If you’ve been toiling away on your custom StarCraft II map, “Assault on the Phalluspire,” you may want to reconsider the effort. There are pretty good odds that it won’t spend a lot of time on Blizzard’s servers.
Some StarCraft II mapmakers are receiving e-mails stating that their creations have been deleted by Blizzard for “inappropriate content,” with little additional information. As one would expect from a company which needs to cover its ass as much as possible from throngs of troublemakers, that phrase encompasses a lot of ground. More specific details as to what that can mean is found in Blizzard’s Inappropriate Content Policy Overview (where, amusingly, Blizzard employees are considered, “Moderately Inappropriate”) and the developer is promising to implement a better feedback system so users can understand exactly where they are in violation.
This should come as a surprise to nobody. Homogenization of user-generated content is simply going to be the norm for gaming going forward. 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 be a pity to lose things like that.
Blizzard deleting select StarCraft II user-made maps for “inappropriate content” [Big Download]
