"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
> "Keeping people from seeing your hate speech and obscene images on our private game service is not the same as relinquishing your constitutional freedoms in the hopes of increased personal/familial security," Bashiok continued. "Ben [Franklin] would tie you to a kite and let go of the string for making such comparisons."
While I don't necessarily agree that all user-made mods should be stored on Blizzard's servers, I also don't think that SCII map mods are a valuable or important form of personal expression. Blizzard isn't censoring an important channel for political opinions, they're making sure their game stays a game. This isn't necessarily a decision I agree with, but I think it's a defensible position to take.
Granted, given that this instance applies to a single PC game, and there are plenty of other games with thriving and robust modding communities, I'd hardly say this is an example of real oppression. But it's this kind of heavy-handedness - as we've also seen in their decision to eliminate LAN play - that has led to me not purchasing Starcraft II, despite looking forward to it for quite some time.
Which I suppose is just as well: Civ V will be out later this year, and I can't imagine Firaxis even having the inclination to treat their modders with such paternalistic contempt.
If I'm wrong, please correct me.
(I'm not much for MP myself; I don't think I've ever owned a game that didn't have a single-player mode.)