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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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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tikrjee zomg... people will never leave their computers now...Reply
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... -
greatsaltedone 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?"Reply
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. -
El_Capitan A place where people all over the world come together to socialize and kill each other on a place called Battle.net? How quaint.Reply -
deuketc 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!Reply -
grieve GreatSaltedOneGah, 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?Reply
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.
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grieve deuketci 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!Reply