Op-Ed: Steam Vs. Battle.net

An interesting opinion piece on Tom's Hardware imagines what would happen if Blizzard decided to compete with Valve's Steam via Battle.net. Forget for a minute the fact that Blizzard has always maintained that it does not have any plans to do anything with Battle.net other than serve up its own content or that it has said emphatically that Battle.Net is different than Steam; imagine what would happen if the company decided to start serving up third-party content like Steam does.

With a rumored 25 - 30 million users worldwide (at the same level as Steam at 25 million), a 62 percent stake in the MMO market, 4600 employees, plans to integrate the service with Facebook and Real ID (identifies players in Battle.net by using real names), it is easy to see why Blizzard's service would be a serious challenge to Steam if it decided to start serving up games other than StarCraft, Diablo, Warcraft or World of Warcraft.

One of the key benefits is Blizzard's implementation of DRM; Blizzard avoids using it entirely and simply requires a one-time activation of its titles. StarCraft II needs to be registered and activated once, letting players begin a single-player campaign in offline mode immediately thereafter. Compare that with companies like EA and Ubisoft who have had a spotty record when it comes to DRM.

Here's an interesting excerpt from the article:

Blizzard has said before that it has no intentions in becoming the next Steam. However, back in 2009 the company said "we can only say so much right now, but the plans are much bigger, much grander... and have long-term positive implications for gamers," which referred to Battle.net that could be much more than just a free match-making service.

So, what could be much bigger? The value of this huge opportunity for Blizzard only goes so far. At some point, the company will have to make a decision whether it is opening up Battle.Net to other publishers as well. 30 million potential customers with the intent to play video games could be a convincing argument. Over time, as both services expand the differences between Steam and Battle.net may blur and it may be just a matter of time until Battle.Net will announce the first outside game customer. In the end, it may be just financials that decides such a move over the next few years.

While this "what if?" scenario is interesting, it's tough seeing it happen in the short term; Blizzard is a company that controls the quality of its products - it is the reason it cancelled StarCraft Ghost and Warcraft Adventures and the reason why very few outside developers - save a handful of expansion packs - have ever been worked on outside of a Blizzard facility. The company cares about its image almost as much as it does about making money. So the prospect of it just letting any old game publisher or developer hawk its wares within Battle.net seems far-fetched. Perhaps when Blizzard no longer has a say in what happens to its products and services (I.E. Activision has more control), we will see such a move..

Source: Tom's Hardware