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Officially releasing with the original Diablo, Battle.net has been the staple service of Blizzard's catalogue of classic games since the late 90's - but its days are now numbered with Blizzard set to move on from the name in the new future.
While its clear to have already happened with the likes of Blizzard Streaming - a tie-in with Facebook - and Blizzard Voice the company has stated how it made sense to call the service Battle.net all those years ago when online multiplayer was still fresh out of the gate.
| We’re going to be transitioning away from using the Battle.net name for our gaming service and the functionality connected to it. Battle.net technology will continue to serve as the central nervous system for Blizzard games—nothing is changing in that regard. We'll just be referring to our various products and services using the Blizzard name instead. You've already seen this recently with things like "Blizzard Streaming" and "Blizzard Voice," and more changes are on the way. When we created Battle.net, the idea of including a tailored online-gaming service together with your game was more of a novel concept, so we put a lot of focus on explaining what the service was and how it worked, including giving it a distinct name. Over time, though, we’ve seen that there’s been occasional confusion and inefficiencies related to having two separate identities under which everything falls—Blizzard and Battle.net. Given that built-in multiplayer support is a well-understood concept and more of a normal expectation these days, there isn’t as much of a need to maintain a separate identity for what is essentially our networking technology. We just wanted to make sure everyone was aware as we moved forward with this change over the next several months; we’ll provide any relevant updates as the transition progresses. - Blizzard Entertainment |
The Battle.net name was given to let players know the service was there to allow them to play together, in some form, over a network that wasn't simply a LAN match. Now, however, with multiplayer inclusion in practically every game in some form, it seems counterproductive to run a service with a name that quite simply explains the obvious.
So, going forward, each of Blizzard's services will henchforth just be known as Blizzard... something.
Sources: “Battle.net” Update - WoW, Goodbye, Battle.net! Hello... Blizzard | GameWatcher
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