StarCraft 2: help us mourn the death of content freedom
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
- The 25MB file size limit is absurd and could cause real harm. I can't imagine any rationale at all for this. Storage is so cheap. There's also an arbitrary limit of 5 maps at a time per author, which is hilariously strange; needless to say, the most fun custom maps in WC3 and SC:BW came from prolific authors.
- Ars doesn't mention the fact that their current system for browsing and playing custom maps is broken beyond belief. It's more or less impossible to play maps that aren't among the most popular on Battle.net. (details: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=139...)
- The change everyone is complaining about stems from an actual good idea. In WC3 and SC:BW, people would constantly make tiny, ineffectual changes to custom maps, resulting in a profligation of one million versions of those maps, each of which you would have to download when you encountered them. You also had little assurance that someone had not modified a map to let them cheat it. The centralized distribution system is a real convenience, as it has the potential to avoid these problems (although they are still present right now, thanks to Blizzard's horrific design.) Unfortunately, it makes Blizzard somewhat responsible in the eyes of consumers for the content on the system.
They will listen to their community and continuously make this thing better, I guarantee it!
Maybe they just wanted to change things up a bit, or maybe they want to restrict things at first to see what people's reaction(s) are.
Blizzard have already shaped Battle.net and StarCraft 2 in ways that people disagree vehemently with. Add to this the number of cock-ups in the recent weeks, which successfully removed any benefit of doubt that their decade of StarCraft goodwill had accrued.
The best recent conciliation on their part was to promise that some things would be addressed "eventually" with such controversial things as region realm restrictions for players in multiplayer. That's not exactly magnanimous.
However, their communication channels with their communities are broken beyond belief. I remember when WoW and WC3 were first launched, tech support was stellar, forum support was awesome. WC3 came to an equilibrium eventually (as did SC) but WoW, since it's ever-growing like any self respecting MMORPG, was made to look like a broken piece of software:
- nothing is for granted; "balance" and perceived character-item-zone values may change from one patch to another. Blizzard clearly has a train of thought behind those changes, but it is never revealed to the community from fear of exploitation (not from a security PoV).
- their community managers grew into a bunch of condescending robots.
- A lot of over-hyped features were totally abandoned. A lot of problematic features were adopted/implemented that made the game even more difficult to manage, content and player-wise (see Titan Grip - it was a good April Fools joke at first, a bad feature later).
I don't like pointing fingers without proof, but ever since Activision bought Blizzard, things are getting weirder. Could it be that they are indeed revolutionizing gaming? I can't see it myself, but I sincerely hope I'm that short-sighted.
Blizzard's intention isn't really to make things easier for the users; it's to create a walled-garden ecosystem for user-generated content, so they can monetize modders' work for themselves, which is pretty sleazy.
Having a centralized distrubition system with some light editorial control is indeed a great convenience. Having that system to the exclusion of letting users decide to run maps from other sources is very limiting.
I would compare this to the Android Market. It is centralized, easy to access, and has some limited editorial controls so I can feel relatively safe I am not downloading malware. But, the architecture is relatively open so if I choose for whatever reason to run an Android App from a different source I can do so without too much trouble.
Obviously Blizzard is trying to prevent an explosion of crappy maps on their servers.
What's the compromise? Award more space and more map slots to authors who release popular maps. How the better maps are determined is up for discussion, but I think that would be an excellent move on Blizzard's part.
That is a tradeoff I can live with.
The file size limitation for SC2 is only an issue if you want to include multiple custom 3D models for a total conversion.
It's probably silly to argue about ideology and principles in a video game, but this seems to be a trend that manifests itself in all facets of society. It scares me how people are willing to give up freedom, reasoning that it's probably not needed anyways.
Too many people think about freedom in terms of individuals' rights in isolation, but its important to recognize that freedom alone encourages the kind of broad variation from which real, substantive improvement emerges, and is the true driver of human progress.
