Very eye opening article, i had no idea things were so bad for this title even in Korea. They have failed horribly on all fronts, with the exception of putting together a very decent game at heart (this isn't their best, but they are blizzard after all).
As modders who are looking to expand on the game, i feel it's important to know what's going on behind the scenes, know how it's been received, how to best interact with the product so we can create the best mods that serve both us and starcraft 2 best. How outsiders are viewed by blizzard who create mods for the title or run competitive matches. It's clear that blizzard doesn't value any of it, the communities that made starcraft and warcraft III the huge successes they are are now considered an outside threat. If you mod purely for the personal satisfaction of modding, by all means keep having fun. But anyone out there looking to make a mod to share with others, put in a portfolio, or make some money off of, I think you really have to start second guessing the new mod scene that's developed in the wake of SC II.
Enough ranting though, I'm not one to leave teammates in the dust so i'll probably finish up my models if they're still needed for Wired for Blood, but i'm just so f*cking disappointed in what blizzard promised and then retracted in a sea of corporate bull, leaving modders to throw months of hard work away on a title that was hallowed out by the new suits from activision. I'm sure there are still good people at blizzard slaving away to make quality product, that's evident in every gameplay video of diablo III we get, and if this keeps up I hope they all find jobs at another company with a bit of integrity.
Did you read the article you linked? The broadcasters in S Korea screwed over blizzard. They cracked down on the people not paying them for using their IP and you think they failed?
Legality has a lot of grey area in foreign countries. You can't exactly fly these people over to the US and prosecute them for running things differently in Korea.
The point is that a lot of blizzard's success came from grass roots efforts outside of blizzard, from the custom mods produced by their consumers to the sportscasting that catapulted SC to #1 in Korea. How did blizzard react to the success that this brought them? They wanted even more and produced horribly one sided legal strings in their product that doesn't give anyone a bone.
How does this affect us the modders? In every facet of the game blizzard has grabbed control and not in a "lets cover the bases just in case" kind of sense, they truly are throwing their weight against all outside influences. From the lack of contact with the community, to the popularity system, blizzard has silently shown they have absolutely no interest in modders making a mark in their game, likely a response to the DOTA fiasco (a mod which made them millions).
The whole article is about broadcasting rights and blizzard's thing with Kespa, which happened way back in beta. There is nothing new except MBC channel or whatever recently.
It has 0 effect on the custom game or even remotely the competitive scene. If you followed the Korean scene recently, just Boxer alone brings esport back to Korea.
Blizzard's control over published map and bnet is nothing new, but not related to that article
It has everything to do with modding. Do you want to mod for a game that's taken a massive nose dive from the start? A game that can't even succeed at the epicenter of its success?
This was all news to me and i surfed the starcraft boards around here almost daily for news on SC II as i was putting lots of effort into modding it and wanted to be sure i was in the loop of what was going on. I'm sure there are others who want to make mods who would like to know the breadth of its failure because in many parts of the internet everything is rosey and chipper any time anyone mentions blizzard.
Who said nose dive ? There are tons of things and games sucks more than this. SC2 has been successful, more or less then wc3 we cannot compare due to time differences. If any of this is new to you then you probably need to know more before you decide modding for a game. Honestly I cant seems to find any game that is remotely successful as sc2 that has an equivalent or even close to sc2's modding power.
On a side note the article is neutral and does not relate it in any way to sc2's failure and i'm just pointing out your judgement.
Yeah it's not as bad as it looks. Overall though, the new bnet has probably hurt Blizz much more than helped in terms of PR. I mean, personally I've never been skeptical over buying any Blizzard game (not including expansions) until the big Bnet fiasco happened in Spring. Whether or not they (or I) like it, I now have a different opinion of them as a gaming company. To be blunt, and because it's the internet and I can pretty much say whatever I want, they seemed ignorant in several ways about Bnet. Maybe it's not ignorance but instead pure technical difficulty... well...
Example: Last night I had a moment where I wanted to test my zombie map out. Surely me, a well known and connected mapper, could get 2-3 friends together to quickly test. WRONG. IRC > No one except EU's who don't have US accounts. Ingame? Had to beg Rodrigo who was already online and who played one game with me before bed. Wow, if only we had war3's custom game list where I could find 3 public bums to do a quick game with. Or perhaps get my EU buds on sc2mapster IRC to come make a quick account on US to test.
It's subtle annoyances like ^ that hold us back as map-makers. Nevermind all the other crap haha.
Oh well, I have high hopes for them and for the future. Hope it all falls into place one day...
Legality has a lot of grey area in foreign countries. You can't exactly fly these people over to the US and prosecute them for running things differently in Korea.
