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.
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zomg... people will never leave their computers now...
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...
Social networking is over rated
Gah, nobody wants to have to set up 50 different profiles to cover each activity they partake in. It bugs me that these companies think in terms of "how can we make our own" rather than "how can we interface with what is already successful?"
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.
So they want to replace xbox live and steam, think they are late to the game.
A place where people all over the world come together to socialize and kill each other on a place called Battle.net? How quaint.
The revolution has begun: www.embeddedart.com
No lan-party no deal.
i like the ps3/xbox and how you can add friends, see what games people are playing and trophies etc,, it would be really good to see that on the PC. steam aint bad though!
Gah, nobody wants to have to set up 50 different profiles to cover each activity they partake in. It bugs me that these companies think in terms of "how can we make our own" rather than "how can we interface with what is already successful?
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.
i like the ps3/xbox and how you can add friends, see what games people are playing and trophies etc,, it would be really good to see that on the PC. steam aint bad though!
exactly!
Steam Friends/Cloud/etc is good enough for most pc gamers. MMO players might want something like this I guess.
I dunno, I tried to join a social networking site, and asking people if they want to play games with me, but I just kept meeting whores... I just wanted some adult friends....
merge battle net with xbox live and steam and I'd want to be connected to it 24/7
merge battle net with xbox live and steam and I'd want to be connected to it 24/7
Hells yeah!
Battle.net, xbox live, steam, gamespy. They all have one thing in common. They're more of a pain in the butt than they should be. Ideally multiplayer would work like it did in the past. You get into your game, click multi, list servers.. pick one and play. There's no need to make these middleware "services" in your face. If I want to social network I'll go somewhere like facebook or any of the multitude of competing sites to do it.
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.
No lan-party no deal.
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.
Social networking is over rated
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?
i like the ps3/xbox and how you can add friends, see what games people are playing and trophies etc,, it would be really good to see that on the PC. steam aint bad though!
It's called X-Fire. It's not a bad litte utility and works with most PC games!
Please Don't
I don't want to have to avoid WoW to get away from Social Networking!
LEAVE ME TO MY NERDISH ISOLATION!
merge battle net with xbox live and steam and I'd want to be connected to it 24/7
...NO! BAD YOU!
Starcraft 2 will have no trouble doing that on it's own. It doesn't need help
Please Don't
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!
I miss Barrens Chat.
It was awesome.
Also, Picard could so kick Chuck's ass.
As a gamer, I want forums, not social networking facebook style...
So one more crappy social networking thing I won't be taking part of?
The more I hear about recent developments at Blizzard, the more I feel Activision has truly managed to contaminate them.
They want to copy steam?
Noooooo and in other news that Tom's never picked up.
Now you see why PC gamers want LAN support in games.
What will Blizzard/Actvision do with Starcraft 1, I bet they dump it.
EA has posted an online status update on its website informing gamers that another twelve titles are losing online functionality. The full list of games includes:
March 16, 2010 Online Service Shutdown
* Def Jam for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
* Godfather for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
* Lord of the Rings: Conquest for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
* Mercenaries 2: World in Flames for PC
* Need for Speed: Carbon for PlayStation Portable
* Need for Speed: ProStreet for PlayStation Portable
* Simpsons for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
April 15, 2010 Online Service Shutdown
* Burnout 3: Takedown for PlayStation 2
* Army of Two for PlayStation 3 (Asia only)
Shutdown of Xbox LIVE for Original Xbox consoles and games (scheduled for April 15, 2010) will retire online services for the following titles:
* Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for Xbox
* Burnout 3: Takedown for Xbox
* Madden NFL 09 for Xbox
Social networking is over rated
YES! THANK YOU!!
2 - Trade: Anal [Thorns]
2 - Trade: OMG! [Your Mom]
2 - Trade: Greatest Epic Mount ever!
2 - Trade: Susanexpress.com Buy gold today Cheapest Rate ever! $10 1000G! Safe fast transactions!
2 - Trade: How do you invite people? What do you have to do?
2 - Trade: RTFM. noobs FTF
2 - Trade: Chuck Norris doesn't read manuals. He knows how to play before the game is made
/leave Trade
... You see why this is a bad idea, yes? Do you really want to put up with this in EVERY Blizzard Game?
Why, Blizzard?!! Why can't you just make LAN support!!!
Finally, a place where I can ask whether or not Wolverine is a mutant and how awesome is Chuck Norris.
hello security leaks.....
This might be sorta nice, too bad it probably won't be finalized till 2017.
This might be sorta nice, too bad it probably wont be finalized till 2017.
you would be surprised at the number of people who meet their girl/boyfriends on WOW