Blizzard must be loathe to let the next hit built in their game slip through their fingers again after their legal fight with Valve over Dota. The original Warcraft 3 was a garden of custom games created by players, and gave birth to what would eventually become Dota and League Of Legends. Warcraft 3 originally played more fast and loose with ownership and Blizzard clearly feel they paid for that oversight.

You won't be running off to create a standalone game based on a Reforged game mode, at least not without Blizzard's suits knocking on your digital doorstep.

While Blizzard's new blanket policy is much wordier in general, the explicit mention of claiming copyright on everything in creations too stands out as a new grab. Without limiting the foregoing, you hereby assign to Blizzard all of your rights, title and interest in and to all Custom Games, and agree that should Blizzard decide that it is necessary, you agree to execute future assignments promptly upon receiving such a request from Blizzard.' 'Custom Games are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Blizzard. Even in March 2010, before SC2 launched, they insisted that all maps and things created in the editor 'are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Blizzard.' This latest policy covering all Blizzard games is based heavily on StarCraft II's policy, which as of June 2019 said: So far as I-a non-lawyer-can tell, their latest ownership clause is much longer but not all that much different to the policy they've had with StarCraft II custom games for years. Without limiting the foregoing, you hereby assign to Blizzard all of your rights, title, and interest in and to all Custom Games, including but not limited to any copyrights in the content of any Custom Games.'

The ownership clause of Blizzard's current custom game acceptable use policy says: Over on Blizzard's forums, user ThunderPope has been sounding the alarm about Blizzard's changes to their 'Custom Games Acceptable Use Policy.' Most folks seem quite fixated on Blizzard's ownership of custom games created by players in the map editor. The new legalese, while definitely overbearing and disappointing, shouldn't be a surprise: they started tightening legal claims years ago with StarCraft II. It's come to everyone's attention that Blizzard have revamped their User Generated Content policy just in time to launch Warcraft 3: Reforged, and claim ownership of all maps made in its editor.

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