It's extremely important to make this point in any and every context in which it's relevant.
P.S. What is the deal with "penis maps" anyway? Do people upload cool-looking maps that you enjoy until you're almost done and then BAM you get ambushed by a horde of huge, veiny penis monsters?
I'm sure it's the latter. Having complete control over distribution makes it far easier to monetize the content. See the iphone app store for example.
If I'm wrong, please correct me.
(I'm not much for MP myself; I don't think I've ever owned a game that didn't have a single-player mode.)
Granted, given that this instance applies to a single PC game, and there are plenty of other games with thriving and robust modding communities, I'd hardly say this is an example of real oppression. But it's this kind of heavy-handedness - as we've also seen in their decision to eliminate LAN play - that has led to me not purchasing Starcraft II, despite looking forward to it for quite some time.
Which I suppose is just as well: Civ V will be out later this year, and I can't imagine Firaxis even having the inclination to treat their modders with such paternalistic contempt.
> "Keeping people from seeing your hate speech and obscene images on our private game service is not the same as relinquishing your constitutional freedoms in the hopes of increased personal/familial security," Bashiok continued. "Ben [Franklin] would tie you to a kite and let go of the string for making such comparisons."
While I don't necessarily agree that all user-made mods should be stored on Blizzard's servers, I also don't think that SCII map mods are a valuable or important form of personal expression. Blizzard isn't censoring an important channel for political opinions, they're making sure their game stays a game. This isn't necessarily a decision I agree with, but I think it's a defensible position to take.
That is the attitude that has led to erosion of rights, that unfortunately, I'm force to live with.
Besides, how hard would it be to implement a reputation system instead of censorship? Bonus: they wouldn't have to pay the censors.
Impossible. They host the content, they're responsible for it, they're required to uphold the age rating the game is given.
"Online-enabled games carry the notice "Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB." This notice warns those who intend to play the game online about possible exposure to chat (text, audio, video) or other types of user-generated content (e.g., maps, skins) that have not been considered in the ESRB rating assignment."
has any game "lost" its rating, or had it modified, or whatever, because of user generated content?
I don't see how anyone other than Blizzard has any right to free speech on their privately owned gaming platform.
Even if Blizzard has created a new medium of expression in Starcraft II maps, why should they should be compelled to enable the distribution of any map they don't like?
I understand that people may not like Blizzard's decision to moderate their platform, but it's a big stretch to say that they are trampling on our right to free speech. Is a newspaper trampling on your right to free speech by choosing which editorials to print?
It's the opposite actually. A few days ago you had no means to make Starcraft 2 maps of any description. Now you can, so long as you don't make an ass of yourself.
How is that not a good thing?
see also catcher in the rye.
Works of genius that emerge from an openly (freely?) mod-able environment are not hard to find or point out: Consider "Team Fortress", a Quake mod and "Counter Strike", the brilliant mod of Half Life.
The kind of engineering and design effort that went into those two projects would have been impossible in the environment described in this article. Both those projects changed the world [of gaming].
I get the feeling no CEO wants to be testifying at a congressional hearing and try to explain that the content some kid saw wasn't created by their company. "This appears in your video game and as we all know (like animation) all video games are for kids" "No sir, that was not created by us....." "You should stop this..."
Bethesda was the source of the content for Hot Coffee. It was included in several versions of the game.
A mod was made to enable access to this content.
As the authors and distributors Bethesda is/was/and should be responsible for releasing that content.
As a user, I'm going to let blizz get away with this one, because the game is good and we've been waiting something like 12 years for it to be finished. So I did buy it. But if other companies think that I'm buying their game if they pull this kind of crap, well, it's not happening.
The thing that I don't like is that you have to login to battlenet for anything single player (other than playing as a guest) and this is an issue I wouldn't accept for any other game than sc2.
But doesn't Steam also work similarly?
