StarCraft 2 to Support Priced Maps, Mods

A future StarCraft II Marketplace service was announced today at BlizzCon. The Battle.net store, planned to be added to StarCraft II after the game's launch, will allow map makers to publish both free and "premium" maps.

Premium maps will carry a fee, meaning mod and map makers can sell their content directly on Battle.net.

"We want to make sure that the best amateur game designers out there are making maps for StarCraft 2, and not for Kongregate or Steam or anything like that," said Blizzard's Rob Pardo.

"Think about it like this: something like Defense of the Ancients, I think, would be something like a free map because it doesn't have a lot of original content," he added, while noting that Blizzard made the announcement today in order to give map makers time to start thinking about ideas.

"We totally intend for there to be a lot of free content," he assured the crowd.