Blizzard Entertainment and Facebook have recently announced that they’re working together to provide gamers around the world with new ways to connect and share their gaming experiences, while bringing more content to Facebook.
A major step in their ongoing collaboration will begin later this month with the integration of Facebook Login in Blizzard’s PC games. This will enable players to sign up for and log in to games such as World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, Diablo III, StarCraft II, and Overwatch, using their Facebook accounts.
Players will also, for the first time, be able to livestream their Blizzard-gaming sessions directly to their Facebook timelines, and friends will be able to subscribe and be notified when new streams are available.
“We’re working closely with Facebook on this integration for Overwatch, as well as our other games, and we look forward to sharing further details on our plans as development progresses.” – Gio Hunt, executive vice president of corporate operations at Blizzard Entertainment.
What about that little bugbear in the corner called ‘Security’ then? While Facebook integration will work directly with Blizzard’s Battle.net, existing account security standards will remain. That means, after users link their Facebook account with their Battle.net account, they will still be required to provide the existing forms of 2FA associated with their battle.net account at login. So don’t be getting rid of the authenticator just yet.
For those that like to keep your Battle.net and Facebook friends list apart, players will not have access to any friend-finding or social networking between the two services and friend profiles will remain separate.