You might have read in the past few days about Ryan Winzen and his "World of StarCraft" MMO mod for "StarCraft 2." Using editing tools provided with the game, Winzen built himself a spiffy-looking "StarCraft" MMO modeled after Blizzard's other insanely popular game that isn't called "Diablo": "World of Warcraft." The video spread far and wide across the Internet until, quite suddenly, they disappeared with the usual YouTube "this video has been removed due to a copyright claim" message plastered up in their place. Activision Blizzard pulled the plug, which caused some confusion since Winzen really didn't do anything other than work with the editing tools provided to him by the developer. Well as it turns out, Blizzard didn't realize that at the time
Winzen took to his forum last night with an update on the situation, and it seems to mostly be just a big misunderstanding. He received a call from Blizzard's deputy council and it quickly became clear that the developer was under the impression Winzen's work came from mods developed without the help of the game's built-in editing tools. There continues to be some discussion over the title, since "World of StarCraft" is copywritten by Blizzard. However, now that all is clear they seem to be getting behind Winzen's efforts, even inviting him to visit the campus and meet with the core game's dev team.
Really, what started out as a potentially ugly turn of events for Winzen's good idea has turned into a boon. In addition to his work being allowing to continue on this "StarCraft" mod -- with many more eyes watching it's development now, no doubt -- Winzen also received a call from Riot Games to discuss a possible game design gig in the aftermath of the incident.
As the modder wrote in his forum post, "Literally overnight I've grown from a nobody to a guy that half a million people want to design a mod. I've had professional composers contact me, dozens upon dozens of game designers and programmers and organizers. Many professionals seeking a fun hobby project even though there is NO MONEY TO BE MADE."
Good for you, Ryan. Welcome to the world of professional game development. Now... when's the release date? Is it soon? How far along in development are you? Will the mod be releasing this year? Next? Do you have a timeframe in mind?
Dude. Get used to this.