24 years ago, Blizzard reportedly shot down a pitch to make its own version of Steam by turning Battle.net into "a digital store for a variety of PC games"

Overwatch 2 sombra emp animation blizzard image.

In another timeline, Blizzard may have its own version of Valve's PC-dominating Steam store, but in our timeline it reportedly rejected a pitch back to expand its Battle.net launcher into a broader PC gaming storefront.

That's according to a new report from Bloomberg reporter and Blood, Sweat, and Pixels author Jason Schreier, who, in his new book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment (as PC Gamer spotted), writes that former Blizzard programmer Patrick Wyatt proposed a plan "to turn Battle.net into a digital store for a variety of PC games" around 2000, three years before Valve released the Counter-Strike client that grew into the mega-store Steam is today.