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VIRTUALISATION Blizzard look to milk fans via battle.net
VIRTUALISATION Blizzard look to milk fans via battle.net | Blizzard look to milk fans via battle.net |
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| by Mike Bantick | |
| Tuesday, 14 October 2008 | |
  
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All jokes aside, Blizzard have had the venerable online service Battle.Net up and running since the start of 1997. That’s over ten years of free Diabloing, StarCrafting and WarCrafting for Blizzard fans. Shhhhhh, it’s also over ten years of great publicity and selling points for Blizzard products as well. Not done with one cash cow (World of WarCraft) however, Blizzard look like they want to make some money from Battle.Net in the future. According to a report via Cinema Blend, speaking at a BlizzCon 08 Discussion panel, 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.” Details are yet to surface, and could simply be a payment system for extra content or customisation options rather than an subscription for actual game-play. With millions of people willing to pay US$13 per month for World of Warcraft, you can understand how tempting it would be for Blizzard to introduce such a fee for their other universes. Microtranscations are all the rage in the video game industry of late, but the only way consumers can tell the companies putting them in place, that they are not welcome, is to vote with their feet. Let’s face it, that is not going to happen with either StarCraft II or Diablo 3. Both are going to be sales blockbusters looking for some online action. |
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