Battle.net theory… Why you will pay to play Starcraft 2 and Diablo III

So the anticipation of Blizzards upcoming releases probably has most gamers in quirky funk. By now most of us have known Blizzard to announce a title and on average take about 4 years to actually produce it. It’s been almost two years since Starcraft 2 wasannounced, so were looking at no more than and additional two. But I have high hopes we will see it sometime 2010. But all that is really besides my main point, which has to do with monthly subscription services and Blizzard.

In case you have yet to witness the recent move by Blizzard, they have decided to create and merge all of your previous Battle.net games and your World of Warcraft Account in one happy little thing they like to call a “Battle.net Account.” Of course you don’t have to do this but in the end you will likely have to do it to continue playing. Why would Blizzard decide to do such a thing? Everything seemed to be great and happy the way it was?



Because in the end, Blizzard plans to make you “pay to play” your Battle.net account. Don’t believe me? Of course this is my crazy theory but I have a couple arguments to make that will hopefully get you thinking.

I’ll begin with my strongest argument. Blizzard is sitting on top of a mountain of 11 million players paying an average of $10 a month to play World of Warcraft. The only thing that is going to stop this gravy train is Blizzard themselves! Why would they even think to jeopardize this cash flow with another game they plan to release?

Blizzard knows that it is fairly inevitable that they would loose even a million players at the least to Starcraft 2 or Diablo III. That is 10 million in the minus per month for Blizzard at a minimum; that is an unacceptable business move. The way I see it is Blizzard will get the sales rush from the game, that a guarantee they can count on. So why loose monthly revenue?

The Next not so strong argument is that everyone is doing it, so Blizzard knows they can get away with it. Microsoft makes you pay monthly for Xbox live, If Microsoft can get away with it Blizzard can get away with it.

Lastly, if you remember in the late 1990’s (god I’m getting old) there was this tremendous emphasis on Battle.net being free to play all over www.Battle.net. I can’t say that I have looked hard enough to find the word free on the site, but I used to not have to look at all. I’m fairly certain the terminology is absent from the site. Why remove the word free? Players can easily distinguish between Battle.net and World of Warcraft right?

I could be wrong but it makes to much sense to me. My friends and I have always joked that we would pay to play Starcraft, Diablo or even Warcraft RTS. Then World of Warcraft came out, that’s when the laughing stopped.. While subscriptions to Battle.net would not be the end of the world, you know damn well you and everyone else will pay it!