When it comes to PC gaming, one name easily stands out: Blizzard Entertainment. They have pretty much gifted the world with some of the most iconic and long-lasting game titles ever developed for PCs. From the dungeon-crawl “Diablo,” to the real-time strategy goodness of “Warcraft” “and Starcraft,” to the FPS frenzy of the more recent “Overwatch,” any gamer could be led to assume that Blizzard cannot seem to do any wrong. And yet it might have; fans of the company and its games have been critical of Blizzard’s decision last year to rename its online multi-play platform Battle.net, a pioneering net-gaming service.
Perhaps the firm realized it too because they recently announced that they will not go through with the rebranding.
Changed their mind
A press release from Blizzard Entertainment itself, released on Monday, August 14, has the company all but admitting that perhaps their decision to rebrand the Battle.net online service was not a fine idea after all. To that end, they have decided to keep the name mostly as is, with one caveat. As the company is still intent on imposing uniformity on all its brands and services, Blizzard has decided to simply tack its name on Battle.net, turning it to “Blizzard Battle.net.”
The company’s statement does pay honor to the storied legacy of the Battle.net online service, hailing it as the “central nervous system” for Blizzard games with their multiplayer nature.
Still, Blizzard does pay attention to customer feedback, and after careful consideration, they decided not to let go of a name that has been an indelible part of the loyal gamers that have played their titles all their lives. This announcement pretty much undoes the fall 2016 move by Blizzard Entertainment to phase out Battle.net from general company usage.
Many of their fans must be quite happy about it.
‘Names are important.’
Blizzard Entertainment stresses in their press release that they understand the importance of names. After all, the main business itself wet through two name changes. Three UCLA graduates founded Silicon & Synapse back in 1991 as a developer of cross-console video game ports.
In 1994 they became Chaos Studios then Blizzard Entertainment before that year was even out. They first got attention with the original “Warcraft” game in 1994. “Diablo” in 1996 was also the birth of Battle.net, which facilitated online multiplayer and account authentication.
Battle.net will also be branching out to host online play for games that are not wholly Blizzard's own. The first title to do so is the first-person shooting video game “Destiny 2” from Bungie and Activision, part of the larger Activision-Blizzard company. It's Windows PC version will be released on October 24.