Blizzard's BattleNet 2.0 will cost money

Bale Fire | October 14, 2008 | News | PC Mac Blizzcon 2008 Company

For over a decade BattleNet (Blizzard's online network) has kept Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft players nice and happy at no extra cost. It looks like this will be a thing of the past however, come BattleNet 2.0, which is to debut with Starcraft 2. Diablo 3 director Jay Wilson when questioned admitted Blizzard is looking to monetize the new BattleNet. What form this will take either through subscriptions, expansions or micro-transactions is yet to be seen.

new version of the multiplayer browser Battle.Net will debut with Starcraft II. How will it be superior to the previous version? Well, it'll be able to hit you up for money.

During a BlizzCon 08 panel discussion, Diablo 3 director Jay Wilson said, "We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features. We kind of have to. Blizzard wants to avoid putting in a subscription but yes, some as-yet-unknown features will cost money.

News Story attached to:

Diablo III [PC]
StarCraft II [Mac, PC]

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Comments

2 thumbs!
Play ISDF | October 14, 2008

Blizzard, I just lost a lot of respect for you. A lot. I can understand WoW being an MMO, most MMO's mean you have to pay a fee, but this is bullshit on so many levels. Firstly, any true Starcraft fan is going to use $300 on getting the Starcraft trilogy. Then, since Warcraft 4 is apparently going to be the same way, there's $400 per true fan right there. And then there's Diablo 3 with it's $100. Last I counted, for fans of all those games, they are shelling out $800 aprox. Now, lets for the hell of it say the fee for this is I don't know...$10-$20 a month maybe? Right there is about $1200-$2400. $2400+$800 = $3200 from ONE TRUE FAN in a year. Times that by a huge amount, then add decent amounts all over the place for the just SC fans or just Diablo or just Warcraft and Blizzard is getting epic proportions of cash. Now chuck in the huge amount of WoW players paying to play and you have to wonder what the hell Blizzard is doing with this cash. They have no problems letting Battle.Net be free for 10 years-ish but now we have to pay for that too? Are you *bleep*ing kidding me?

Honestly, do they think gamers are made of cash? It's just beyond a joke at this point. I thought Blizzard would be one of the companies that just would not become like every other "burn the fans, get the cash" company out there.
- 0 thumbs!
  AznLiquid | October 14, 2008
  
  I like how you're assuming Blizzard will charge $100 per game. Since when did Blizzard games cost that much? I bought WC3 the day it came out for under $40 CAD. New PC games still tend to cost less than console games and Blizzard usually makes their games cheaper because expansion packs are inevitable.
  
  Anyway, Blizzard has no plans to actually charge a monthly fee, as I have posted below.
  
  And do you have any idea how much better Battle.net 2.0 will be? We're getting full on eSports support, in-game voice chat, better response time and tons of other stuff
  - 0 thumbs!
    Play ISDF | October 14, 2008
    
    Well firstly I'm going with Aus $$$. Secondly Wc3 has been out for quite a while along with the Frozen Throne. And typically all the stores around here and the ones I look at, all new games are around about $80-$110.
    
    I'm aware it's going to be better, that I understand, but if it has a fee, then they really are milking everything they have at this point. Still having read what you said, it makes a lot more sense and that kinda thing is perfectly fine.
0 thumbs!
Deathsythe | October 14, 2008

Boo!

Probably the only reason people legitimately purchase WC, SC, or Diablo is to play on Battle.net.

Otherwise it is just worth it to single player or LAN with friends, and you don't technically need a legal copy for that.

I understand the economics behind this move - but it is alienating fans and casual gamers.
0 thumbs!
Exevier | October 14, 2008

I hate you, Blizzard.

Really, if you think about it, they've already got to be making more money than they know what to do with. Add up their claimed user base for WoW, then multiply that by subscription cost and they're making *bleep* amounts of money continuously every month.

So, I ask, why in the HELL would they need to charge for BattleNet? If that ends up being the case, I see myself just passing up future Blizzard titles altogether.
0 thumbs!
kspiess | October 14, 2008

Blizzard makes more than any game company in the world, so hopefully they won't having any unreasonable charge for Battlenet.
0 thumbs!
FinalFantasyFanaticc | October 14, 2008

K, so Blizzard can now go *bleep* themselves.

I ain't buying Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 or Wacraft 4 if it means i have to pay money monthly just to play on Battle.Net =|

Seriously you'd think they'd have enough money from WoW but no, now Blizzard must milk all of the fans from their money for their other games, Seriously Blizzard go die in a BIG BIG Fire =|
0 thumbs!
Storm | October 14, 2008

I avoided WoW for the P2P reason, if Blizzard goes through with this, I'm likely going to avoid it altogether...which is something I really don't want to do. <3 Warcraft and Starcraft.

You think this could have something to do with Activision as they are (merged) partners now?
0 thumbs!
kspiess | October 14, 2008

From what I've read, it won't a sub system for Battlenet 2.0

They will sell stuff that won't change game balance.
3 thumbs!
AznLiquid | October 14, 2008

Most of you clearly haven't looked into this situation. Blizzard has no plans to actually charge for a monthly subscription.

quote
With Battle.Net we're definitely looking at possible different features that we might be able to do for additional money. We're not talking about Hellgate or anything like that. We're not going to tack things on. I think World of Warcraft is a great example to look at. We charge people if they want to switch servers or if they want name changes, things that aren't core to the game experience, they're really just optional things that some people want. It takes us some development work to do it, so it makes sense to charge for it. We would never do something like say to get the full game experience, you'll have to pay extra.
Rob Pardo talks about monetizing Bnet

They will only charge for extra stuff. This is no different than Neoseeker charging $10 for a name change.
- 0 thumbs!
  Daigoji_Gai | October 16, 2008
  
  AznLiquid thanks for keep the facts straight. People here Blizzard trying to monetize and are acting like chicken little: THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING!
  
  Again props for keeping a level head and pointing out the facts, keeping servers running for a high traffic service isn't cheap.
0 thumbs!
Zaek | October 15, 2008

I just hope they don't have a monthly subscription. I still play Starcraft, WC3, and Diablo 2 all the time. My heart may shatter if that happens.