Blizzard Weighs-In on 'World of StarCraft' Fan Mod, YouTube Speculation [Update]

Update: This post mistakenly listed Blizzard as the company that contacted the mod creator regarding a job opportunity. It was not. The reported offer came from Riot Games. The post has been corrected. Shacknews apologizes for the error.

Original Post: Not long ago, an enterprising StarCraft II fan, Ryan Winzen, released some pre-alpha footage of a StarCraft II MMO mod he's been working on called 'World of Starcraft.'

Shortly thereafter, the video (shown above) disappeared from YouTube, amidst much speculation that Blizzard was attempting to shut the creation down. Since then, a new report from GamesIndustry.biz indicates that developer Riot Games has contacted Winzen with a possible offer of employment.

Blizzard has since responded to accusations that it was attempting take the creation offline, sending Shacknews the following comment:

Earlier this week, a player-made StarCraft II mod called World of StarCraft and described as a "StarCraft MMO" was featured on a number of prominent gaming news sites, catching the attention of gamers as well as our own. With the name so closely resembling that of World of Warcraft, we wanted to discuss the title of the mod with the developer, and as part of our routine procedure, we contacted YouTube to request the video be removed while that discussion took place. We were also curious about the project and wanted to discuss with the developer what the mod entailed.

It was never our intention to stop development on the mod or discourage the community from expressing their creativity through the StarCraft II editor. As always, we actively encourage development of custom maps and mods for StarCraft II, as we've done with our strategy games in the past. That's why we release an editor with our RTS games, and why we feature top player-created content in the custom game search. It's also why we held a contest to spotlight the best community-crafted StarCraft II mods at last year's BlizzCon, and why we'll continue to improve Battle.net to better showcase player-created content.

Like many players in the community, we're looking forward to seeing the continued development of this mod, and as part of our ongoing discussion, we've extended an offer to the developer to visit the Blizzard campus and meet with the StarCraft II development team. As always, we appreciate all of the efforts of the talented and enthusiastic mod-making community, and we look forward to seeing and playing what they create using the StarCraft II editor in the future.