Blizzard considered turning its Battle.net service into a store for games from other developers a few years before Steam was created. But it abandoned this idea. This became known from Jason Schreyer's new book "Play Nice," PC Gamer writes.
Former Blizzard programmer Patrick Wyatt, along with other developers, proposed a plan to turn Battle.net into a digital store for various computer games. The idea was supported by engineer Mike O'Brien, who helped Battle.net to appear in the first place.
But the management rejected this proposal. Shortly thereafter, Valve launched Steam as a way to deliver updates for Counter-Strike, and later games from other studios began to appear on it. Today, Steam is the most popular digital store, controlling more than 70% of the PC gaming market and selling Blizzard games, among others.
For various reasons, O'Brien, Wyatt, and a third Blizzard programmer, Jeff Strain, left the company in 2000 to found ArenaNet and create the Guild Wars game.
The book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment is already available for purchase in English. The Ukrainian publishing house MAL'OPUS is translating the book into Ukrainian, which is due to be released in 2025. Schreier started working on the book in 2021 and says that he conducted about 350 interviews during its creation.