Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Back in June Blizzard showed off the beta stages of their Starcraft II community forum, The Arcade, and the latest patch makes it official. In case you missed the fuss over this, it’s a pretty major event for the SC2 community because it provides a new platform for sharing content created in the game’s hefty editor. Custom games will now be easier to track, even before they are released (assuming the author updates and so forth) and it should make it easier for folks to promote their creations to the overall community. As closed a system as Blizzard games are right now, this seems like a large and positive step in the direct of acknowledging that the PC is just as much about making stuff as it is about playing stuff.

And in case you were thinking “that inevitably means DOTA in Starcraft II, right?” Blizzard are already working on it, as announced last year. “Soonish“, indeed.

Well, that was close. When last we checked in on Blizzard and Valve’s legal frontlines, the two were arming up for all-out war over the DOTA name. Blizzard was adamant that it owned the “Ancients” part of “Defense of the Ancients,” and therefore, Valve had no right to trademark “DOTA” for use in DOTA 2. Happily, however, neither side will be drafting up a legal defense (of the Ancients), as the PC gaming empires have called off their cold war. Hands have been shaken and babies kissed. So then, let’s have a look at the terms.

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