Activision Blizzard monetizes Battle.net

[Bateluer]

Oogle ads for Pizza while you wait for your game to start

Activision Blizzard has a very easy-to-understand business plan: monetize everything it can, as quickly as it can, across as many platforms as it can. The result is a strong slash-and-burn mentality when it comes to the games industry, and a new deal with Massive Inc. to sell ads in its games shouldn't come as a surprise; in-game advertising isn't a new idea. What's frightening is the announcement that those ads are coming to Battle.Net. Don't worry, it sounds like there are even more plans to turn Battle.net into a cash cow.
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The good news is that the ads won't be appearing in-game. "Through this relationship, Massive will serve advertising to a highly engaged audience that visits Blizzard Entertainment's collection of heavily trafficked Web sites and plays using Battle.net, the company?s online game service with millions of active users," the announcement stated. When StarCraft 2 is released, millions of gamers will be using Battle.net to set up games and chat with friends, and all those eyes are worth money. Who wouldn't want to be reminded to upgrade your RAM or order a pizza while you're on Battle.Net?

This move was hinted at back in October, when Diablo III's Jay Wilson was quoted as saying, "We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features. We kind of have to." That led to much hand-wringing and speculation. Would we see microtransactions? Pay to play? Right now it looks as if the easiest way to make money off Battle.net is to place ads on the service, but this could be the first of many ways for Activision Blizzard to profit from the service.

Blizzard's Rob Pardo spoke about some other future plans that don't sound promising. "With Battle.Net we're definitely looking at possible different features that we might be able to do for additional money? I think World of Warcraft is a great example to look at," he stated. "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." Be sure you really, really like the name you choose when the newly revamped Battle.net launches, in other words.

These new ideas and money-making schemes aren't being shoehorned into the existing Battle.Net, as Activision Blizzard is hard at work creating a revamped version of the service for StarCraft 2 and Diablo III. That means that the team can start from the ground up and decide what services the company would like continue to give away for free, and which it would like to make for-pay.

The amount of eyes that will be on Battle.Net when these two upcoming games are released will be staggering. It's somewhat depressing that instead of a blessing, Activision Blizzard sees that as an opportunity to maximize the earning potential of the service. Blizzard has long been known as one of the good guys in gaming, but it's unclear how long Activision CEO Bobby Kotick will allow them to keep that reputation.

 

[PingSpike]

Doesn't battle.net already have ads in it? I know there is a ad banner in starcraft when in the chat and I think game browser.

 

[udneekgnim]

I don't care about seeing ads on battle.net as long as bnet remains free to use and ads are not in-game.

 

[udneekgnim]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Doesn't battle.net already have ads in it? I know there is a ad banner in starcraft when in the chat and I think game browser.

bnet has always had ads for it's own games. so yes bnet has had ads, but only for Blizzard products.

 

[NaOH]

Sigh.....

 

[Elcs]

As long as they dont pop up and only blight a small portion of the visible screen then I would have no complaints whatsoever as long as they are appropriate.

 

[newb111]

I would much rather they put ads in than microtransactions or monthly payments.

 

[Beev]

Yeah, I agree with newb, you guys are seriously bitching about this? Bnet uses a ton of bandwidth (I assume). I never understood how it was free to begin with, and if they want to put ads in so it stays free then so be it. Not like I actually care about or look at ads anyway.

 

[MikeyLSU]

I got no problem with it.

I remember Starcraft having ads in it for Blizzard products.

In fact, Blizzard makes probably the best quality games of any PC company, they get my benifit of the doubt.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Beev
Yeah, I agree with newb, you guys are seriously bitching about this? Bnet uses a ton of bandwidth (I assume). I never understood how it was free to begin with, and if they want to put ads in so it stays free then so be it. Not like I actually care about or look at ads anyway.

I really don't think Bnet uses a ton of bandwidth. Its essential a chat room that links players to game rooms, not exactly bandwidth intensive.

Second, Blizzard claims 11 million subscribers to WoW. If every user is paying on a month to month plan, that comes to 165 million per month, more than enough to finance any damn thing Blizzard wants.

Third, baby steps. You convince people to take a small step towards something they dislike, let them become accustomed to it. Then convince them to take another small step. And so on.
Eventually, you'll be watching promotions for Coke, Viagra, GM, Ford, Toyota, etc, at the Bnet load screen, in the waiting room prior to game start, at the game load screen itself, and at the stat screen at the end of the game.

Edit - The ads in prior Blizzard titles were trailers as the game initially started, easily skipped with the Esc key.

