After almost two decades, the Battle.net name will be no more. Although the functionality will remain, its name will be changed in next “several months,” Blizzard announced.
“We’re going to be transitioning away from using the Battle.net name for our gaming service and the functionality connected to it. Battle.net technology will continue to serve as the central nervous system for Blizzard games—nothing is changing in that regard. We’ll just be referring to our various products and services using the Blizzard name instead,” Blizzard explained in a blog post.
Battle.net originally provided online services to games like Diablo, Starcraft and World of Warcraft. Recent games like Overwatch and Hearthstone, utilize the Battle.net service along with other titles.
“When we created Battle.net, the idea of including a tailored online-gaming service together with your game was more of a novel concept, so we put a lot of focus on explaining what the service was and how it worked, including giving it a distinct name,” Blizzard said.
“Over time, though, we’ve seen that there’s been occasional confusion and inefficiencies related to having two separate identities under which everything falls—Blizzard and Battle.net. Given that built-in multiplayer support is a well-understood concept and more of a normal expectation these days, there isn’t as much of a need to maintain a separate identity for what is essentially our networking technology,” the dev continued.