Blizzard Wants Battle.Net As Gaming's Facebook
There can be only one Facebook.
Blizzard Senior VP Frank Pearce recently told G4TV that the company want's Battle.Net to be equivalent of Facebook in the gaming space, a place where gamers across the globe come together and socialize. At least, that's where Blizzard wants to take the revamped service in the next few years.
But as Pearce points out, that's rather ambitious.
"I would be very, very satisfied if Battle.Net was just for Blizzard games and the Blizzard community," he said. "The Blizzard community is really what's most important to us, anyway."
Even though it's highly unlikely that Battle.Net could ever serve as a focal point for PC gamers across the globe (after all, Valve probably has the same ambitions with Steam), Pearce does provide an interesting concept: a Facebook-like social website built just for PC gamers. But to pass gamer scrutiny, it will need to be more than just a forum with a profile and a few awards though, and not be locked within the launcher of a game.
On a related note, we're going to take a peek into Battle.Net on the StarCraft II-side of the service. Hopefully there will be more meat than the previous generation.
More to follow.

Facebook has emerged as the golden standard and all Blizzard needs to do is design some clever applications for it, but I get the feeling they and most other companies are far too territorial for that.
Could this be a good thing or a really really bad thing? sure, it encourages people to socialize, but... it's gaming.
I'm suddenly having flashbacks of Barrens chat...
Facebook has emerged as the golden standard and all Blizzard needs to do is design some clever applications for it, but I get the feeling they and most other companies are far too territorial for that.
I agree, I would be in interested in something like this if i could log into ALL my games from it and have them all linked to one profile. This doesnt mean a person HAS to chat or anything but i think it be cool to see stats of all my toons in one location covering all games.
exactly!
Hells yeah!
The only value these things add is value for the company selling it in the form of copy protection. Otherwise, it's simply a roadblock to having fun with the game you just bought.
exactly, how can the be about "brining the community together" if they don't support LANS!? clearly is just about all of us being under THEIR control.
indeed. I could never be bothered with it when all I had to do was walk over to someone and talk to them, why would I care now? when I have to remember passwords and worry about the wrong information going out to the wrong people?
It's called X-Fire. It's not a bad litte utility and works with most PC games!
I don't want to have to avoid WoW to get away from Social Networking!
LEAVE ME TO MY NERDISH ISOLATION!
...NO! BAD YOU!
Starcraft 2 will have no trouble doing that on it's own. It doesn't need help
I don't want to have to avoid WoW to get away from Social Networking!
LEAVE ME TO MY NERDISH ISOLATION!
Gah, too bad I can only vote once per comment... +5 to Social Defense Rating for joo!