Blizzard to Add Some Facebook Login and Live-Streaming Features
June 06 2016 - 5:30PM
Dow Jones News
Activision Blizzard Inc. said Monday it will soon add Facebook
Inc. login and live-streaming features to some of its competitive
PC games, the company's latest effort to capitalize on growing
mainstream interest in so-called e-sports.
The new login integration with Facebook will make it possible
for Activision Blizzard customers to tell if their Facebook friends
are also users of Battle.net, the online gaming platform of its
Blizzard unit, and initiate games. The added functionality is a way
for the company to entice more customers to spend time in its
games, which can lead to increased monetization.
Previously, Battlet.net users couldn't tell which of their
Facebook friends might also be on the platform.
Logging in through Facebook is a relatively new feature in PC
gaming. "League of Legends," a popular e-sports title from Tencent
Holding Inc.'s Riot Games added the option last year.
For Activision Blizzard, the move could give its Blizzard PC
games—many of which are popular on the competitive-gaming
circuit—wider exposure on the world's biggest social-media network.
That's key as the company has recently been investing heavily in
e-sports. For example, late last year it bought e-sports
broadcaster Major League Gaming and hired executives with NFL
Network and ESPN experience to run a new e-sports division.
"It's important to us to provide our players with features and
services that make it easy and fun to share their experiences with
each other," Gio Hunt, a Blizzard executive, said in a
statement.
In e-sports, top digital athletes compete in tournaments across
the globe for millions of dollars in prize money. Many fans of the
fast-growing niche, which draws thousands of spectators to arenas
and millions more online, are devoted players of the same
games.
Another way Activision Blizzard is looking to raise its profile
in e-sports through Facebook is by soon allowing its Blizzard PC
customers to live-stream gaming sessions on the social network.
Activision Blizzard will be among the few companies to first do
this, though Facebook only recently introduced its livestreaming
product, known as Facebook Live, in April.
The announcement of the new features comes shortly after
Activision Blizzard said in May it will start publishing live
e-sports broadcasts to Facebook daily in a format similar to ESPN's
"SportsCenter" later this month.
For its part, Facebook has been ramping up efforts to compete
against rivals such as Amazon Inc.'s Twitch and Alphabet Inc.'s
YouTube. It has started promoting live video in its news feed and,
in some cases, paid content creators to produce live video. In
early April, it announced plans to create a dedicated "live video"
button within its mobile app.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 06, 2016 17:15 ET (21:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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