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Blizzard to integrate Facebook into Battle.net

Dave Smith - 6 May 10, 3:24pm

When Battle.net enemies become Facebook friends

Blizzard Entertainment has announced its plans to intergrate its Battle.net gaming service with Facebook's Open Graph scheme.  The first stages will be intergrating both platform's friend lists, allowing gamers to add their Facebook friends into their Battle.Net friends list.

These prelimenary stages will be implemented along with the development of Blizzard's long awaited StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, with the intent of the intergrated system being available for the games players following it's release on27 July. 

COO of Blizzard, Paul Sams, said: "We're pleased to be working with Facebook to integrate their platform with Battle.net to enhance the social-entertainment experience for our players. This new functionality will make it easier than ever to connect with friends on battle.net and play StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games together."

It sounds all very promising, and combined with the ever  increasing hype over the release of StarCraft II could make this venture very successful for Blizzard Entertainment, and go along way to promoting Facebook's Open Graph to other websites.

The only catch is if adding Facebook functionality tests to the Starcraft II betas will slow down the games development. Blizzard have already had a bad run of luck in games development after the set backs to the equally long awaited Diablo III.

Nevertheless, both Blizzard and Facebook are confident of success, and the not so silent masses eagerly await the end of July.