Blizzard announced this past weekend at its Blizzcon conference that Starcraft II will feature a marketplace service which will allow map makers to publish free and ‘premium’ maps for download.
Premium content will carry a fee, meaning map creators and content generators will be able to publish and sell their content at the Battle.net store.
“We want to make sure that the best amateur game designers out there are making maps for Starcraft 2, and not for Kongregate or Steam or anything like that,” Blizzard’s Rob Pardo told ShackNews.
“Think about it like this: something like Defence of the Ancients, I think, would be something like a free map because it doesn’t have a lot of original content,”
IT appears as if Blizzard is embracing a third party generated content strategy very similar to that of manufacturers in the cellphone market such as Apple, Nokia and HTC as well as the likes of Valve’s Steam service.
It remains to be seen whether Starcraft players will be willing to pay a fee for premium content and it will undoubtedly have to be balanced with a large amount of free content.
Pardo assured the crowd that this would not be an issue, “We totally intend for there to be a lot of free content,”
He also added that Blizzard chose to make the announcement now in order to give map designers some time to brainstorm ideas.
The store will only be added some time after the release of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
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