Activision’s reveal of the Destiny 2 PC build went off without a hitch this past weekend, and perhaps the biggest news of all was that the game would be coming exclusively to Blizzard’s longtime online host Battle.net. The legendary service will be the only place that PC gamers can buy and play the game, not allowing it to come to other outlets such as Steam or Amazon.
Bungie’s rare opportunity to have its game come to Battle.net, the name Blizzard used in the announcement rather than is awfully mundane Blizzard Launcher, gives it the honor of being the only third-party game to ever be available on the service, which is generally reserved for Blizzard’s games like StarCraft and Overstrike.
According to Blizzard, it will remain this way as well. Many assumed that Blizzard was using this chance to move in on Steam’s and the other online retailers’ turf, but this is not the case. Blizzard Launcher has no intention of flooding its servers with other games to compete outright with rivals.
Our focus in terms of supporting non-Blizzard games is solely around Destiny 2. It’s important to us to maintain our quality standards for any experience or service we’re putting in front of our players, which represents a big investment of time and effort on our part, so this is not something we’re jumping into lightly.
Battle.net sounds so much nicer
Blizzard also said that it is not returning to the name Battle.net and that it is making an exception for the announcement of Destiny 2. Honestly, it’s a very smart move. If Activision Blizzard had come out of its offices and boasted that “Destiny 2 would be available exclusively for Blizzard Launcher,” I would have shrugged and not especially cared.
“Destiny 2 is coming exclusively to Battle.net!” Okay, now you have my attention!
It might sound like a product of the 90s and not bear Blizzard’s name, but yeah, you can’t argue with the impact and legacy that the name Battle.net carries, even for non-PC gamers like myself. I never even knew what Blizzard was planning to change it to. “Blizzard Launcher?”… how boring.
Destiny 2 will be released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on Sept. 8. The PC version will follow shortly after.
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