Blizzard, AT&T Sign Multimillion Dollar Hosting Deal
AT&T will sport the hosting for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III.
Wednesday AT&T said that it reached an agreement with Blizzard that expands their current ten-year relationship. In a new multimillion dollar, multi-year, multi-services contract, Blizzard will use AT&T's Enterprise Hosting Services in North America for World of WarCraft and the upcoming StarCraft and Diablo franchises.
AT&T said that it will also provide voice and data services for Global Call Center Support, the backbone behind Blizzard's call centers around the world including the U.S., Europe, and Asia. "Multiple voice services, domestic and international, to support gamers’ customer service calls, and billing are now supported by AT&T’s global network," the company said.
In addition to the servers and call center support, the contract also allows AT&T to provide its Intelligent Content Distribution service, a network-based Content Distribution Network service that will "quickly and reliably" transmit patches and content updates to the players.
AT&T's Gaming Core Team, originally launched back in 2004 to meet the infrastructure needs of gaming operations on AT&T's IP network, will monitor and manage the technology infrastructure powering Blizzard's games on a proactive, 24/7 basis.
"Over the years, AT&T has demonstrated that it understands the needs of our business," said Paul Sams, Chief Operating Officer of Blizzard Entertainment. "The services and support AT&T provides have helped us to consistently deliver high-quality online-gaming experiences to our players."
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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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polly the parrot For the millionth time, ATT doesn't have the network it needs for this...it doesn't have the network it needs for any of it services.Reply -
czar1020 I haven't had any insanely weird connections issues with blizzard "so" far hopefully it will keep up. Most of any issues have been with the game itself, Patches etc..Reply -
nforce4max AT&T and Blizzard an unholy alliance.Reply
The big fish always eats the smaller fish, when they are the same size the band together. :s -
zachary k so that's why they wont have tethering, because they want to make sure they have room for world of warcrap. 2 of the worst companies teaming up, bad idea.Reply -
Blizzard has had very good service from ATT for the past 5 years, no reason they would not continue with it. What is the other option anyway? Comcast?Reply
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HalJordan czar1020I haven't had any insanely weird connections issues with blizzard "so" far hopefully it will keep up. Most of any issues have been with the game itself, Patches etc..Reply
I'm of the same mind. The only reason I raise a skeptical eyebrow is due to the fact that AT&T has a tendency to bite off more than they can chew in regards to their network infrastructure, iPhone anyone? With Blizzard's growth, and soon to be released SC2, will we see an increase in users which will negatively impact AT&T's networks? I hope not, but I'm wary. -
Mark my words. The average Starcraft player is most likely someone that has above average computer skills. Not to mention the many software programmers that play. Therefore, most likely one or a group of them will create a lan patch for Starcraft 2. Here is my problem with a battle.net only Starcraft. I recently played the Beta version playing only versus computer opponents and I got disconnected from Battle.net and my game got scrapped. I was not playing vs other people? WOW... no pun intendedReply