”Overwatch 2“ will be the first title to stray from Battle.net exclusivity and head to Valve’s competing software storefront
“Overwatch 2” (Blizzard)
Blizzard’s popular multiplayer hero shooter “Overwatch 2” arrives August 10 on Steam, part of a broader change of heart from Blizzard, which will be offering select titles on Valve’s Steam storefront going forward.
The move was announced in a blog post, wherein Blizzard revealed it would be “trying something new” by offering a selection of games on Steam going forward. To note: It has yet to detail what other titles are on the way or when they’re coming, as “Overwatch 2” is the only game confirmed thus far. An Activision Blizzard representative told TheWrap the company would share more info about future games coming to Steam “when the time is right.”
Prior to this move, one would need to operate exclusively through Battle.net to play Blizzard titles such as “Overwatch 2.” Now, although players will still need an underlying Battle.net account, they’ll be able to download Blizzard games through Steam, use their Steam friends list for game invites and accrue Steam achievements, among other features.
The aforementioned utility and user-friendliness of Steam is why many PC gamers prefer to use it exclusively for gaming activities, with some people preferring it so much so that they outright snub games bound to other storefronts. For publishers and developers, this presents a dilemma: Occupy the most popular storefront and pay a cut of profits to Valve (the middleman behind Steam) or keep games exclusive to their publisher-specific storefront and risk losing out on attention and sales.
This dilemma has troubled publishers for a long time. Major gaming entities such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Blizzard’s own Activision Blizzard have all attempted to make their games exclusive to their own storefronts (Origin, Ubisoft Connect, and Battle.net, respectively) over the years. Yet each one eventually gave up and brought their games back to Steam, hence why you can find EA, Ubisoft and Activision titles on Valve’s storefront. However, the Blizzard half of Activision Blizzard has remained notoriously absent until now.
This development could possibly foreshadow the entirety of Activision Blizzard throwing in the towel on Battle.net-exclusive releases. This also means already-released titles such as “Diablo IV” may end up on Steam at some point.
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