How did blizzard afford to run battle.net?

[Theroy]

OR still do. I mean wouldn't running those servers eventually out weigh the cost of the game's selling that it runs for? I mean they run a few ad's mostly stuff for their own company that can't possibly cover it? I mean with WOW they basically print money but prior to that?

 

[Tyrael]

Maybe it was contracted so they paid once in bulk.

 

[x42bn6]

They sell good games?

Prior to WarCraft III, half of us were still buzzing around on 56k modems anyway, so there wasn't that much data transfer, meaning less processing.

 

[kinkarso]

I actually think the ads cover the server costs if they own the servers themselves. With their traffic, 1 ad probably costs tens of thousands..

 

[gnts]

^ that does sound right, cause there are actually alot of people on battle.net right? or maybe they just ran it by the games they sold, they did make alot of money selling starcraft and diablo back then didnt they?

 

[AZN_FLEA]

hmmm im not sure

 

[MGCImtR]

Dunno but they'd better use that money on improving the connections on all servers pronto

 

[ST]

Battle.net get's enough exposure to where I'm sure the small amount of ads more than support continuation costs. Kinda like how Myspace makes money, only on a much different scale.

 

[Arkidas]

AFAIK, users host games on battle.net so it's sort of split between the users and Blizzard, isn't it?

 

[Theroy]

Just customs the actual b.net games are hosted on their servers. Like valve runs 100% on user servers. I wonder about mmo's that don't have a monthly fee. eventually people buying the game is not going to cover costs anymore.

 

[Emperor Pan I]

Most games are hosted on users computers, and the ads provide more than enough revenue streams to allow Bnet to continue to operate.

 

[Theroy]

Most games are hosted on users computers, and the ads provide more than enough revenue streams to allow Bnet to continue to operate.

oh yeah I think d2 and war3 are the only one's that arn't. the up comming sc2 and d3 also wont be.

 

[plasticpervert]

Most games are hosted on users computers, and the ads provide more than enough revenue streams to allow Bnet to continue to operate.

wc3 ladder uses user-server-user connect :/

 

[SC2phoenix]

From wow and royalties i guess.

 

[Potatosss]

If you think about it the cost to maintain a server and the price they charge to actually sell their games it gives them a lot of profit i mean they run their own servers and prolly only have to pay like a couple each month they can make that in like selling what 100 - 200 copies of their games? lol

 

[iRawrrr]

by suckin the required power from gamers like u MUAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAA