You Sir, win todays sarcasm award.

Well now, this is unfortunate...

I was actually the one that asked this question.

And he said they're not looking to turn B.net into a subscription service, it's just that some extra features you'll have to pay for.

Ah, nothing like an internet shitstorm eh?

Who are you all kidding? You'll take everything Blizzard's dick throws at you.

@ Linkoman,

My thoughts exactly. I refused to believe it when a friend told me that BLIZZARD was going to split up SC2 to sell us 1 game for the price of 3. It sounded exactly like something out of EA's book. Now they're considering monetizing Battle.net? It certainly looks to me like we are starting to see the effects of Activision on the amazing developer who, until recently, had done no wrong in my eyes.

@moocow,
Exactly. I grew up with blizzard and they've never done anything this stupid until Activision (home of the yearly Guitar Hero's) came along.

Didn't it used to cost $ back in the day? I'm trying to remember but I bought some Blizzard product that came w/ a subscription to it & some Battle.net t-shirt. I never wore the shirt or redeemed the subscription (if it was a subscription) so I could be imagining it & it was always free. But i could have sworn it was for something to be redeemed (for equal monetary value).

Meh. Wait and see what happens before getting all excited.

Wow, just wow. Do people still use those 3rd party b.net copycat programs?

I'm confused. What does this statement mean? "After the colossal failure that was once a promising game, World of Warcraft" How is the most successful MMO of all time a failure? This is just Activision tying to put spin on charging for other services? I really don't get it. Do they really expect me to feel sympathy for them? Oh, gee, poor Activision has to charge for battle.net because WoW isn'y making money? If WoW isn't making money, they aren't handling their cash flow very well. It's not a gamers fault if you dumped all your profits into the stock market guys. I won't be paying for your mismanagement.

I doubt they'll charge a monthly fee. They'll probably have some kind of "gold" fee-based membership that gives you access to stuff like rankings, ladders, tournaments, early access to DLC, player profiles, etc.

And people will pay it even though they don't HAVE to because many gamers can't stand the idea of playing an unranked game when they could be playing a ranked game.

I hope this goes the way of the package deal. Some amount of money for online service through battle.net providing access to all Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo properties.

Fuck Activision.

Looks like 15.1 million people were interested in diablo 3.... so maybe we got too excited and activision was like ohhhh more monies,,, thanking you $_$

I am 24. I bought starcraft 10 years ago and it was/IS, besides the Halo Trilogy, the best game of my life. Therefore I can criticize their creators(I Love Them). Not only did I love the plot and singleplayer campaign at that time, but I definitly WASTED thousands of hours playing it in battlenet. ADND I'M GLAD! So did many other hundreds of thousands, not to say millions worlwide(including Korea).
Wasn't it for the multiplayer facet, it would never have been such a marketing sucess neither would Blizzard have grown so much. Neither would it gave kept millions of adepts. Setting a fee for battlenet acess would be considered somewhat a "betrayal" to all of us, the so said "older guys". We, "20-35..." are a big piece of the cake. So, REMENBER US. We're not like fully grown adults who can pay anything at any time by now. BUT, I agree, some aspects of server customising should be paid, not the Gaming itself. :_|

Sorry for the testament, I do emphatize with Blizzard. Its hard to keep it competitive with other titles and work at the same time to produce a game. They actually spend their lives doin, literally that. And Big Titles and big sales not always mean big salarys. At least for everyone. Still the Starcraft sales should prove extensive considering the millions of fans. My opinion.