It is pointed out that Blizzard could have created a game store like Steam a few years before Steam.
Steam is a very powerful PC game sales platform, so much so that it is said that 'PC games are Steam. Jason Schreier, a long-time game industry reporter, has written a book about how Blizzard Entertainment, a game company, could have created such a platform.
Oof: Years before Steam, a Blizzard engineer wanted to turn Battle.net into a third-party game store, but was reportedly turned down | PC Gamer
Blizzard could have turned Battle.net into a third-party games store years before Steam, but... | TechSpot
Blizzard Entertainment has built a gaming platform called Battle.net, where it distributes and supports its own games, such as the Diablo series and Overwatch. According to a survey , Battle.net had 26 million monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023. Although it is a different time, Steam had 132 million monthly users as of 2021.
According to Schreier, several years before Steam went into full operation on September 12, 2003, Blizzard Entertainment programmer Patrick Wyatt and others proposed to their bosses the idea of turning Battle.net into a digital storefront for a variety of PC games.
At that time, the original 'Diablo' and other games were already being distributed on Battle.net, so the idea of a 'game distribution service' itself was already in existence. Mike O'Brien, the engineer who first proposed the idea of Battle.net and actually built it, liked Wyatt's ideas, but unfortunately this idea was rejected by the leadership of Blizzard Entertainment at the time.
Then in 2003, Valve launched Steam as a way to distribute updates for 'Counter-Strike.' Valve had some ups and downs, including a controversial decision to require 'Half-Life 2' players to use the platform, but it has since grown into by far the most popular PC game store.
Blizzard Entertainment had not distributed games on Steam for many years, but in 2023, with the desire to 'break down barriers between gaming communities,' it released 'Overwatch 2' on Steam, indicating its intention to distribute its titles on Steam starting with this.
Blizzard announces that it will distribute its own titles such as Overwatch 2 on Steam - GIGAZINE
In his book, ' Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment ,' Schreier chronicles the history of Blizzard Entertainment, documenting its rise and fall, including the disappointment of the store idea being rejected and the departure of O'Brien and Wyatt due to differences over the direction of 'Warcraft III.'
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