Battle.net, one of the most identifiable names in the gaming industry, is soon to be no more. The news comes from Blizzard itself which announced today that it is starting the process of transitioning the name away from its gaming services.

The functionality or services of Battle.net aren’t changing just the branding. Blizzard will now just refer to everything as “Blizzard [XXX] — for example — Blizzard Streaming or Blizzard Voice. So, basically they are just putting Blizzard before all their services.

Why is Blizzard doing away with Battle.net? After all the name has been used for years, all the way back to the original Diablo. Well according to Blizzard it’s due to “occasional confusion and inefficiencies” related to having a single name for something that represents multiple things. Especially, one that doesn’t even thoroughly reflect the brand. 

“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 transition away from the name Battle.net will take place over the next several months.

You can read the full announcement here.

Blizzard has also announced that you can now pay $10 to change your Battletag, after you have used your one free change. What this is will look like under the new branding, remains to be seen.

My Opinion:

I always thought Battle.net was a dumb idea, and one that proposed a hurdle of confusion to the more casual gamer. Focusing everything more to the main brand of Blizzard seems like a no-brainer in 2016.

Tyler Fischer is a Senior Writer for MONG who plays video games when he’s not busy researching alien conspiracy theories at 2AM. You can find him on Twitter.