The internet has all the freedom you'll ever need, but you shouldn't expect to have that freedom everywhere you go on it. You can post anything you like to your blog, but I can't post anything I like to it. I have to do that at my own.
Deleting obnoxious custom maps from a video game is no different from trimming Ugg Boot spam from the front page of HackerNews. It's not impinging on anybody's freedom in any meaningful way. It's just making the game universe a better place to be.
The casual gamers and casual consumers outnumber power users at least 5:1, and that's what allows these sort of things to perpetuate and continue on the rate that they are.
Only if you buy this shit. I've got a large library of games with minimal DRM and large modding communities. Graphics stopped adding to the experience five years ago. I am quite content to battle away on Age of Mythology, Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, Age of Empires III, the original Jedi Knight, and a dozen others.
When I game at all. It's just appalling that people so casually accept censorship in this day and age. As Ars says, this isn't a simple matter of keeping the trolls at bay:
>There is also the matter of the rating: StarCraft 2 is rated Teen, and if Blizzard doesn't keep Mature-rated content out, there could be a serious backlash.
Good content will be banned to keep the environment at a teen level. This is disgusting, and make no mistake it is censorship.
Actually, it's irrelevant anyways. Note that games have explicit disclaimers that online play is unrated by the ESRB and may be effectively higher than the game's box rating.
The ESRB acknowledges and accepts this - games are rated based on predictable content (e.g., dialogue in singleplayer) and do not include unpredictable player-generated content within reason (e.g., people swearing in multiplayer).
So, the whole ratings argument is bogus - SC2 will not suffer a ratings change even if its users distribute obscene user content.
Think, if you will, what the hell Fox or CNN or someone would do with a SCII map that utilized suicide bombers or something. Good christ.
Talk about giving the idiots that think that all of us gamers are off to kill hundreds of innocent people because we do it in a video game a carton-load of ammo.
Then we'll have any good or "innovative" games completely yanked, and you'll bitch more about "losing" freedoms because some company didn't cover their ass.
Swear it's like a bunch of bickering high school kids in here sometimes.
Gillian Anderson couldn't do anything about Adobe Photoshop, and if the anti-videogame crusaders couldn't manage to do anything significant with Manhunt and Hot Coffee, custom content for SCII isn't going to be any worse. (For that matter, "GTA Raoul Moat" fetched Rockstar an apology from the Daily Mail. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=256635)
maps/download/(2)blabla and not maps/frozen throne/(2)blabla.
I honestly hope that blizzard will fix that by hosting everything.
And I'm sure that if 25mb is not enough, blizzard will increase it.. It's one of the few game company that encourage users to create maps and fan art.
Lastly, in my 10 years playing starcraft1 and warcraft3, I've never seen a map with mature content or things like that.. so in my opinion, it doesn't make a difference whether blizzard control maps or no.
I think some people, judging by the comments here, have a giant void of actual problems in their lives and have nothing better to do than to complain about everything.
I bought the game and like someone else said, if this wasn't blizzard I wouldn't have bought it. Same with the iPhone, how many would have bought it knowing the restriction if it wasn't made by apple. Same hardware, same software, same management.
Seems pretty obvious to me.
If you have to connect to a central sever it gives them a chance to check your account (whether they take it or not). I assume pirates would rather download an anonymous map over HTTP than from Blizzard.
Let the market decide - if most devs have trouble making a fun map / scenario / mod that's under 25 megs in size, then obviously blizzard will change it. That being said, 25 megs is probably sufficient anyways. Relax.
Another point is that the game is still new. That 25 MB limit is probably not a hard limit. It 'could' go up if they start seeing a show of hands with people needing more space.
What they probably want is a really awesome modding community surrounding their games that they control and are able to reward for efforts produced. Which is awesome in my mind.
Where was the article trumpeting the "renewal of content freedom" when Alien Swarm came out?
Think chatroulette, but more surprising.
Did anyone thought about free game engines?