Hypothetically...

Good morning, everyone. Or maybe it's evening or afternoon or night now. Ah well. Yes, I'm a stranger. Sorry, hope you'll still lend me a bit of time.

Say that all mappers were offered a service in which they would create a map and sell it for up to $10.00 per download (higher prices for longer games, such as RPGs or campaigns, and $0.00 being possible), with Blizzard taking maybe an 8% cut. Resell is impossible and illegal, and maps could only be run on the computer that they were purchased on (although re-downloads would be allowed). Would you sell maps on it?

Do you think the genre of map would change your decision? It's not intended of course to target maps like Footies or Wintermaul, more like RPG styles, something longer.

What about buying maps (either to play or use as "stock maps" that the owner permits you to use data from to build your own maps)? Would you buy any?

Assume, please, that map security is not an issue: every map would be given the option of being encrypted well enough so that no one except the very experienced could crack it, and they would be held accountable by United States copyright law. Also please assume that a consumer review system would be implemented and that the author can make alterations in the price regardless of the initial value.

This is of course merely hypothetical. Thanks for your time, mates.

I don't think I would, regardless of the genre. Most of my work is intended to be free, as I always endorse learning (read, not blatantly ripping off) from the other one as much as you can. I guess I could relate very well with ancients greeks :P

People who mod (or most of them) do it for fun, it's a hobby. Not a job. I would never buy or sell anything on a site like that.

Wouldn't buy, wouldn't sell.

Yeah, I doubt that model would be very successful on an already free service (battle.net). Now, in an environment like the 360, where it is a norm...

In other words, I think something like that would only be successful if built around/in the game from release.

Maybe when I reach a high skill level, then I would consider doing that kind of work if there was some kind of "official way" of doing that, but if that were not the case, regardless the skill level I would have at the moment, I would certainly not charge for my work, specially because it was made mainly for my use.

I would never sell my services...
However if someone so happened to REALLY want to donate to me...

Well who am I to turn him down? :3
For real though, I probably wouldn't do it either way.
I don't like being told what to make, I like doing whatever I so have the urge to do.

And having to pay for maps would kill the whole community. Few people would upload, very few people would download.

Hypothetically, if there were an actual market with micropayments so that it was very easy for people to dish out small amounts to play a very polished map, I think that would bring forth much higher quality maps. But that kind of market can in absolutely no way exist with B.net, not even hypothetically :)

Yea, if this actually did exsist, and their was a advertising market in the background, it would attract not only players/modders, but company's who could also make money off this.
So yea it would increase the quantity and quality of maps, but also addons/mods for the gaming engine, as you see with World of Warcraft, WoW has a different way of playing (1 game instead of millions), but the aspect stays the same, money.
If the maps were as cheap as around £1-£2 and it wasent for battle.net, it would definatly be successful, people already do this today. (But with few games, and not maps)

EDIT: Also, the idea with these maps, can also be to make money, if you win, you get 90% of all players money for that game.
Example:
7 People play a map, they all bet £0.25, that makes 7*0.25 (£1.75), the losers lose there money, and the winners get 90% (the other 10% to the site/map owner for profit).
Although, alot of people will have problems with losing, and may not like this concept.

I think blizzard would shut down it in less than a day, and highly doubt they would accept the fees

Yea, Blizzard dont do things like that, theyre a simple company, they wouldent charge per game.
Although this dosent stop others.
A example, of what i used to play on, and made around £100 (my friend did most of the work), is www.king.com, its not as good as it used to be, its overran by greedyness by the site now, and i dont like the over-modern UI.

I agree, Vexorian, yes. This could never happen with Blizzard, and not with the already-free Battle.net community. Don't really want this to be dismissed because of that, though, I'd like to know what you think about the other aspects of the idea.

TideHunter, the only problem with betting (that I can think of) is legal: different states (not to mention different countries) have different laws on online gambling. Could get hairy.

RisingDusk, you wouldn't necessarily be told what to do: you would do what you want to then try to sell the result.

Let's assume that the method of pay is relatively painless and easy.

Just to throw yet another idea into the mix, what if you had the capability to create a host-less map on rented server space? Basically your own MMO(fill-in-the-genre) for a monthly fee?

Creating hostless maps would be a great addon, however, it would kill some of the Warcraft 3 gameplay for sure. I think they should introduce something of this kind into their next RTS.

Internet gambling firms are already leaving the USA due to situations there where they just arrest executives because Bush dislikes gambling.