Activision splats World of StarCraft mod

By Robert Purchese Published 19 January, 2011

Creator has a thing or two to say.

Activision's suited and booted legal team has mobilised against the inventive StarCraft 2 MMO mod maker who provocatively called his creation World of StarCraft.

Lead modder Ryan found his YouTube account - the place where he'd posted videos of his mod - deluged with copyright infringement warnings, according to Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Understandably Ryan, who used only the tools Blizzard gave him, isn't a happy bunny.

"You created a tool that allowed us to do anything with your assets. You encouraged us to use your assets and were eager to see what we might come up with. You had to have seen this coming?" he wrote on his forum.

"I know it's hard to trust someone you've never met to piggyback on your own legacy. The brilliance of StarCraft combined with the multiplayer focus of World of Warcraft. You might be a little worried about your lore being butchered or, even more so, worried about a guy with no supervision tainting the name of your company with poor product.

"Let me assure you that I am in no way shape or form going to deliver anything less than complete perfection. I've been following your work since Warcraft. I've worked with every editor you've put out since I was 13 years old."

"If you have a problem with what I am doing or would like to talk about it," he added, "I'm all ears. But please don't send me some messenger with a cease and desist letter."

He went on to acknowledge that he has no leg to stand on should Activision decide to stamp on his work.

"If Blizzard/Activision doesn't want this to happen then it won't," he winced. "This game HAS to be pumped through the veins of Battle.net to work. I hope and pray that we can come to an understanding here. If they want the name changed then I'll change it."

World of StarCraft.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • SuperBas #1 1 year ago

    I agree that Activision/Blizzard should have seen this coming. Besides, isn't this completely free?

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #2 1 year ago

    Surely he can just appeal to Bobby Kotick's better nature?

  • Stickman #3 1 year ago

    "Hey guys! Here's some mod tools, really go nuts!...............................not that."

  • barnettbeans #4 1 year ago

    Fingers crossed Activision re think this. If one of the actual developers of either game saw this video I'm sure they would feel nothing but pride. It's a great re-invention of a dated product.

  • paketep #5 1 year ago

    Blizzard. Douchebags since the Activision buyout. Not news.

  • TeaFiend #6 1 year ago

    And now he has his free press.

    Change game name to something like "Spaces of Spacewars".

  • MojoDex #7 1 year ago

    seriously? legal action for something entirely legal!

  • Golgo #8 1 year ago

    Should re-skin them with the Warhammer 40,000 characters that Blizzard originally plagiarized them from.

  • Andeus #9 1 year ago

    Erm isn't this article kinda misleading?

    According to the original article they just reported his videos as copyright infringement, probably due to the name of the mod which might be an infringement according to the Starcraft patent and EULA that you sign when installing the game. They haven't told him to stop developing it yet, just don't upload videos with that name.

  • albinac #10 1 year ago

    activision are complete arseholes if they ban this guys work,while using the mod tools given with the game.you can see this guy put a lot of time and effort into this and if activision dont want people playing his stuff fine but dont ban it from youtube.the least those pricks at activision can do is allow it on youtube so people can see this guys talent.

  • zoweewowee #11 1 year ago

    'It's getting too hot'

  • rogueJT #12 1 year ago

    This guy also probably knew this was going to happen (being Activision and all) so he took it as the perfect place to demonstrate his skills to the industry.

    The guy's gonna get hired somewhere big fairly fast I'd wager.
    Edited by rogueJT at 19/01/11 @ 15:50

  • FogHeart #13 1 year ago

    Do a mod for a Valve game, and if it's good enough they snap you and your modup, put you on the payroll, your mod gets to be a worldwide game release, gamers are happy with a polished product, and it makes money for you and Valve.

    Do a mod for ActiBlizz...

  • Scopeh #14 1 year ago

    The guy is Naive to not see this happening..for goodness sake hes messing with Activision, they would sue a dog with 2 legs if it started barking like Thrall!

  • Nuronv #15 1 year ago

    I think this might just be down to a branding issue. Blizzard Activision can't complain that people did exactly what they wanted with their toolkit.Its just a RPG mod for SC2 that has a layout and GUI like WoW, its all above board.
    I suspect they just want to keep "World of Starcraft" free to avoid confusion.

    Edited by Nuronv at 19/01/11 @ 16:38

  • tnomad #16 1 year ago

    Thing is there's a bunch of limitations on what you can do with the mod tools that would stop him making a full product out of it. So he must have figured he'd get their attention and hoped they'd give him the extra support he needed to make it. It was was naive and never going to happen.

    Blizzard shut down Warcraft Adventures and Starcraft Ghost after pumping millions into them because they didn't think they were of high enough quality. So it's clear they're never going to trust the community to make their own fan MMO.

    That said the story posted here is misleading because at the time of writing all they seem to have done is shut down his youtube video. Eurogamer's steady decline towards the realms of Kotaku and Joystiq continues. :(
    Edited by tnomad at 19/01/11 @ 17:19

  • Dizz #17 1 year ago

    lol instead of sueing him, they should give this guy a job, seriously. It looks pretty impressive IMO. I really had no idea the editor was this powerful.

    Edited by Dizz at 20/01/11 @ 06:51

  • apoc_reg #18 1 year ago

    It was possibly a little silly to use that name though!

    Just change it to Starcraft RPG or something generic

  • george1976 #19 1 year ago

    They are so upset because this guy showed up their next game! Dont you believe me? Wait and see.

  • romelpotter #20 1 year ago

    @george1976

    Hit the nail on the head!