Blizzard has announced that its hard-working staff will be forced to routinely monitor, censor and delete “inappropriate” user-made Starcraft II maps.
“While players are encouraged to share the maps they create through Battle.net, published maps are subject to review to ensure they promote a fun and safe environment for all players,” explained a Blizzard community manager known as “Lylirra.”
“If a map is found to contain inappropriate content, it will be removed from Battle.net and the map maker will be contacted via email.”
Another, less-friendly “community manager” named “Bashiok” emphasized that Blizzard was reviewing and deleting “inappropriate” maps simply because it could.
“We [now] have a support department of size and ability to enforce these types of things. It simply wasn’t possible when our in-game support used to consist of approximately 20 technical support agents.
“[But we are] working on improving our processes to ensure the map maker has more information on why their map was removed, right now it is a bit vague and has obviously led to this misunderstanding.”
Meanwhile, Destructoid’s Conrad Zimmerman noted that Blizzard’s controversial decision “should come as a surprise to nobody.”
“[Clearly], homogenization of user-generated content is simply going to be the norm for gaming going forward.
“[Still], it does make me worry for the existence of clever ideas such as this flOw-inspired map, which is brilliant but could be cause for deletion based on its source material. It would [certainly] be a pity to lose things like that.”
