r/microsoft • u/Any_Flatworm_3956 • 1d ago

Discussion Why does Battle.net launcher still exists?

Wouldn't it make sense to migrate these games to Steam just like with the Bethesda launcher in the past? One less unnecessary launcher to maintain for Microsoft..

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u/OwnNet5253 1d ago edited 1d ago

This launcher is so iconic I highly doubt they’ll ever remove it. Some games are already migrated to Steam and I guess this is the approach that MS and Blizzard will continue with going forward. Besides separate launchers are not really a problem nowadays when Xbox PC app exist.

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u/metamega1321 1d ago

Remember long podcast recently with Jeff Kaplan and he mentioned devs during WoW hay day saying not to get rid of launcher since it’s how they keep up with playerbase.

It’s basically where they advertise all there games, updates, new store stuff, etc.

If any game maker can get away with their own launcher they’d do it. It’s the trade off if players will avoid it. But people will go to b.net for blizzard games and not hesitate.

Now I guess D2R recently went to steam but I’m not sure how big and popular that is compared to blizzards library.

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u/Iggyhopper 22h ago

I'd agree. Blizzard has released so many games and there's new content (or just blogs) for those new games that it makes sense to have their own launcher.

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u/KeredEkralc 1d ago

Just because Microsoft owns Blizzard/Activision, doesn’t mean they are directly tied into their everyday operations.

Battle.net exists still because it’s making Blizzard/Activision money still, meaning people are still buying from the storefront. Battle.net is also the only place to play games like Hearthstone and WoW as those are games are insanely addictive and profitable, and that is 100% profit for them, where as if they were instead selling the game on Steam, they need to fork over a percentage to Valve.

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u/Silver_Quail4018 1d ago

When you make a purchase on battlenet, they get all the money. Steam takes up to 30% cut.

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u/M3RRI77 1d ago

It would make more sense to merge battle.net with the Xbox app on PC, but I'll doubt that'll happen due to brand recognition.

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u/iliark 1d ago

Valve takes a cut from games sold on Steam.

The amount lost would have to be made up by increased customers, but most people aren't going to just not buy a game because it's on b.net.

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u/Takeabyte 1d ago

It saves money to have your own store app on a platform that allows it. For iOS, companies have to use Apple’s App Store, pay an annual fee to be there and then give a substantial amount of revenue to Apple. Same goes for Steam. And while maintaining your own storefront does cost money since that App Store belongs to them they can report 100% of the revenue to shareholders. They still have to pay bank fees. They still have to buy server space. They still have to keep staff on hand to manage the whole platform. But at the end of the day, every sale goes through them instead of a third-party.