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	In the future Battle.Net will cost money Brad Nicholson10.12.08 - 12:43 PM (1 hours ago) 26 comments

Diablo III’s director Jay Wilson recently told an audience at BlizzCon that Blizzard and Activision are looking to make some money with the Battle.Net service. How Blizzard will be seeking to “monetize” is unknown, but Wilson said it was necessary to keep the financially crippled Blizzard alive and kicking.

From the panel discussion:

We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features. We kind of have to.

Wilson didn’t elaborate, but I think we all know how much Blizzard has been suffering the past few years. After the colossal failure that was once a promising game, World of Warcraft, Blizzard has had to revaluate its existence and make some tough spending decisions. It’s a shame that World of Warcraft never took off, but we have the massive success (over 15 million subscribers) of Star Wars: Galaxies to thank for that.

It's really not that surprising and all too easy to blame on Activision.

So let me guess... I'm gonna have to pay for that awesome armor in Diablo 3?? Well.. I could see that one coming.. but I do hope that is the only thing.. pay for DLC.. not that they will charge you for playing SC2 online..

Unfortunate. I have a lot of nastalgia for Battlenet. It forced me to learn to type when I was young

This sucks. I'm not paying to play Starcraft online..

Oh yes you are.

It the "we kind of have to" line that makes this so funny.

Financially crippling huh, WoW is only the most highly profitable game ever in existence. They could easily get away with not charging for Battlenet. Now I will probably have to pay a $5.99 fee or higher for StarCraft 2 multiplayer + $50, per game if I want each expansion.....sheesh!

The more news I hear about SC2 the worse it is getting. I am starting to get really pissed off!

Wait, what? Maybe I haven't been keeping up with the news but how is WoW a failure? Last time I checked it was still growing. Also I saw this shit coming when Activision merged with them. The BIGGEST plus Blizzard had over anyone else is free Battle.net. I don't think anyone can argue with that point. Remove that and the draw towards Blizzard games becomes much much smaller. Blizzard is pissing me off more and more as time goes along, I don't think any developer's reputation has sunk so low in my eyes in such a short period of time.

Sarcasm

That's enough Blizzard. Don't mess with the customers !!!