Blizzard Admits it Shouldn't Have Rebranded Battle.net

"We’re in agreement that the name should stay as well."

By Vikki Blake

Blizzard has reversed its decision to drop the name Battle.net from its online networking service, rebranding the service as 'Blizzard Battle.net'.

"When we announced that we’d be transitioning away from the Battle.net name for our online-gaming service, we suspected that the shift would be challenging," said Blizzard in a brief statement. "We understood that Battle.net stood for something special—it represents years of shared history and enjoyment, community and friendship, for all of us and our players."

The Battle.net networking technology, described by Blizzard as its "central nervous system", was established in 1996. With the modern normalisation of online gaming, Blizzard no longer saw it necessary to have a separately-named online service to help facilitate people's understanding of the concept of online gaming, and dumped the moniker last September.

Now, however, after listening to feedback from the community - as well as reflecting on Blizzard's own identities over the years - the studio's had a change of heart. Well. Kind of.

"The technology was never going away, but after giving the branding change further consideration and also hearing your feedback, we’re in agreement that the name should stay as well. Take it from the developer formerly known as Silicon & Synapse, and Chaos Studios, names are important too."

So from here on in, the service-formerly-known-as-Battle-net will be known as Blizzard Battle.net. Got it?

World of Warcraft's Legion expansion tempted many new and old players into the fold, with World of Warcraft: Legion selling 3 million copies on its first day.

Vikki Blake is a very jumpy survival horror survivalist. You can find her twittering over at @_vixx and twitching at twitch.tv/vixxiie.

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