Don't expect other non-Blizzard games on its platform
"It's important to us to maintain our quality standards …"
Last night's announcement that Destiny 2 on PC would be sold and played via Blizzard's online gaming platform raised a few eyebrows.
Since the launch of Battle.net in 1996, Blizzard has only ever used its platform to facilitate its own games, from Diablo to World of Warcraft, to Overwatch. Up until last night, it had shown no public interest in supporting other titles.
So does this mean we'll be seeing more games from other developers on Blizzard's launcher? Does the company have greater ambitions to rival Steam, the largest gaming marketplace on the PC? Apparently not.
"Our focus in terms of supporting non-Blizzard games is solely around Destiny 2," clarified Blizzard in a blog post. "Aside from potentially evaluating needs or opportunities for future Activision games, we don't have any short or long-term plans to support third-party games with Battle.net.
"It's important to us to maintain our quality standards for any experience or service we're putting in front of our players, which represents a big investment of time and effort on our part, so this is not something we're jumping into lightly."
Destiny 2 will take advantage of Blizzard's social features, meaning players will be able to add friends and form parties as they do in Blizzard's other games. It'll also mean they can chat to friends playing Destiny 2 as they would if playing something like StarCraft 2, using the client's in-built messaging system.
One thing does remain a mystery, however (aside from the PC release date). Battle.net was recently rebranded as the Blizzard App, right? And yet, in Mike Morhaime's announcement last night he referred to the platform by its original name 'Battle.net', as does the official blog post on Blizzard's site. Is Blizzard about to rebrand its rebranding to accommodate Destiny 2? I'm confused.
Anyway, we've asked Blizzard what we're supposed to call it now. We'll let you know.