 

[Ika]

Ads = no big deal
subscription fee = big deal

Starcraft B.net has had ads for Blizzard games for the longest time, I don't even pay attention anymore. Don't think much is going to change with non-Blizzard games.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Aflac
Ads = no big deal
subscription fee = big deal

Starcraft B.net has had ads for Blizzard games for the longest time, I don't even pay attention anymore. Don't think much is going to change with non-Blizzard games.

Change we can believe in

 

[Aikouka]

I'm not worrying too much about it.

 

[Maximilian]

Theres already ads on battlenet. I see that stupid k-lite network thing? Remember the really expensive gimmicky network card released a few years ago? I saw the ad for that umpteen times last time i played starcraft, never bothered me.

I would rather they did this than had a pay2play policy. Ads are no big deal to me.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Beev
Yeah, I agree with newb, you guys are seriously bitching about this? Bnet uses a ton of bandwidth (I assume). I never understood how it was free to begin with, and if they want to put ads in so it stays free then so be it. Not like I actually care about or look at ads anyway.

I really don't think Bnet uses a ton of bandwidth. Its essential a chat room that links players to game rooms, not exactly bandwidth intensive.

Second, Blizzard claims 11 million subscribers to WoW. If every user is paying on a month to month plan, that comes to 165 million per month, more than enough to finance any damn thing Blizzard wants.

Third, baby steps. You convince people to take a small step towards something they dislike, let them become accustomed to it. Then convince them to take another small step. And so on.
Eventually, you'll be watching promotions for Coke, Viagra, GM, Ford, Toyota, etc, at the Bnet load screen, in the waiting room prior to game start, at the game load screen itself, and at the stat screen at the end of the game.

Edit - The ads in prior Blizzard titles were trailers as the game initially started, easily skipped with the Esc key.

This is my only real fear. However, I remain optimistic because Blizzard has proven to me on many occasions that while they are still a business they actually do care about how their customers feel about these matters. They really do have a passion for the quality of their games. Only time will tell though.

 

[Beev]

I couldn't care less what the ads are about. I will simply ignore them regardless. Advertise douches for all I care.

 

[Zenoth]

As long as Battle.Net remains free and the ads are kept outside of the game itself then I have absolutely no problems with that. As soon as Battle.Net becomes pay-to-play, which I know will eventually happen, then I will simply stop playing Blizzard games on Battle.Net and remain off-line whenever the game offers a single-player mode (WarCraft II, III, Diablo, DII, and others).

 

[Vehemence]

Not a big deal, not surprising

 

[BladeVenom]

Blizzard is still supporting 10+ year old games, so ads don't seem so bad. Look how quickly inferior companies like EA and MS drop support for games.

 

[nanobreath]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Blizzard is still supporting 10+ year old games, so ads don't seem so bad. Look how quickly inferior companies like EA and MS drop support for games.

Well it helps that their games are worth playing 10 years later.

Adds are nothing, I think they understand that forcing people to pay would mean over half of the users will stop using it. Part of the draw to these games is that they are free after the initial purchase.

 

[Molondo]

When i was playing early days of d2, they had adds for a mouse on battle net. It doesn't bother me. They still make great games. Some people just love to hate.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Blizzard is still supporting 10+ year old games, so ads don't seem so bad. Look how quickly inferior companies like EA and MS drop support for games.

This is a good point. If ads in battle.net are what it takes to keep some level of support existing for older titles...so be it. So many old good games are broken so you can't play them anymore.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Not a big deal really, if they decided to charge for battle.net though that's where I draw the line.

 

[Bateluer]

Guys, Battle.net is a large chatroom segmented into smaller chatrooms with programming to link players based on specified criteria. Its bandwidth costs cannot be that high. Packets exchanged between players do not go through Battle.net's servers, once the game has started, the bandwidth costs are entirely on you and other players in the game. And the packets shouldn't be consuming much bandwidth either, KBs worth.

If Bnet becomes Pay2Play, it'd just be another slap in the face by Blizzard to their customers. Remember, the management at Blizzard has changed, when Vivendi merged with Activision and renamed themselves Activision Blizzard.

 

[Molondo]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Guys, Battle.net is a large chatroom segmented into smaller chatrooms with programming to link players based on specified criteria. Its bandwidth costs cannot be that high. Packets exchanged between players do not go through Battle.net's servers, once the game has started, the bandwidth costs are entirely on you and other players in the game. And the packets shouldn't be consuming much bandwidth either, KBs worth.

If Bnet becomes Pay2Play, it'd just be another slap in the face by Blizzard to their customers. Remember, the management at Blizzard has changed, when Vivendi merged with Activision and renamed themselves Activision Blizzard.

I don't ever remmeber being slapped in the face by blizzard.