Last month, Blizzard revealed that the new Battle.net 2.0 multiplayer service would not only serve as a way for StarCraft II to be updates but also a way for people to download and purchase a full copy of the sci-fi RTS sequel itself. Back in 2004, Valve launched their Steam PC game download service with Half-Life 2.

With Blizzard now owned by Activision Blizzard, some people have already speculated that the new Battle.net could be used by third party game developers and publishers in much the same way Steam has evolved to becoming the number one place to download and purchase major PC game titles. During GDC this week The Escapist chatted with Blizzard exec Rob Pardo about such a possibility. Pardo admitted, "It's something that we've definitely always talked about." However he added that it would be hard to support third party games as well as Blizzard's own titles. Their already announced plans to let StarCraft II map and mod makers a way to sell their efforts via Battle.net might represent their first steps towards the goal of becoming a Steam-like service.