[edias]

You've never played their recent games then. Battle.net 2.0 is routinely called 0.2 and considered a step back in every single way, aside from FB integration I guess. It didn't even have chat channels until recently or clan support. Promises made for starcraft 2 5 years ago have yet to be delivered on. Diablo 3 was a terrible cash grab and mostly abandoned by players.

After Activision purchased blizzard it has not been the same company.

[zeidrich]

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

You're conflating the battle.net platform that they have built, which is the launcher, the updater, etc. with concerns that people had over matchmaking and chat support.

Uplay is a horrendous piece of junk that feels like a horrendous piece of junk that's horrible DRM. Nobody talks about chat channels and clan support in Uplay, because the only function Uplay has is to sell you games and stop you from pirating games.

Battle.net serves the same purpose, but it serves it much more gracefully. Apart from some complaints about no offline only mode for Diablo and Starcraft, it's been a pretty quiet system. Even with the new launcher it's pretty respectful to players.

I think it's pretty telling that you talk about specific functions like clan support and how Diablo 3 was a cash grab. It means you're talking about gameplay features, and not about the Battle.net platform at all.

The fact is, Battle.net is pretty quiet from a DRM perspective. You don't feel violated by installing the launcher like I did when I loaded Uplay. It feels like a tool for interoperability across Blizzard instead of an attempt to outsteam steam while screwing you over trying to lock down your games.

Battle.net's launcher got me playing hearthstone, it got me playing HOTS, it let me reconnect with people that I forgot I had on my friends list from when I played WoW. It was a useful tool. This is regardless of how long it took them to get clan support in SC2 or global chat channels or matchmaking concerns or whatever else your pet issue might be. Whatever the case, I didn't feel cheated just by installing it. Whether the games are good or not are different question.

[VieElm]

Blizzard has a huge fan base and have had much success with recent games like Hearthstone and the build up to Heroes of the Storm is also looking very promising. SC2 has stagnated and Diablo had missteps but they've made bold steps in trying to fix those problems. I don't think Activision's stewardship of Blizzard and EA are even in the same league. Blizzard has maintained a very unique and powerful brand with almost Nintendo level IP. There are a lot of characters from Blizzard games that are well known.

Also Blizzard's' international presence is very large.

[rdsnsca]

Diablo 3 was fixed in the expansion when they got rid of the real money AH... its actually enjoyable now.