On top of that, Blizzard claims it would occasionally see confusion among consumers who didn’t realize that Blizzard and Battle.net are the same thing.
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Blizzard has made the odd decision to re-name one of PC gaming’s most iconic online services in a confusing bid to make things more easily understandable.
“We’ve seen that there’s been occasional confusion and inefficiencies related to having two separate identities under which everything falls-Blizzard and Battle.net”, reads the aforementioned announcement. The answer probably lies in the fact that we’re not seeing just a straight-up name change.
Blizzard announced today that it is starting the process of “transitioning away” from using that name for its gaming services.
Blizzard is killing Battle.net just a few months shy of the online gaming service’s 20th birthday – killing the name, anyway.
The service will not technically be renamed, and will be referred to simply as “Blizzard tech” moving forward.
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The reasoning is that back in 1996, when Battle.net was established (for the original Diablo – good times) it was necessary to make it clear that this was a new and distinct online service. Given that built-in multiplayer support is a well-understood concept and more of a normal expectation these days, there isn’t as much of a need to maintain a separate identity for what is essentially our networking technology. So Blizzard’s network technology will always be Battle.net to me. The first steps towards this re-branding have already begun as Blizzard’s recently released “Blizzard Streaming” (a Facebook streaming service built into Battle.net) and “Blizzard Voice” (a chat client) have already started using the Blizzard name. Numerous developer’s websites and forums are still hosted on Battle.net domains.
