'll continue to make money off of it through rehashes WITHIN the SC2 engine years later?
The Map Marketplace would literally be Steam-within-StarCraft 2. If you want to stand by your point, you're also going to need to argue that the rise of Steam has reduced the diversity and quality of games being developed and made it impossible for 'hobbyists' to get their games marketed/played. Are you really gonna try to do that? You might as well try to argue that Obama is in fact a white female.
I don't really understand Taintedwisp's point, but I do think there are some major disadvantages to the map marketplace concept, the main one being that you need a (ideally large) playerbase to keep the whole custom map scene floating. If there are few players, you won't see a lot of modders invest time into SC2 because there are other platforms that would ensure more players playing their games. At the same time, if there are few modders who make innovative, fresh and fun games, it is less likely that new players will start playing custom games in their free time. And seeing that many popular maps are multiplayer, having a small playerbase also means that there are fewer people who could potentially drag their friends in to play custom maps with them. It's almost an exponential issue really.
So my personal standpoint is that Blizzard didn't go further into the Map Marketplace idea because they were underwhelmed by the numbers of players playing custom games. At the same time, some high quality projects were cancelled or moved to other platforms BECAUSE they advertised the Map Marketplace but never implemented it, which means the custom map pool is worse off than it could have potentially been if they didn't announce anything at all.
I'm pretty sure the people in charge of Blizzard are very jealous about how clever the whole concept of Steam is and they really want their share of the whole microtransactions money and of people designing assets and whole games for them. They started with the D3 market and I think they are open for the Map Marketplace, it is just not very high on their priority list because there are few high quality maps and not a sufficient playerbase playing them that would justify monetizing it without risking to sink the whole custom map scene (because it splits the scene, makes it potentially harder for new players to come in etc. Of course it will also bring new life into the modding scene and motivate the creation of new high quality maps, but that will only happen months or years later and by that time it might already be too late).
edit:
Right now Blizzard clearly shows more interest to make the Editor accessible for everyone, easier to use and they are using developer time (aka THEIR MONEY) to remove bugs in the editor which only modders have issues with and help modders who have questions by being available to the community via chats and forums. I personally think at this moment it is the right move to do and benefits the community the most. Of course they can always do more, but I personally am happy with the amount of response we are getting at the moment and it feels appropriate.
edit2:
To get a little more back to the original topic... Does anyone know what happened to Eiviyn and his map project for Totalbiscuit? Would he have been payed for completing it and is he still working on it?
Check out my project:
MechCraft
EternalWraith ModeratorI recall prior to WoL being released, The map marketplace was already being advertised. Of course now in retrospect it was nothing more than false advertising at the time. With the company size and cash flow they have, They could have done it in a month. But Slow slow slow, lying, useless Blizzard. Like only recently they released a bare simple pvp system for Diablo 3. Company has become a joke in the growing years.