The point is that a lot of blizzard's success came from grass roots efforts outside of blizzard, from the custom mods produced by their consumers to the sportscasting that catapulted SC to #1 in Korea. How did blizzard react to the success that this brought them? They wanted even more and produced horribly one sided legal strings in their product that doesn't give anyone a bone.
How does this affect us the modders? In every facet of the game blizzard has grabbed control and not in a "lets cover the bases just in case" kind of sense, they truly are throwing their weight against all outside influences. From the lack of contact with the community, to the popularity system, blizzard has silently shown they have absolutely no interest in modders making a mark in their game, likely a response to the DOTA fiasco (a mod which made them millions).
Again, did you read the article? Blizzard didnt make a dime off of SC1 events. Now, in SC2 they are taking every measure possible to insure that they get paid for their work. I'd be pretty pissed if people used my copyrighted IP without paying up.
Also, blizzard has always been this way to the community. People keep bringing up how blizzard used to be "better" at community relations when in reality nothing has changed. Theres simply more people and more garbage to sift through.
My comment: the intention of what Blizz did is totally legit and reasonable, but they handled it very poorly and up to now it only did more harm than good to them. Hopefully they took the lesson and will not make similar mistake again in the future. =/
Although I agree (and it was shown countless times) that Blizzard has turned money hunger and control freak, this article reflects no aspect of the custom game/modding community.
In a way it does. It shows that Blizzard now no longer cares for its fanbase. Using the korea example, the leagues helped sell most(?) of starcraft 1 copies. Bliz got so greedy, they want in on the e-sport action even though the article said there's no profit in it. Its just a way for them to advertise other products.
Same situation with the mod community. The map-making fans help the popularity of starcraft 1, and now bliz is turning on the mod makers too. Just like the e-sports in korea, map-makers aren't making money either. But bliz want a share of the custom-game pie so they came up with the popularity system. B.net 2.0 is designed to kill fan-maps while help support their premium maps. When blizzard's own custom maps come out, those would be the ones being played and b.net 2.0 will forbid any challengers to their maps.
Im really against for blizzard trying to get money from all of the things it can...Its free publicity for them anyways if someone wants to host sc2 tournament and then they want cut of it (they propably will make money anyway even if they wouldnt get tourney fees)...
I hope sc2 eSports just dies completely...it would serve blizzard right and I dont think sc2 is that amazing and it propably will not gain the same popularity as sc1 did.
they did do a smart thing with huge prizes, so people really want to compete on the tourney...hard to say how will this go...
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Starcraft II's Failure in Korea
Very eye opening article, i had no idea things were so bad for this title even in Korea. They have failed horribly on all fronts, with the exception of putting together a very decent game at heart (this isn't their best, but they are blizzard after all).
As modders who are looking to expand on the game, i feel it's important to know what's going on behind the scenes, know how it's been received, how to best interact with the product so we can create the best mods that serve both us and starcraft 2 best. How outsiders are viewed by blizzard who create mods for the title or run competitive matches. It's clear that blizzard doesn't value any of it, the communities that made starcraft and warcraft III the huge successes they are are now considered an outside threat. If you mod purely for the personal satisfaction of modding, by all means keep having fun. But anyone out there looking to make a mod to share with others, put in a portfolio, or make some money off of, I think you really have to start second guessing the new mod scene that's developed in the wake of SC II.
Enough ranting though, I'm not one to leave teammates in the dust so i'll probably finish up my models if they're still needed for Wired for Blood, but i'm just so f*cking disappointed in what blizzard promised and then retracted in a sea of corporate bull, leaving modders to throw months of hard work away on a title that was hallowed out by the new suits from activision. I'm sure there are still good people at blizzard slaving away to make quality product, that's evident in every gameplay video of diablo III we get, and if this keeps up I hope they all find jobs at another company with a bit of integrity.
Did you read the article you linked? The broadcasters in S Korea screwed over blizzard. They cracked down on the people not paying them for using their IP and you think they failed?
Also, how does this affect you at all?
blizzard fails so much in many ways,so no need to even look at the thread.
@acidragoon
Legality has a lot of grey area in foreign countries. You can't exactly fly these people over to the US and prosecute them for running things differently in Korea.
The point is that a lot of blizzard's success came from grass roots efforts outside of blizzard, from the custom mods produced by their consumers to the sportscasting that catapulted SC to #1 in Korea. How did blizzard react to the success that this brought them? They wanted even more and produced horribly one sided legal strings in their product that doesn't give anyone a bone.
How does this affect us the modders? In every facet of the game blizzard has grabbed control and not in a "lets cover the bases just in case" kind of sense, they truly are throwing their weight against all outside influences. From the lack of contact with the community, to the popularity system, blizzard has silently shown they have absolutely no interest in modders making a mark in their game, likely a response to the DOTA fiasco (a mod which made them millions).
