After two decades of using the name that many have come to love, game company Blizzard is now dropping the 'Battle.net' name - in favor of a new, still-unspecified moniker.

"We're going to be transitioning away from using the Battle.net name for our gaming service and the functionality connected to it," Blizzard wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. "You've already seen this recently with things like "Blizzard Streaming" and "Blizzard Voice," and more changes are on the way."

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Blizzard explained that at the time when Battle.net was conceptualized, online multiplayer gaming was not a fad yet. Battle.net, which was Blizzard's networking technology used to as a 'home base of sorts,' provided multiplayer support for its games. For today's games, however, multiplayer support seems very common, and the idea of having a "separate identity for what is essentially [Blizzard's] networking technology" is not needed anymore.

Confusion?

In addition, Blizzard said that there are some who have been confused with having to relate between two separate identities - the game maker Blizzard, and Blizzard's product Battle.net - and thus they saw a need to simplify things: by renaming their products in such a way that it will include "Blizzard" in it.

Still, they are not going to phase Battle.net out altogether: they will just use another still-unspecified name for it.

Public surprise

The news comes as a surprise to the many gamers who have grown up knowing Blizzard's "central nervous system" for its games, such as Diablo I-III, StarCraft I-II, and WarCraft I-III. Apparently, many of those who have grown up with the Battle.net name are unhappy with the news. Some of them commented on the Blizzard blog.

"I'm never going to stop calling it battlenet," wrote Cryptrot.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" commented Timberworg.

"This is a very odd way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of battle.net," said Ironhall.

Although the name will be changed, Blizzard promises that the networking technology will remain.