Blizzard bids farewell to its current name for Battle.net. We will tell you why.
Goodbye Battle.net, hello Blizzard Tech
For many, it sounds like a shock at first, but don’t worry: Blizzard is not shutting down its online services, quite the opposite. The creators of World of Warcraft, Overwatch and many other online games just want to detach themselves from the name “Battle.net,” as it has caused confusion repeatedly over the past 20 years (yes, Battle.net has been around for that long). The main reason is probably that “Battle.net” sounds nothing like Blizzard.
In the official announcement, it says:
“When we created Battle.net, the idea of a built-in system for playing games online was rather new, which is why we made an effort to accurately describe the service to explain how it works. That’s why we gave the service a distinctive name.
Over time, however, we noticed that there was occasionally confusion when we had two different identities under which everything fell – Blizzard and Battle.net. Since built-in multiplayer support is now a well-understood concept and a normal expectation, there is no longer any reason to have an identity for what is essentially our networking technology.”
For this reason, Blizzard is saying goodbye to “Battle.net” and will rename the service to “Blizzard Tech” in the future.
There will be absolutely no changes to the actual services. The transition will likely take a few months until the descriptions are adjusted in all games and programs.
Cortyn says: Um, yes. I find it really hard to understand the reasoning, as “Battle.net” is already a term firmly associated with Blizzard in the minds of most gamers. So when you say that “Battle.net” has caused confusion, I find it hard to believe. Furthermore, “Blizzard Tech” just – forgive me – sounds really ridiculous.
This will surely be the case for a while, until the adjustment has taken place. But just as I still convert DM to Euro when I get upset about Euro prices, I will probably still call my Battle.net launcher that in 10 years. “Blizzard Tech launcher” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly. #NeverForget #BattleDotNet