The whole article is about broadcasting rights and blizzard's thing with Kespa, which happened way back in beta. There is nothing new except MBC channel or whatever recently.
It has 0 effect on the custom game or even remotely the competitive scene. If you followed the Korean scene recently, just Boxer alone brings esport back to Korea.
Blizzard's control over published map and bnet is nothing new, but not related to that article
It has everything to do with modding. Do you want to mod for a game that's taken a massive nose dive from the start? A game that can't even succeed at the epicenter of its success?
This was all news to me and i surfed the starcraft boards around here almost daily for news on SC II as i was putting lots of effort into modding it and wanted to be sure i was in the loop of what was going on. I'm sure there are others who want to make mods who would like to know the breadth of its failure because in many parts of the internet everything is rosey and chipper any time anyone mentions blizzard.
@crazyfingers619: Go
Who said nose dive ? There are tons of things and games sucks more than this. SC2 has been successful, more or less then wc3 we cannot compare due to time differences. If any of this is new to you then you probably need to know more before you decide modding for a game. Honestly I cant seems to find any game that is remotely successful as sc2 that has an equivalent or even close to sc2's modding power.
On a side note the article is neutral and does not relate it in any way to sc2's failure and i'm just pointing out your judgement.
Yeah it's not as bad as it looks. Overall though, the new bnet has probably hurt Blizz much more than helped in terms of PR. I mean, personally I've never been skeptical over buying any Blizzard game (not including expansions) until the big Bnet fiasco happened in Spring. Whether or not they (or I) like it, I now have a different opinion of them as a gaming company. To be blunt, and because it's the internet and I can pretty much say whatever I want, they seemed ignorant in several ways about Bnet. Maybe it's not ignorance but instead pure technical difficulty... well...
Example: Last night I had a moment where I wanted to test my zombie map out. Surely me, a well known and connected mapper, could get 2-3 friends together to quickly test. WRONG. IRC > No one except EU's who don't have US accounts. Ingame? Had to beg Rodrigo who was already online and who played one game with me before bed. Wow, if only we had war3's custom game list where I could find 3 public bums to do a quick game with. Or perhaps get my EU buds on sc2mapster IRC to come make a quick account on US to test.
It's subtle annoyances like ^ that hold us back as map-makers. Nevermind all the other crap haha.
Oh well, I have high hopes for them and for the future. Hope it all falls into place one day...
That's why I think this is so tragic for gaming in general. They've monopolized user modding to a degree and shat all over it.
@crazyfingers619: Go
You and colt should get married....
If your gonna cry about it .... quit...
What does that have to do with broadcasting rights in Korea?
Again, did you read the article? Blizzard didnt make a dime off of SC1 events. Now, in SC2 they are taking every measure possible to insure that they get paid for their work. I'd be pretty pissed if people used my copyrighted IP without paying up.
Also, blizzard has always been this way to the community. People keep bringing up how blizzard used to be "better" at community relations when in reality nothing has changed. Theres simply more people and more garbage to sift through.
@crazyfingers619: Go
Interesting story.
My comment: the intention of what Blizz did is totally legit and reasonable, but they handled it very poorly and up to now it only did more harm than good to them. Hopefully they took the lesson and will not make similar mistake again in the future. =/
interesting article... I did not think South Korea was a gaming capital
@michaelknives: Go
You must be very young. ;)
Although I agree (and it was shown countless times) that Blizzard has turned money hunger and control freak, this article reflects no aspect of the custom game/modding community.
@dddarrenccc: Go
In a way it does. It shows that Blizzard now no longer cares for its fanbase. Using the korea example, the leagues helped sell most(?) of starcraft 1 copies. Bliz got so greedy, they want in on the e-sport action even though the article said there's no profit in it. Its just a way for them to advertise other products.
Same situation with the mod community. The map-making fans help the popularity of starcraft 1, and now bliz is turning on the mod makers too. Just like the e-sports in korea, map-makers aren't making money either. But bliz want a share of the custom-game pie so they came up with the popularity system. B.net 2.0 is designed to kill fan-maps while help support their premium maps. When blizzard's own custom maps come out, those would be the ones being played and b.net 2.0 will forbid any challengers to their maps.
:rolleyes:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=168895
Seems to be Blizzard is becoming over obsessed with controlling literally everything. I think there really destroying alot of their fan base.
Im really against for blizzard trying to get money from all of the things it can...Its free publicity for them anyways if someone wants to host sc2 tournament and then they want cut of it (they propably will make money anyway even if they wouldnt get tourney fees)...
I hope sc2 eSports just dies completely...it would serve blizzard right and I dont think sc2 is that amazing and it propably will not gain the same popularity as sc1 did.
they did do a smart thing with huge prizes, so people really want to compete on the tourney...hard to say how will this go...