If you really want to protect the map makers you have to have DRM in the maps, otherwise what's stopping someone from stealing the map like we see in warcraft 3?
The platform itself is stopping theft since they need to upload the map to the CliCli servers to "publish" it for others to play it in multiplayer. If your map is a popular map, especially with paid content, you can be sure that any clones/unauthorized copies of that map will be pulled down and possible account action taken against those responsible. The platform itself appears to offer some protection against such behaviour.
I am not sure how they would protect single player maps, especially if the always online DRM of the client is defeated. As such content creators could provide better protection for their maps by targeting multiplayer only. Even campaigns that are traditionally single player could be made to target 2 or more "coop" players hence bringing the platform DRM protection into play. Of course if your map is free to play with no paid content like a traditional western WC3 map, people playing or manipulating it in single player is of no concern to you.
All I can think of is some kind of manual review process where maps need to be approved when published before you can host them.
I suspect this is the case, especially for maps with paid content. Similar to how platforms like Epic, Steam, GooglePlay and the like work.
- You do not want to pay a monthly fee, so you copy the map and publish your own version free of charge;
- You want to 'have some fun', so you copy the map, edit it / inject cheats, and publish it;
- You like a (free) map but you're an asshole, so you copy the map, edit it, and remove credits to the original author (this happened to a friend of mine in wc3 btw), then publish it;
- You like a (free) map but you're an asshole, and you want to make some money, so you copy the map with (added) monetization;
I suspect there will be some protection against these cases similar to the above mentioned platforms. If such map somehow makes it to be published you can likely report it and have it removed from the platform very quickly with the publisher being punished. Any money stolen by such map would likely be refunded to the victims.
You like a (free) map, but the author has abandoned it and is unreachable, so you update/maintain it;
If the map is abandonware you probably could get away with it. However you also might not. Depends how strict the review process is.
You like a (free) map, and want to make your own version (a fork), with the original author's approval.
It is my understanding that this is entirely supported. The map author could move ownership or give publishing rights to the new maintainer. If the map has a significant commercial value the authors/partners would likely need to work out some contract over the monetization between each other.
SaaS (software as a service) might be the strongest form of DRM there is. All it takes is a ban or the servers to go offline and you lose all access.
Wouldn't say it's a good thing though. We're lucky Warcraft 3 survived 20 years, but if it gets abandoned for real (servers offline too), the current version with its new DRM will become unusable.
I know plenty of map creators for both WC3 and SC2 who really wanted such a thing because their map was plagued by cheaters.
Drake, you can't just "download a map" and edit it yourself. The map's source is only accessible to the map maker.
For clients to play the map the playable form of the map data must be cached onto every player's system. This might be missing source code information but is still enough that third party tools could modify it to do things the creator did not intent. This is exactly the problem with both Warcraft III and StarCraft II maps which allows cheat packs and generated save/load codes to exist.
Some hackers can make tools that will allow de-protection of CliCli maps. These tools may be abused by people who want to pirate your map and play it without paying monthly fee etc
Which is where the platform itself acts as a DRM. If your map is multiplayer and needs a monthly fee then it might be cracked and a single player version made but few people will use it since to play multiplayer they would still need to pay the monthly fee and play the official version as all stolen versions would be removed.
That said subscription for access to a map is a very bad business decision. AAA MMORPGs struggle to maintain that business model in this day and age so there is little chance your map can. I would use that payment model for in-game content subscriptions such as skin passes or patreon style rewards rather than gating access to your map behind it.
