Blizzard - We "kind of have to" monetise Battle.net

[Nephlabobo]

Speaking at yesterday's Diablo III (http://www.joystiq.com/tag/diablo-3) Gameplay panel, Blizzard's Julian Wilson was asked one of the questions that's been hiding in the back of all of our brains, "Is Battle.Net (http://www.battle.net/) going to remain free?"

His response probably wasn't what you'd want to hear. "We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features," said Wilson. "We kind of have to." He went on to say that they do recognize that everyone loves having it as a free service, and that they don't have a strong desire to make a subscription-based game.

What does that mean for our beloved free online gaming service? We're hoping to find out when we talk to Blizzard bigwig Rob Pardo later this afternoon.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/11/blizzards-wilson-some-battle-net-features-to-be-monetized/

[DarkSageRK]

South Korea will not be pleased.

[tacklebox]

Aaaaand I won't be getting any more Blizzard games. Fuck it.

[underliness]

I read that earlier today too. I hope they are just looking to cover the costs of servers rather then make bajillions like WOW. Now that they are Acti-Blizzard though, I fear they are going to try and take it for everything it's worth. It's a shame because free online with pretty good servers was the really great thing about battle.net. I guess if the payment plan they decide on is half decent though, I don't mind paying a little bit a month for a good service.

[Moxio]

:cry:

[Nephlabobo]

Bend over and spread 'em everyone.

Welcome to Acti-Blizzard's payment plan.

[Strell]

Quite worrisome.

While I am sure this is Activision's doing, I'd prefer to have proof outside of speculation based on "Oh well they didn't do it before Activision showed up." I mean I want to find out from some exec from Acti's side who signed a memo or held Blizzard's doods by their balls and said it can't be free anymore.

Likewise, I wonder if this will improve the quality of the multiplayer at all, since Starcraft can produce some hideous lag. Isn't that what gamers just love to say about XBL? "Oh I like paying for it because it's such a quality platform." ? 'Cuz if so, then perhaps you'd like to tell me why Battlenet doing it is suddenly so against your principles. Who knows - it might lower cheaters, they might offer incentives to paying members, etc.

Seems to me that these two announcements - the trilogy thing and this - need more information before I go off the deep end about it. Starcraft lends itself so well to MP, so I'm hoping the cost is minimal or structured in a very gamer-friendly way, since piling on all these services is going to have to stop somewhere. I need hard prices and specific details before I knee-jerk reaction like I've seen all over the net since yesterday.

Yeah I don't like paying more money too. But that's the wonderful thing about it - if it's not worth it to me, I don't buy it. I don't throw my hands up in the air and condemn the entire system though.

[Moxio]

I just HOPE TO GOD they don't charge $15 a month for D3.

[ninja dog]

what the fuck? They have like 7 trillion dollars from WoW, how the hell do they have to monetize it?

[Koggit]

They're not dumb enough to charge for multiplayer starcraft 2, and that's all I care about

[MadChedar0]

The details haven't really emerged right? So let's be hopeful they'll have "premium" sucker services, along with "basic" online playing service...

[Vinny]

what the fuck? They have like 7 trillion dollars from WoW, how the hell do they have to monetize it?

That's greed for you.

[Moxio]

Uh, no. That's a business for you.

[plasticbathmonki]

What I want to know is if D3 will have TCP/IP multiplayer. Then I won't care if BNet charges, because I never use it as it is now.

[eswat]

Not this again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate_london).

[Plac1d]

Could this just mean you could be viewing a lot more advertising in the future then present day battle.net? The eyes of millions between the two games would be on the advertising space of Blizzard's partners during game lobbies, generating revenue without actually charging the core player base.

[ninja dog]

Not this again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate_london).


I don't think it was pay-to-play that killed Hellgate. Probably had more to do with it being complete and utter shit.

Blizzard will still get a few million to pay to play these games online.

[Chacrana]

At least Diablo III still seems like it'd be hella fun offline. Obviously, yeah, online is ideal, but worst case scenario... it'd still be worth the $50.

[Serik]

Booooo.

Oh well, my copy of DII is still unopened, so it's not like any changes to Bnet will really bother me :)

[Moxio]

Whether or not it costs money to play (and it really shouldn't), I'll still buy this day 1.

[SynGamer]

Could this just mean you could be viewing a lot more advertising in the future then present day battle.net? The eyes of millions between the two games would be on the advertising space of Blizzard's partners during game lobbies, generating revenue without actually charging the core player base.
More advertising is exactly what i thought of. I mean, they'll have WoW, SC2, and D3 fans going there daily, what more would an advertiser ask for? With proper implementation, it would work without interfering with the user experience. And if Activision Blizzard wants a bit more money, they can offer premium accounts on Battle.net, similar to Bungie's Pro accounts for Halo 3. This would bring in extra money while keeping the core service (online multiplayer) free.

[mav451]

It should becoming more and more clear why the original 4 left Blizzard. OTOH, the original 4 also produced the turd that is Hellgate, so lol on us.

The consumers lose, and they lose HARD.

[option.iv]

Wait, will this affect all the older games under bnet? Or will they make a bnet2 of some sort?

[Liquid 2]

That's kind of shitty. I can't promise I'd play DIII online if I had to pay.
And as far as the rush to blame Activision goes, I wouldn't be so sure. Blizzard is raking in an insane amount of money from WoW; why wouldn't they apply the same business plan to their other franchises?

@Strell and his XBL comparison: with XBL, you get more like friend lists and demos and such; what does Battle.net give you other than a very barebones and shoddy friend interface (that you have to use chat commands to access, no less) and online play?
Unless they roll out a bunch of features and such to make it worth it, I can't see the comparison to XBL.



