Blizzard Supports Mods/Campaigns!

[UntamedLoli]

selling of their products ... custom campaigns ... as a potential interference.

wat

[IskatuMesk]

selling of their products ... custom campaigns ... as a potential interference.

wat

he's never heard of UT or NWN apparently

[UntamedLoli]

I forgot Chaos and Fraghouse made money off the mods independently.. owait.

[wibod]

they are primarily interested in activites that will enhance selling of their products. My concern is that custom campaigns can always be perceived as a potential interference.

HOLY SHIT, COMPANIES TRYING TO SELL THEIR PRODUCTS? I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT A VIDEO GAME DEV IS INTERESTED IN SELLING THINGS! MIND IS BLOWN.

[Jadefang]

HOLY SHIT, COMPANIES TRYING TO SELL THEIR PRODUCTS? I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT A VIDEO GAME DEV IS INTERESTED IN SELLING THINGS! MIND IS BLOWN.

Wibod, the fact that game devs want to sell their procduct is totally not the point of my post. You know that.

I am just wandering WHY custom campaigns get sooooo little recognition from Blizzard, considering that they value other community activities so much more. Did you ever think of that?

The point of my post is that I believe unlike fanpics being in line with the official SC story, free of charge extra-missions/expansions made by the community do not help the (natural and justified) commercial interests of Blizzard.

That is all I am saying.

[IskatuMesk]

You make my brain hurt.

[Lavarinth]

HOLY SHIT, COMPANIES TRYING TO SELL THEIR PRODUCTS? I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT A VIDEO GAME DEV IS INTERESTED IN SELLING THINGS! MIND IS BLOWN.

Wibod, the fact that game devs want to sell their procduct is totally not the point of my post. You know that.

Wibod just likes to stir trouble to avoid attention on himself.

[UntamedLoli]

How the hell would Blizzard publicizing campaigns negatively effect sales when they require the game to be played, more so how the hell are any of those other things helping sales at all and campaigns would not.

Maybe my post wasn't clear enough.

[Jadefang]

How the hell would Blizzard publicizing campaigns negatively effect sales when they require the game to be played, more so how the hell are any of those other things helping sales at all and campaigns would not.

Maybe my post wasn't clear enough.

This is a phenomenon well described in other games, e.g. Ubisoft's Silent Hunter III. Community generated mods and missions effectively competed against the Ubisoft generated expansion "wolves of the pacific". Considering that they are free of charge, and in some respects even better in quality, they did harm sales of the add-on no doubt. Initially, Ubisoft has been quite ignoring to the mod scene there, too, but eventually, once the game became old and the issue of new sales less important, that attitude somewhat faded.

It is conceivable that a similar effect could occur in SC2. Just by nature, custom material being free of charge and in some cases very high in quality will be competitive towards future add-on releases by Blizzard. In contrast, SC2 fanart does not have any of that effect, and on the contrary may stimulate buyers interest.

[UntamedLoli]

Blizzard never added features to their expansions the campaign community could use right? that are not usable without it.

[IskatuMesk]

Silent Hunter III

Ubisoft

ROFL @ the thought of you comparing these to blizzard's starcraft

It is conceivable that a similar effect could occur in SC2.

No, it isn't. Silent Hunter failed because ubisoft is a terrible company and this has absolutely no bearing on SC2 whatsoever and if you honestly think that even for one second that a community production would do anything but benefit blizzard's sales then you are so ass backwards that you don't even have a face anymore. Fanart on the other hand has absolutely no impact whatsoever.

There is no competition. Mods and campaigns extend the life of good games. NWN is more popular than NWN2. Why? NWN2's mod support is shitty in comparison to the original. Wc3's life is almost exclusively on the rails of the map community and it still goes strong.

[Marco]

And after Brood Wars / Frozen Throne was released, most campaigns/mods required to use it because each expansion expanded the game with stuff people wanted to use for campaigns/mods.  Believe me, its a non-issue where Blizzard is concerned.  I don't think the concern is even on the table.

[wibod]

Wibod, the fact that game devs want to sell their procduct is totally not the point of my post. You know that.

Explain to me how custom campaigns will compete with Blizzards expansions. You realise that most companies shovel out expansions where as Blizzard puts more time and money into expansions than most companies put into full  games. Also the mod communities for games like UT and NWN have drastically hurt sales of the expansions and sequels to those franchises mirite?

I am just wandering WHY custom campaigns get sooooo little recognition from Blizzard, considering that they value other community activities so much more. Did you ever think of that?

They just don't care when they're rolling in billions of dollars?

The point of my post is that I believe unlike fanpics being in line with the official SC story, free of charge extra-missions/expansions made by the community do not help the (natural and justified) commercial interests of Blizzard.

Modding and mapping was what sold NWN2 to many people alone, so how does it hurt Blizzards interests when no fan campaign can challenge their expansion?

[WB]

Stupid people should be ignored. Nuff said.

It is a trivial matter for blizzard to shut down modding projects if they percieve it as a threat or if they just dont want to allow it, they've done it before. CC is still here after like 10 years. Get your head out of your ass.

[Jadefang]

@Doak: I  neither compared Ubisoft and Blizzard, nor SH3 and SC. I just compared the principle of decreased acceptance of an add on based upon community made alternitives. Why are you so hostile and arrogant, I gave you surely no reason to. You saying that good mods extend the life of a good game is true, but it does not really touch the issue of selling an add-on in the short term.

@Wibod: How they could compete with Blizzard expansions? It may be hard to imagine for any of us as pure SC fans. I would buy any expansions even if it had bad critique because I love the game. Many here would, too. But what about others who just want to play a new game short term, and relatively superficial, probalby a not too small section of potential buyers. If they have a choice between a high quality mod with storyline and extra missions, and an expensive official release, not everybody would choose to buy the extra expansion. Even if lets say only 5% less buy it, it would be significant.
I also don't think that Blizzard just doesn't care, because they are quite selective in what activity they praise and which they ignore.
I agree with you that people will buy the game's expansion already because of the modding opportunities and you are right that this may be in some cases the main reason why someone will buy a game. However, in case of SC2, I think this will only be a minor fraction of the buyers.

@Desler and Hunter_Killers: The fact that you will need an expansion to play newly released mods based upon that version will negate competition with the add-on release by the developer, I agree. However, that does not apply to community material prior to that release. It may not be as much of an issue for Blizzard as it was for Ubisoft (Romania Ubisoft, no less), but Blizzard's product will be a top seller and even smaller movement on the market could have an impact. Especially in these economically tight times. Therefore, I personally do think it is an issue.

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Anyway, I just try to find a way to explain why there is so little recognition from the Game developer for custom campaigns. I always wondered about that, as community activity should be any game developer's pride. But in case of CC, it really isn't. My way to see it may be an isolated opinion here, but to me it does make some sense to explain that phenomenon.