Blizzard is ditching the ?Battle.net? name

**StyM** · 09-22-2016, 06:03 AM

http://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthe...ttle-net-name/

Blizzard first launched Battle.net around twenty years ago and over the years, the platform has grown to encompass more games. However, it looks like it is time for change, which is why Blizzard announced today that it will be transitioning away from the Battle.net name, with plans to replace it entirely soon.

In the future, Blizzard will be referring to Battle.net as ?Blizzard Tech?, a change that was prompted by new services like ?Blizzard Streaming? and ?Blizzard Voice?.

In an update post, Blizzard explained its reasoning: ?When we created Battle.net, the idea of including a tailored online-gaming service together with your game was more of a novel concept, so we put a lot of focus on explaining what the service was and how it worked, including giving it a distinct name. Over time, though, 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.?

?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.?

This change will be happening over the next few months so don?t expect to wake up tomorrow and find Battle.net renamed. However, perhaps the change will be put into place before the end of this year.

**[XC] Oj101** · 09-25-2016, 01:18 AM

I'm not a major fan of changes to household names. It worked fine when, for example, Google renamed Android Market to Google Play. Android was not a household operating system yet with Symbian and Blackberry still occupying a fairly significant chunk of the market, and Android Market was not an everyday term. Changing the name of a 20 year old brand with millions of daily users (12 million as of 2004, so probably several dozen millions by now) doesn't gel well with me. It's like Apple or BMW deciding they want to change name - meh.