4 ms·

The population of Battle.net is WAY bigger than the tiny fraction of players using Bethesda launcher. Hard to know from the outside but it's probably like 95%+

The population of Battle.net is WAY bigger than the tiny fraction of players using Bethesda launcher. Hard to know from the outside but it's probably like 95%+ Steam even on their newest games. NexusMods, the largest Bethesda modding host rarely mentions the launcher even if mods are compatible. Battle.net on the other hand predates Steam and they made some of the most significant PC-only games of all time. Having said that, I think you might be right for a different reason. Blizzard will likely eat a massive amount of humble pie post-2021 and Steam releases would seem like a reasonable gesture of to restoring community goodwill.

015a 5y ago
Battle.net The Launcher doesn't pre-date Steam; it was released in the early 2010s. Previously, before Steam, Battle.net was a lot more nebulous, and would naturally have had less user lock-in. Games were individually distributed, and battle.net was more-so just an infrastructure-level system Blizzard used to coordinate online games, chat, etc. Even, IIRC, unified profiles weren't a thing until the early 2010s and the desktop app was launched; WoW was different from Starcraft, which was different from Diablo. That is to say, yeah Battle.net today has far more users than the Bethesda launcher, but it still predominately suffers from the "users don't want to be here, its just where the games are at" issue that the Bethesda & Rockstar launchers suffer from. I think it's likely that the Xbox acquisition will result in a sunset of Battle.net as well. It'll probably resemble a long-term plan like: deeper Battle.net/Xbox account integration to share purchases and social state, release of all titles on Steam & Xbox stores, forced migration of Battle.net accounts to Xbox accounts, deprecation of the Battle.net launcher; 2 years minimum, probably closer to 3.
- beeboop 5y ago
  For context, battle.net the service has existed since 1996. Back in the day it was just used for the multiplayer component of games like Diablo and Warcraft. I think it's still meaningful to point this out because even if it wasn't a launcher like it is today, it was still a social media/communications platform which is a meaningful part of why people use certain launcher platforms/stores.
  - Macha 5y ago
    Of course, battle.net 1.0 wasn't continuous with battle.net 2.0 which launched with starcraft and eventually subsumed wow and d3 accounts. If you had some account on battle.net for brood war, it died with the move to remastered.
  - ywain 5y ago
    Yep! In fact, a few years ago Blizzard tried to sunset the Battle.net brand and rename the launcher to just Blizzard Launcher or something, and they eventually gave up on that because the community was really attached to the Battle.net name. For many gamers Battle.net was one of the first online experiences.

015a 5y ago

Battle.net The Launcher doesn't pre-date Steam; it was released in the early 2010s. Previously, before Steam, Battle.net was a lot more nebulous, and would naturally have had less user lock-in. Games were individually distributed, and battle.net was more-so just an infrastructure-level system Blizzard used to coordinate online games, chat, etc. Even, IIRC, unified profiles weren't a thing until the early 2010s and the desktop app was launched; WoW was different from Starcraft, which was different from Diablo. That is to say, yeah Battle.net today has far more users than the Bethesda launcher, but it still predominately suffers from the "users don't want to be here, its just where the games are at" issue that the Bethesda & Rockstar launchers suffer from. I think it's likely that the Xbox acquisition will result in a sunset of Battle.net as well. It'll probably resemble a long-term plan like: deeper Battle.net/Xbox account integration to share purchases and social state, release of all titles on Steam & Xbox stores, forced migration of Battle.net accounts to Xbox accounts, deprecation of the Battle.net launcher; 2 years minimum, probably closer to 3.

beeboop 5y ago
For context, battle.net the service has existed since 1996. Back in the day it was just used for the multiplayer component of games like Diablo and Warcraft. I think it's still meaningful to point this out because even if it wasn't a launcher like it is today, it was still a social media/communications platform which is a meaningful part of why people use certain launcher platforms/stores.
- Macha 5y ago
  Of course, battle.net 1.0 wasn't continuous with battle.net 2.0 which launched with starcraft and eventually subsumed wow and d3 accounts. If you had some account on battle.net for brood war, it died with the move to remastered.
- ywain 5y ago
  Yep! In fact, a few years ago Blizzard tried to sunset the Battle.net brand and rename the launcher to just Blizzard Launcher or something, and they eventually gave up on that because the community was really attached to the Battle.net name. For many gamers Battle.net was one of the first online experiences.