In the Q2 earnings call from some top Blizzard execs to analysts, Robert Kotick (President & CEO of Activision Blizzard) and Mike Morheim (President & CEO of Blizzard) touched on Blizzard's plans for the future of their titles which surrounds Battle.net 2.0.
Robert Kotick(1)
Over the past few months, we’ve made a number of strategic decisions that reflect our commitment to product quality and the investments required to capture large new market opportunities. With this in mind, we are repositioning the release of Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft 2 into the first half of 2010 to coincide with the launch of our new Battlenet game service which will be ready early next year.
A true online destination platform, Battlenet will become the foundation for connecting the tens of millions of members of the Blizzard community in a social gaming network across all Blizzard’s future games. This will begin with World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2.
To put Battlenet into context, it will be a service similar to Xbox Live and it will leverage the technologies, infrastructure, and expertise that Blizzard has developed over the last decade in multi-player play and social networking. And as Mike Morhaime will discuss later in the call, there is no better opportunity to launch this strategic initiative than through the launch of Starcraft 2.
With every product Blizzard releases, quality is their primary focus. Because of this they always end up with a far superior product. Blizzard has gotten a bit behind services like Steam, which provide online purchasing and downloading of games till just last year when they released the new Blizzard store. We've seen a glimpse of what Blizzard has to offer with their global account system on the new Battle.net 2.0 account management.
Mike Morhaime
Like other Blizzard games, we want Starcraft 2 to be a game that our players enjoy for years, not just a few months. Integral to the Starcraft 2 game play experience is the launch of our next generation Battlenet game service.
Our vision for Battlenet is ambitious. As I have said before, we intend to make Battlenet the premiere online gaming destination. We view the next generation of Battlenet as strategically important to the future of our company. It’s the foundation for all future online games at Blizzard and will be the cornerstone of our community.
In addition to supporting tournaments, rankings, and multi-player game matching for Starcraft 2 and future Blizzard games, the next generation of Battlenet will add social networking features, cross-game communication, unified login and account management, and more. Battlenet will bring together players from across all of our games including World of Warcraft, eventually allowing them to connect, communicate, and share experiences with each other through the service regardless of which Blizzard game.
The new version of Battlenet is being integrated with Starcraft 2 more tightly than in any previous Blizzard game. Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battlenet for the launch of Starcraft 2. This means, as Bobby mentioned, that we will not be ready to launch Starcraft 2 in 2009. We recognize that we only get one chance to make a first impression. It’s much easier to retain a player that has a great initial experience than to bring them back after a mediocre one.
When Blizzard says "its become clear that it will take longer than expected..." that means they've got some revolutionary ideas on how to improve their product and its worth pushing back a release for.
I think we're going to see a snowball effect with Blizzard products. Blizzard manages the most popular game in the world (World of Warcraft) and 2 other franchises on top of that, both with new sequels in the works. That is a very large player base. When you're talking about taking the most popular titles available (or soon to be available) and adding social networking, in-game communication, and who knows what else, that's no small task. Next year we'll see Battle.net 2.0, Starcraft 2, and maybe an announcement of a new title or a Diablo 3 beta (ok, that's a bit soon) and things will only keep going from there. With a new franchise in the works the options are endless.
Blizzard's fans are as passionate as they come, I've been sitting here with chills of excitement just thinking about what Blizzard has in store.
AAAARRRGG CANT WAIT!!!!
i sure hope this will be just pure awesomeness when (and i say WHEN) SC2 and bnet 2.0 will be released
otherwise ill be deeply disappointed
Ok, webnet. Now you are just being mean...
Aren't you?
You mean... REAL NEWS!?!!!?! AAAAAAARGH!
Yes we're waiting cause of this! We've got some more information about this that we can't share until just before Blizzcon, stay tuned, some very good stuff coming up :)
Personally I am not that pissed of for this delay... Come on, guys! It's Blizzard we are talking 'bout! What if they rushed to finish everything this year and something didn't work? THAT isn't Blizzard-like... SPECIALLY when Blizzard is making a very-very-very dangerous move like removing LAN! No-Lan + Crap-Battle.net = death.
Are we waiting for the game until 2010 because of this?O.o
Sirroman, that is purely awesome!
World, Blizzard will wipe the floor with facebook if they want. And they're not intending to recreate facebook, facebook is not designed for gamers.
Do Not Want!
Plus, they're pushing back SC2 cos they haven't finished their copy of Facebook.
This is CLEARLY a perfect copy of STEAM!
Steam is a social networking system and a games manager ! If Blizzard makes Battle.net at least as good as STEAM then it will be ok otherwise they will get what they deserve!
I'm already hearing the news: "Battle.net 2.0 is turned on. Tops Xbox Live and Playstation Network combined accounts. Steam accounts drop to 50%. Shigeru Myamoto says 'Why I didn't think of that? Why God, why?'. In Iceland, a political party called 'the sons of the storm' pledge alliance to the Blizzard Empire and wins prime minister ellections"
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