StarCraft modder offered dev job following Blizzard conflict

January 20th, 2011, 23:50 Posted By: wraggster

A lone StarCraft 2 modder has been courted by League of Legends developer Riot Games, following an apparent conflict with Activision-Blizzard over his creation.

'Ryan' was working on a home-made MMO using StarCraft II's Galaxy Editor, which he bravely chose to title 'World of StarCraft.'

Following the mod's coverage on various websites, YouTube pulled his work in progress videos, claiming copyright infringement notices sent by 'Activision Games Inc.' So far, only the videos are affected; the mod's forum and the project itself is yet to receive any such order.

Ryan claimed not to have been contacted by Blizzard directly, meaning the exact reason for the copyright notice was ambiguous. Some have speculated the take-down was purely to do with the inevitably troublesome name, and others the very nature of the project.

Following a public protestation and plea for clarification as to whether he could continue to work on the mod, he claimed last night that " I just spoke with a Blizzard official, and the issue is being worked on.

"Because of the sensitive nature of what's going on, I'm going to wait until the dust has settled to comment further."

In the meantime, Riot Games design director Tom Cadwell, previously a World of Warcraft designer, contacted Ryan with a possible offer of employment.

"When I see a modder with a lot of drive that has done something cool, I tend to contact them," he confirmed on Riot's forums. "I shot him an email recently asking if he was interested in exploring an opportunity here. As to what comes of that, who knows -- that depends on the mutual fit and his own goals."

He also offered his own thoughts on the Blizzard wrangle. "I don't know because I'm not a Blizzard employee, but I seriously doubt this is anything other than the fact he named the mod World of StarCraft, which has an air of legitimacy that borderline infringes on Blizzard.

"Blizzard is very supportive of their modders, but also vigorously depends certain aspects of their IP (as they should and must)."

Ryan later told PixelatedGeek that "I would be a complete idiot not to... I've waited my whole life for something like this."

Blizzard is yet to respond to requests for clarification.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...zzard-conflict

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