Battle.net Marketplace may never launch

Blizzard is having a tough time creating its promised Marketplace for Battle.net – so much so that it's not sure it'll ever launch.

Blizzard is currently hard at work trying to implement the feature, but admitted to Eurogamer that it's "struggling".

"As you can imagine there is an immense number of challenges for us to overcome," StarCraft II design lead Dustin Browder told Eurogamer in a new interview.

"We're trying to deal with those issues. I don't know how we're going to solve some of the player rights issues. How do players protect their own maps so they don't get ripped off by other players? What are the rules of how much you're allowed to charge? There's just a ton of work for us to figure out.

"We've never, ultimately, built anything like this before. Some of our competitors have and more power to them. But we haven't done it yet. So there's going to be a bunch of work for us to figure out how to get this done. But it's something we're working on."

Real-time strategy game StarCraft II launched to critical and commercial success in July last year. With it came an editor that has allowed users to create a raft of eye-catching mods.

The Battle.net Marketplace, announced at Blizzcon 2009, would enable StarCraft II modders to publish both free and "premium maps".

It was supposed to launch soon after StarCraft II, but in classic Blizzard fashion the Marketplace will be done when it's done.

"It's definitely a distance down the road," Browder said. "It's not in the next month. It's going to be some distance before we get this in the hands of the fans."

Is there a chance the marketplace may never release?

"Who knows, dude? Anything is possible," was Browder's frank response. "We've cancelled whole games before. Warcraft Adventures never made it out and that game was basically done.

"But we are working very hard on it. We have a bunch of people dedicated to it. I have every hope and belief and faith in its success and we're absolutely committed to getting it done."