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Mod Marketplace Coming to StarCraft II

According to Blizzard's executive vice president of game design Rob Pardo, the StarCraft II Marketplace will launch on the revamped service once the game officially ships in 2010. Pardo said that the Marketplace would not be included with the retail game until after launch to prevent further delays.

Eurogamer reports that the idea behind the Marketplace is to provide both free and "premium" maps for users to purchase and download; it's also a means for creators to generate a little revenue on the side, as a portion of the sale will go directly into their pockets.

"It's something we've had in development for a little while. It really predates even the new vision, if you go back to some of the success that the company's had with WarCraft III," Blizzard's Greg Canessa told Shacknews during BlizzCon 2009. "The mod community was huge. It was a huge part of the success of WarCraft III. [Defense of the Ancients] and other mods have been the reason why that game is still popular today."

Both Pardo and Canessa draw up comparisons with Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike, explaining that creators with larger budgets could possibly extend the shelf-life of StarCraft II's multiplayer aspect. Apparently, Blizzard also wants to steal amateur game designers away from other PC platforms including Steam.

Pardo added that while there may be plenty of free maps available on the Marketplace as well, the popular freebies could possibly be injected with matchmaking or achievements by Blizzard.

  • Mr_Man
    How about a mod that's exactly the same, but with LAN support?
  • igot1forya
    Mr_ManHow about a mod that's exactly the same, but with LAN support?Oh no, that would be too expensive! lol

    I'd buy a LAN support mod!
  • Free maps and mods are what kept Starcraft alive for so long, taking that and LAN out of Starcraft II will be the Starcraft franchise's downfall, mark my words!
  • rrhaire
    Honestly, enough with the LAN support talk.
    I'm looking forward to checking out this Marketplace feature. It should make joining/creating games much easier since people will no longer need to download off the host. It should also eliminate the multiple versions of maps that are all nearly identical but still require a full download (i.e. hunters 1.0, hunters 1.1, etc, etc). Not to mention with a cash insentive, UMS games will probably be much more interesting. Cannon defense just gets old after a while :P
  • Shandris
    Igot1foryaOh no, that would be too expensive! lolI'd buy a LAN support mod!
    It's funny how you said that... I wonder if Blizzard will be like, "You have to pay another $50 for the premium of LAN support". And doing a guestimation on the price, $50 for first game, $50 (or more) for LAN support, and another $50 for each of the expansions (2 more); that would be roughly $200 a pop for each SC2 account. Now imagine how many SC fans out there across the globe... Blizzard will milk a lot of money out of everyone. This is just a speculation; no need to "mark my words".
  • nachowarrior
    haxxorz will come to sc2.
  • They won't charge full price for the expansions. They can't. No one charges full price for an expansion. They couldn't justify it.
  • ssalim
    Sounds good!
  • The_Blood_Raven
    Fcuk it charge $10 for LAN support than can only be purchased through the marketplace and only works with your individual serial key, JUST GIVE US LAN!
  • scuba dave
    The charged full price for ever expansion they have released to date.

    LoD, Frozen Trone, all the WoW expansions. Everything. Mark MY words. It'll be full price. As much as that sucks to know. :(