Blizzard comments on World of StarCraft, invites creator to HQ
Blizzard has released a statement regarding the pulled YouTube videos of a StarCraft 2 mod by Ryan Winzen that turned the RTS title into a game more closely resembling World of Warcraft. While the developer admits that YouTube was asked to kill the videos because of the trademarked name "as part of our routine procedure," the mod itself will live on. "As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods," Blizzard says in the statement, and it is "looking forward to seeing the continued development of this mod."
In fact, the company sought out the mod's creator and has "extended an offer to the developer to visit the Blizzard campus and meet with the StarCraft 2 development team." If it wants to hire him, though, they'll have to hurry -- Blizzard isn't the only dev that wants to meet the guy. You can read the full statement, send out by Blizzard's Bob Colayco, after the break.
"Earlier this week, a player-made StarCraft II mod called World of StarCraft and described as a StarCraft MMO was featured on a number of prominent gaming news sites, catching the attention of gamers as well as our own. With the name so closely resembling that of World of Warcraft, we wanted to discuss the title of the mod with the developer, and as part of our routine procedure, we contacted YouTube to request the video be removed while that discussion took place. We were also curious about the project and wanted to discuss with the developer what the mod entailed.
"It was never our intention to stop development on the mod or discourage the community from expressing their creativity through the StarCraft II editor. As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods for StarCraft II, as we've done with our strategy games in the past. That's why we release an editor with our RTS games, and why we feature top player-created content in the custom game search. It's also why we held a contest to spotlight the best community-crafted StarCraft II mods at last year's BlizzCon, and why we'll continue to improve Battle.net to better showcase player-created content.
"Like many players in the community, we're looking forward to seeing the continued development of this mod, and as part of our ongoing discussion, we've extended an offer to the developer to visit the Blizzard campus and meet with the StarCraft II development team. As always, we appreciate all of the efforts of the talented and enthusiastic mod-making community, and we look forward to seeing and playing what they create using the StarCraft II editor in the future."
