Battle.net
Battle.net is an Internet-based online game, social networking service, digital distribution, and digital rights management platform developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The service was launched on December 31, 1996, followed a few days later with the release of Blizzard's action-role-playing video game Diablo on January 3, 1997. Battle.net was officially renamed to "Blizzard Battle.net" in August 2017, with the change being reverted in January 2021.
Blizzard Entertainment officially unveiled the revamped Battle.net 2.0 on March 20, 2009. It later revealed further details of the Battle.net revamped features at BlizzCon 2009 which supported World of Warcraft, ''StarCraft II, and Diablo III. The original Battle.net was then renamed to Battle.net Classic. Battle.net Classic games use a different account system to the games on Battle.net 2.0.
The platform currently supports storefront actions, social interactions, and matchmaking for all of Blizzard's modern PC games including Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch 2, and StarCraft: Remastered, as well as various Call of Duty games, and Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time'' from corporate sibling of Blizzard Entertainment, Activision. The platform provides cross-game instant messaging and voice chat service.
In September 2017, Blizzard Entertainment released the Battle.net application for Android and iOS. The app includes the ability to chat with and add friends in addition to seeing what games they are currently playing.
History
Battle.net Classic (1996–2009)
When the service initially launched on December 31, 1996, Battle.net offered only a few basic services like chatting and game listings. Players could connect to the service, talk with other gamers and join multiplayer games of Diablo. Besides user account data, no game data was stored on the Battle.net servers. When a player connected to a game, they would be connecting directly to the other players in the game. No data was sent through the Battle.net servers. While this made the service quick and easy to use, it quickly led to widespread cheating since players using cheats could modify their game data locally. However, since there was an option to create private games, many players ended up playing with people they knew.The release of StarCraft in 1998 increased usage of the Battle.net service significantly. Features such as ladder ranking and game filters were added to the service. Battle.net grew even larger after the release of the expansion pack StarCraft: Brood War, with tens of thousands of players logged on at any given time. StarCraft Battle.net was especially successful in South Korea, where the number of players logged on was often many times that of the United States.
StarCraft also brought with it a new copy protection scheme using CD keys. Under Diablo, Battle.net would allow any client to connect to the service. With StarCraft, only those players with a valid and unique CD key – a generated 13-digit number distributed with each boxed game – were allowed onto the service. Only one person could connect to Battle.net using a specific CD key at a time. CD-Keys could also be muted, voided, jailed or banned from Battle.net entirely. Every Blizzard game since StarCraft has used the CD key system to connect to Battle.net. StarCraft: Brood War used as its CD-key whatever CD-key was found on the original StarCraft on that computer, and was thus only installable if the original was already installed. With the release of the Gateway system in Brood War, two players can play at the same time, as long as they are on different gateways. Given how the gateways are expectedly separate from each other, each with their own games list and user accounts that are not shared across the other gateways, it is still maintained that they cannot play in the same game nor chat with each other, etc.
Diablo II was released in 2000 to much fanfare. The main highlight of Diablo II as it relates to Battle.net was that the game used the client–server model. The game was no longer simulated on each player's computer, but instead was run on Blizzard's server. This also meant that all of the character data for the game was stored on the Battle.net servers. The game also has an open character feature on Battle.net which stored the player's character on the client. This allowed players to play characters locally or on a LAN, and then use those same characters on Battle.net. However, any open games played on Battle.net were not protected from cheating by other players since they could have modified their characters locally. Diablo II also had a unique feature that would show the players in the Battle.net chat room as avatars who looked like their characters did in the game. It also used a different Battle.net interface than previous games, where previously there were mainly only color differences. There was also expanded ladder support including a "Hardcore" ladder which listed players whose characters would be removed permanently if they died in-game. Again, with Diablo II usage of Battle.net increased steadily, climbing even higher with the release of the expansion pack Diablo II: Lord of Destruction in 2001.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos was released in 2002 and its expansion pack, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, was released in 2003. The release of these two games brought with them a number of new features to the online service. The most significant feature to be added was probably the concept of Anonymous Matchmaking. This feature allowed a user who wanted to play a game to simply press a button and automatically be matched up with one or more other players who were similar in skill and also wanted to play a game. This allowed for people to get into games quickly and easily. It also reduced win-trading, where two people would purposely win and lose games to artificially raise their rank on the ladder. The matchmaking concept was also expanded to team games in a feature called "Arranged Teams". In an arranged team game, you could make a team with one or more friends, which was then anonymously matched up with another team of the same size and rank. However, a strategy was introduced on how to cheat the automated 'fair' matchups, called 'Abusing', simply by someone losing the Arranged Team Games intentionally with one ally so that with another ally won't find it difficult because the automatic matchups would put the two players up against relatively unskilled players. Automated tournaments were added in the expansion, where players would compete to be crowned tournament champion in a series of games played throughout the day. In addition to the new game styles, a slew of other features were added including selectable chatroom icons unlocked based on the player's number of wins, a friends list, and clan support.
Battle.net 2.0 (2009–2013)
Battle.net was revamped by Blizzard Entertainment in 2009 and officially unveiled on March 20, 2009, it was further elaborated on during BlizzCon 2009. The new Battle.net contains three unique sections. The first allows players to connect all Battle.net accounts, World of Warcraft characters and friends list together and integrate them into a unified single Battle.net account. Players can also unlock achievements in-game which would in turn unlock avatars and decals which would be shown on the player's profile, the decals can also be seen in-game on the player's units.The second section consists of making Battle.net into a competitive platform for players which involves a new improved matchmaking system, simplifying the process of players organizing games. The ladder system has also been revamped; the system classifies players into certain leagues according to their level of competitiveness. Players would then compete against others who have a similar skill level to their own, albeit across leagues. There is also a special practice league to practice and hone skills, where game speed is reduced and maps are designed to create a slower pace of the game. The party system works similar to that of World of Warcraft where players with friends would join together and enter games as a party.
The final section involves the new chat system which involves a new system similar to instant messaging across games. Players may communicate with friends across games, servers, and characters.
World of Warcraft initially did not support Battle.net, having separate accounts from Battle.net once until the revamp of Battle.net on March 20, 2009 which forced players to merge their World of Warcraft accounts with the new Battle.net accounts. The features of Battle.net utilized in World of Warcraft include allowing players to engage in cross-realm, cross-faction and cross-game chat, which allows players to talk with their friends on their Real ID friends list, from other factions, other servers as well as other games such as StarCraft II and Diablo III. On November 11, 2009 Blizzard Entertainment made Battle.net a mandatory feature for World of Warcraft players.
StarCraft II was the first game to natively support the new revamped Battle.net online interface. It was split into three installments: the base game with the subtitle Wings of Liberty, expansion pack Heart of the Swarm, stand-alone expansion pack Legacy of the Void and downloadable content mission packs Nova Covert Ops.
The new interface includes a chat service which is similar to that of instant messengers which allows players to interact across different games. The platform also supports VoIP for players.
On May 5, 2010, Blizzard revealed that Battle.net 2.0 would be integrated with social networking site Facebook, "linking the world's premier online gaming platform with the world's most popular social platform".