That's greed for you.

Uh, no. That's a business for you.

Thank you, Moxio.

[Strell]

@Strell and his XBL comparison: with XBL, you get more like friend lists and demos and such; what does Battle.net give you other than a very barebones and shoddy friend interface (that you have to use chat commands to access, no less) and online play?
Unless they roll out a bunch of features and such to make it worth it, I can't see the comparison to XBL.


Which was my point. Moreso, the ability to decrease lag and make BN more useful overall.

But I wouldn't be paying to get nice friends lists and other fluffy features - I'd be paying to play SC2 online against people. That's more than I can say for a lot of games that focus so much on multiplayer and end up being dead within a month of release. You can keep the user command interface and barebones features so long as I get lag-free SC games.

Besides if I want demos I can get those any number of places with my PC, which is unlike XBL since it's a distribution system designed solely for that console. That's not BN's job.

[Koggit]

@Strell and his XBL comparison: with XBL, you get more like friend lists and demos and such; what does Battle.net give you other than a very barebones and shoddy friend interface (that you have to use chat commands to access, no less) and online play?

What are you playing?

You don't have to use chat commands to access it, there's a "Friends" tab, a box to enter new friends, shows who's online, and you right-click each name for a drop-down list of actions...

It's not really like LIVE, but Blizz said that with SC2 they're going to have a major overhaul of B.net. Considering they're doing digital distribution on their site now, I expect their bnet overhaul to be pretty similar to Steam.

[Moxio]

I hope that, if worst comes to worst and they do charge money, it's just like a small yearly fee like XBL of like $30 or something. Definitely feasable.

[Serik]

Steam is "free" to use in that Valve doesn't charge for anything once you've purchased a game.

Maybe let people host their own StarCraft servers that are officially authenticated?

[carpwrist]

I'm more intrigued by Wilson's statement: "We kind of have to."
Is it we kind of have to because:
1. We're making Battle.net more awesome than you can comprehend
2. Activision execs are making us do it
3. You're going to buy it no matter what, so we have to f' you in the a'

[crystalklear64]

If there is not a way to play with other people without paying, this just killed every Blizzard game for me.

[mogamer]

I'm more intrigued by Wilson's statement: "We kind of have to."
Is it we kind of have to because:
1. We're making Battle.net more awesome than you can comprehend
2. Activision execs are making us do it
3. You're going to buy it no matter what, so we have to f' you in the a'
I vote for number 2.

I can see the point for charging, because running servers isn't free. But isn't free online used by PC gamers as an example on why traditional pc online is better than XBL Gold and Windows Live (I know it's free now)? If this works for Blizzard, look for others to follow "coughEAcough".

[SynGamer]

I'd love to see more PC games support Games for Windows Live. Having the integration with my friends list and the cross-platform games is extremely nice, and i know that each game i buy that supports GfWL has the same interface.

[darkwingduck13]

I'd love to see more PC games support Games for Windows Live. Having the integration with my friends list and the cross-platform games is extremely nice, and i know that each game i buy that supports GfWL has the same interface.

I don't mean to sound too suspicious, but are you some kind of Microsoft plant? I swear to God that sounds like you copied and pasted it from some Microsoft ad. :P

[SoulReaver]

Subscription based pay= Never, never buying.


And I am a HUGE Diablo fan.

[carpwrist]

Updates from Blizzard:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170622
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.

[crystalklear64]

A little better news, but referring to WoW is still scary considering its subscription model.

[Raymond]

If it mean to be 200% hacker and cheater free. I'll pay for it.

[Oktoberfest]

A little better news, but referring to WoW is still scary considering its subscription model.

but they were just talking about stuff like transferring characters between servers or getting a name change. Nothing about a monthly fee. I assume they mean like transferring your game stats to another account or something like that.

[Monsta Mack]

Battle.net and the Playstation Network were both "Only a matter of time."
PS Network won't be free forever, and Battle.net certainly isn't going to be free thanks to the merger.

[Oktoberfest]

Battle.net and the Playstation Network were both "Only a matter of time."
PS Network won't be free forever, and Battle.net certainly isn't going to be free thanks to the merger.

talk about pessimism. I am 100% confident both will remain free

[eswat]

I talked a bit about this in the D3 thread (http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4985504&postcount=510).

With Rob Pardo saying that they are definitely not going to be tacking on a subscription on Diablo 3 (http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/No-Subscription-Fees-for-Battlenet-or-Diablo-III-Hellgates-Failure-Used-As-Reference), and Blizzard having a methodology of choosing the appropriate business model for each game rather than putting a blanket pricing scheme over everything, IMHO it's safe to say that Battle.net won't be getting a subscription model anytime soon.

At least, I believe this is more logical than calling foul at the first sign of Blizzard wanting to monetize features on Battle.net. Yes, it was only a matter of time, but I honestly don't know where all these OMFG WE NEED TO SUBSCRIBE TO B.NET NAO! comments came from.

[The Crotch]

I have never wanted Koggit to be more right than I do at this very moment.

[yukine]

I'd obviously like it to remain completely free, but I think charging for small account features is fine. I don't need extra fluff, I just want to play the game online and have a functional chat system, like the current Battle.net.

[LinkinPrime]

Fuck if they charge a monthly fee for this, guess I won't be getting Diablo III...unless solo play is free.

[SuxoR]

Glad Diablo will be free I'm really looking foward to it

If I had to pay anything for B.net to get features I hope they are steady and great

Usually Blizzard comes through :]

[yukine]

Nice interview up at Giant Bomb: http://www.giantbomb.com/news/qa-the-starcraft-ii-brain-trust/388/

Of course they dodge the question about charging for Battle.net. Get your credit card out fellas!