A map marketplace, a store where users could buy and sell custom-made maps, was one of the features StarCraft 2′s developers hyped at BlizzCon and prior to the game’s release. The ability to charge a fee for premium maps could have potentially pulled a significant amount of outside talent into producing maps for the game — the potential for receiving compensation for your work would justify longer hours to polish your map to be the best that it could be. Unfortunately, according to an interview on EuroGamer with Blizzard’s Dustin Browder, Blizzard is still struggling with the feature and it’s still a long ways off.
“[...] I don’t know how we’re going to solve some of the player rights issues. How do players protect their own maps so they don’t get ripped off by other players? What are the rules of how much you’re allowed to charge? There’s just a ton of work for us to figure out.
“We’ve never, ultimately, built anything like this before. Some of our competitors have and more power to them. But we haven’t done it yet. So there’s going to be a bunch of work for us to figure out how to get this done. But it’s something we’re working on.”
Many players question the necessity of the marketplace, advocating that Blizzard scrap it altogether. Personally, I can see the allure of a marketplace. I wouldn’t mind paying a little bit of money for strong, custom scenarios and stories from fans of the game, but charging for new ladder maps may be something I wouldn’t do.
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