Personal experience is no substitute for statistical data.
In any case, the main issue Blizzard faces is figuring out all the legal bullshit that goes along with something like this. That's why they don't know if it can be done. Second is the division between servers, which will become a serious problem if a map marketplace is introduced, because the map has to be published worldwide, not just in a single region, else pirating the map becomes trivial. Also, pirating the map. Right now it is possible to download a map over battle net, then reconstruct the data enough that you can publish it in your own name. People generally don't do this because it's pretty difficult and it's a sure way to get banned (and the popularity system makes it fairly pointless), but that will change with a marketplace. All it takes is one incident of a successful steal/plagiarism for the whole thing to go up in flames, even if the other thousand attempts result in swift bans.
As for Vexal's complaint about developers making money on trash: get over it. It happens all the time, in every field of business, everywhere. However, it can be minimized with a developer/author rating system, so that the average rating of an author's games (weighted toward the newest game) is displayed on the same page as the "buy" button, thereby preventing many of the potential ill-gotten sales.
Every popular map developer in WC3 that I was close with was a teenager.
Some examples:
Zoator was 15. Duke-Wintermaul was 13. CordialSpam was 16. Mech_1000 was 18. Enfo was a little kid. TheZizz was a teenager until he got older.
So, every map maker who told you their age was a teenager. Still, I'd say that a teenager isn't really a child. Also, I don't know if being a "child" necessitates a desire to make money as opposed to actually having a decent pool of players who will play one's maps.
Blizzard also said during the initial announcement of the SC2 Marketplace that there would be definite requirements for a "premium" map (one that costs money). Based on that, I'm content to wait and see what their plan is regarding "premium" maps.
It's possible the requirements for premium maps will be high enough to prevent the faults I've stated could happen. I'm simply stating what I fear to be the worse case scenario.
If I can come up with these potential problems, I'm sure Blizzard's team can easily foresee them as well, and will do everything that can to prevent these faults from happening.
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Personal experience is no substitute for statistical data.
In any case, the main issue Blizzard faces is figuring out all the legal bullshit that goes along with something like this. That's why they don't know if it can be done. Second is the division between servers, which will become a serious problem if a map marketplace is introduced, because the map has to be published worldwide, not just in a single region, else pirating the map becomes trivial. Also, pirating the map. Right now it is possible to download a map over battle net, then reconstruct the data enough that you can publish it in your own name. People generally don't do this because it's pretty difficult and it's a sure way to get banned (and the popularity system makes it fairly pointless), but that will change with a marketplace. All it takes is one incident of a successful steal/plagiarism for the whole thing to go up in flames, even if the other thousand attempts result in swift bans.
As for Vexal's complaint about developers making money on trash: get over it. It happens all the time, in every field of business, everywhere. However, it can be minimized with a developer/author rating system, so that the average rating of an author's games (weighted toward the newest game) is displayed on the same page as the "buy" button, thereby preventing many of the potential ill-gotten sales.
So, every map maker who told you their age was a teenager. Still, I'd say that a teenager isn't really a child. Also, I don't know if being a "child" necessitates a desire to make money as opposed to actually having a decent pool of players who will play one's maps.
Blizzard also said during the initial announcement of the SC2 Marketplace that there would be definite requirements for a "premium" map (one that costs money). Based on that, I'm content to wait and see what their plan is regarding "premium" maps.
@DarkRevenantX: Go
I know developers make undeserved money all the time. But I honestly believe systems like this make it much, much easier.
@Khalanil1: Go
It's possible the requirements for premium maps will be high enough to prevent the faults I've stated could happen. I'm simply stating what I fear to be the worse case scenario.
If I can come up with these potential problems, I'm sure Blizzard's team can easily foresee them as well, and will do everything that can to prevent these faults from happening.