Selling maps

[Dark.Revenant]

A map worth buying is going to be a lot more than 40 cents. We should compare this to iPhone apps in terms of popularity and pricing, to be honest. I don't see any maps being less than $1. Keep in mind that a premium map essentially has to be of the sort of quality that the developers could conceivably use a different engine and sell the game as a retail production for $5 or more.

 

[mrzwach]

By the way, I think the Battle.net 2.0 market will become pretty much the same as the real gaming market: Hacked and illegally downloaded for free... So you wouldn't make any money of it either way if you only get payed per sale.

just wondering, how stupid would someone have to be to try and hack one of the maps that is premium then try to distribute it for free, on their network? I mean, cmon, its not like they could just ban you. Oh, and even if anyone does manage to download the map before they take you down, they can then prevent them from hosting it because everything is centralized.

 

[Avator]

Don't tell me you ACTUALLY think that hacking means buying a map and then making it public on the same server...

They're obviously going to isolate the map information (depending on how the downloading and storing of maps is done by Blizzard) into something that can be copied or installed to a random other computer for use there. You don't need a network, you just need a site or source where people can download that file...

 

[Doctor-Pepper]

So u think they will magically relocate the premium maps from the full time monitored, professional blizzard servers, and put it on some unknown servers that would cost tons of money, promote it publicly (which is also pretty expensive), so that at least someone knows it exists, keep it online despite the copyright and lawsuit heat, set up a custom made global "lan" network, create a peer to peer infrastructure so people can play together
and all that just for you, so you don't have have to pay 4 bucks for a premium maps

 

[ap0calypse]

Uhh, they even do that for Flash games for which you need to pay, Doctor-Pepper.
Also, setting something on a server doesn't cost any money...

We still don't know how they're going to protect those maps from being transferred, so let's just not whine about these things, okay?
I do believe that people have cracked far more advanced things (even if they didn't really need it), so there's no doubt that it will happen with these maps, but to what extent? Who knows? Let's just wait until the game is actually released and a premium map has been made.

 

[mrzwach]

Don't tell me you ACTUALLY think that hacking means buying a map and then making it public on the same server...

They're obviously going to isolate the map information (depending on how the downloading and storing of maps is done by Blizzard) into something that can be copied or installed to a random other computer for use there. You don't need a network, you just need a site or source where people can download that file...

You need a network for other people to play the map with you, unless you mean singleplayer RPGs, in which case that would be feasible. But meh.

 

[Avator]

Alright, let's make you look like an idiot by passing every step you've just mention, Pepper:

1) If professional game developers would be immune to pirating, then why the hell does it still happen? Or are you implying that they allow that on purpose too?
2) Unknown servers? All you need is some place to upload the files that people can copy or install after downloading. Any file hosting site (like mediafire or rapidshare) would suffice (for amateurs).
3) Promoting publically can be done for absolutely nothing! People can create accounts on SC2-related sites and post topics about it or spam the chat with it! Only professionals or amateurs who think they're professionals pay for advertisement space.
4) It's all about finding the right place to put it. Some sites will remove it and other will not.
5) Nobody makes a private server for ANYTHING but MMOs with monthly fees. And since that's not the case, people only play online games in their own lan network at home that isn't connected to the internet at all, or go online LAN through programs like Hamachi. The rest of the games that's downloaded is probably offline possible.


So... You got any more insightful comments on your obviously infinite knowledge of this matter?