Discussion: Making a living of SC2

[staticfrog]

What are your input on this? Do you think it'll be possible? Whether it be through tournaments or premium maps. Personally, I think it'll be possible, for both. I'm not sure if people are already making a living of sc, if they are then yeah, they'll probably make more off sc2 tournies. If they aren't, I'm sure the prizes for sc2 tournies will be much larger then the current prizes offered for sc. As for premium maps? Definitely. I'm sure they'll be extremely popular maps that will be a premium and thousands, possibly millions will be buying them.

Now, it's no doubt that there will be amazing and popular premium maps. Definitely not when it's first released but in a couple months or year there will be definitely a map that will be huge competition for games like LoL, HoN, even fps games out there. And as it seems, premium maps will be cheap. But how cheap is the true question as to whether they can really make a living off it. Now I personally will pay $5-$10 for a premium maps opposed to everyone saying they wouldn't even pay $1. I've also read around and it seems like most people believe the price on premium maps are going to be $.01-$3. That seems ridiculously low for a game that is going to be premium status.

Now maybe my take on what makes a map "premium" is different from yours. When I think of premium maps I think games that are like HoN, CS, Madden, etc. These games go for $30-$60. If they were going for $5-$10 wouldn't you buy them?

Now lets say a game gets premium status and is sold for $5. Let's use dota for example. Yes, I know it isn't premium status according to blizzard but lets say rhetorically it is. So DotA is being sold for $5. IceFrog gets a 50% cut, so he makes $2.50 for each sale. I think it's safe to say that hmm...500,000 people would buy it? That's a total of $2.5million dollars made. IceFrog will then get $1.25million to split between him and his team. That's a lot of money. Realistically games will be more original and innovative and will possibly be more popular then DotA. The cut will also probably be less then 50% for blizzard. People can be making a lot of money from it.

Even if a map doesn't get as popular as other maps but gets premium status it can still make a lot. Lets look at world of goo. Not such a complicated game. Simple yet it's insanely popular(for that type of game). Now lets say world of goo was made by the galaxy editor. The game would probably only take 1-3months to make correct? Now lets say it sold 100,000 copies. The number is probably much more. If they sold that much they already made $50,000 from it. That's a hefty amount considering it was only made by 2 guys in a few month.

Now I'm extremely excited to see what kind of maps there are going to be make. You can probably already tell. What's your take on this? Do you think i'm completely wrong and it'll be impossible to make a living off SC2 or do you agree with me? Maybe have something more to add? Discuss.

 

[staticfrog]

Bump since now you can see my post.

 

[JakeCake]

I sure hope those who actually got the talent and time to create well enough played map get's a nice amout of money, but to get a living of it, that would require something like DOTA, I think.

 

[bboy-tiger-]

Yes, if you are developing it . haha

 

[DungeonM]

I'd be more interested in how ownership of a map will be maintained.

Say you make a map and release it as version 1.0. After a few months you've released a few more versions and its gains enough popularity to warrant being sold. What's to stop someone from coming along and taking an older version (provided you left it unprotected) and updating it for free? Additionally, say you do protect it, how hard will it be to crack the protection? Lastly, consider that cracking the map is impossible and you protected every release. What's to stop someone from looking at your map and recreating it from scratch for free?

Another issue is versions of maps. If you purchase a map, are you entitled to all future releases or will you have to re-purchase them? Let's assume that Blizzard grants some sort of collective purchase system where you get all future releases. How will Blizzard moderate this process? Say you make DoTA 1.0 - 3.0 and it sells. Later you decide to rename it as Aeon of Strife 1.0 along with some minor game play changes, is it still the same map?

Obviously we can't really figure out the answers to these questions yet but I'm curious as to how Blizzard will handle them.

Edit: More on topic, I don't think profits will be large enough for the author to warrant being able to live off them but I could be wrong.

 

[Bloody_Turds]

Im one of those ney sayers who thinks maps shouldnt be bought (im not against them being sold)

I figure that if blizzard were to charge an extra 5 dollars for the game... that would give them plenty of cash to divvy out to any maps that make it big.
Afterall one of the major driving forces for the game will be custom maps.. so why not have blizz pay the bills directly

Asuming it were on a purchase system, there would defiantly have to be a way to 'demo' a map (maybe 3 times?) before purchase. And even then, its doubtfull I would pay more than a dollar for any map.

I believe it will still be plenty to live off, asuming thats your choice, concidering the only thing invested into the map is time, since the engine, and graphics are provided.. far less work would be required. (asuming galaxy is as customizable as they say).

The thing is.. if Maps are able to go premium, does that mean that some of that cash would trickle down to any recources used within the map, and if ingame advertising would be acceptable.

 

[bboy-tiger-]

Well. I think that today, loads of people would pay to play DotA. So...

But living, no. Well there are few facts that will give you problems with accomplishing this.
You need to think out of box. Even if you will be able to live out of that, you need to accomplish that. What will you do till then ?

Too much problems, so I would have to say no. But I might be wrong.
They included this probbly coz its somehow similar to WoW month fee.
Now we have to wait to see what kind of pay to play system will be for Diablo III.