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Blizzard's Battle.net to integrate with Facebook

Blizzard Entertainment announces that it will soon integrate Battle.net accounts with Facebook to facilitate players' social-gaming experience.

Dong Ngo SF Labs Manager, Editor / Reviews
CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He now manages CNET San Francisco Labs, reviews 3D printers, networking/storage devices, and also writes about other topics from online security to new gadgets and how technology impacts the life of people around the world.
Dong Ngo

Starcraft II could be arguably the most anticipated RTS game of all time. Blizzard

Starcraft II fans who want to tout their strategies and winning scores will soon be able to conveniently do that in the usual place: Facebook.

Blizzard Entertainment announced Wednesday that its next-generation online gaming platform, called Battle.net, which hosts the upcoming and highly anticipated RTS StarCraft II, will integrate with Facebook to offer players an enhanced social-gaming experience.

The first step in the integration will enable StarCraft II players to quickly add Blizzard gamers who are their friends on Facebook to their Battle.net friend lists, facilitating their social-gaming experience on the service. This means you can forgo the current clunky process of adding a friend via their ID or e-mail address.

Battle.net has been the playground for different releases of Blizzard titles, including Starcraft, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and the StarCraft II beta.

Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment, said this new functionality will make it easier than ever to connect with friends on Battle.net and play StarCraft II and future Blizzard games together. This means it's safe to say that players of the upcoming Diablo 3 will also enjoy the same Facebook-integrated feature.

The new Facebook functionality in Battle.net is currently in testing, and will soon be available to the ongoing beta testers of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. It will be available to public together with the game, which is slated to be released on July 27.