Estate planning as a Battle.net account holder

Battle.net is Blizzard Entertainment's account system and game launcher. A single Battle.net account holds the game licenses for titles such as World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, and Hearthstone, plus linked Activision titles like Call of Duty. The estate-relevant assets are the game licenses, any stored Battle.net Balance (prepaid funds), and in-game progress and currency. Under Blizzard's End User License Agreement these are licensed, not owned, and the account itself is non-transferable. Blizzard publishes one narrow discretionary exception: it may assist in rare cases with claiming the account of a deceased relative, on supporting documentation such as a death certificate.

When a Battle.net account holder dies, their game library are forfeited. The program's terms state that game library do not constitute property of the account holder and cannot be transferred upon death, by operation of law, or through estate planning documents.

What happens at death

Under the Blizzard End User License Agreement (LAST REVISED March 21, 2024), you receive only a "limited, revocable, non-sub licensable, and non-exclusive license to use the Platform," and Blizzard is the owner or licensee of all right, title, and interest in the Platform. Accounts and the game licenses attached to them are not property that passes to an estate. The EULA's "Blizzard's Ownership" section lists "All Accounts, including the name of the Account and any Battle Tags associated with an Account" among the things Blizzard owns, and states: "Blizzard does not recognize the transfer of Accounts. You may not purchase, sell, gift or trade any Account, or offer to purchase, sell, gift, or trade any Account, and any such attempt shall be null and void and may result in the forfeiture of the Account." There is no beneficiary designation. The "Battle.net Balance" section states that prepaid funds stored on the account are "non-transferable to another person or Account, does not accrue interest, is not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and, unless otherwise required by law or permitted by this Agreement, is not redeemable or refundable for any sum of money, monetary value, or anything of value, from Blizzard at any time," so there is no published route to cash a balance out to an estate. Termination is equally blunt: "In the event of a termination of this Agreement, any right you may have had to any pre-purchased Game access or virtual goods, such as digital cards, currency, weapons, armor, wearable items, skins, sprays, pets, mounts, etc., are forfeit," with no refund of amounts pre-paid on the account. The EULA is silent on death, estate, and inheritance. There is one narrow carve-out that survives an owner: games bought from a retailer on original media (CD-ROM, DVD) may be permanently transferred to another person who accepts the agreement, by physically handing over the original media, original packaging, and all documentation and deleting every copy in the transferor's possession -- so boxed copies in the decedent's home are genuinely passable, while everything bought digitally is not. Blizzard also publishes one discretionary path for the account itself: the "Updating the Battle.net Account Holder Name" support article states that where someone is claiming ownership of an account in another person's name and has no way to access it, Blizzard "may be able to assist in rare cases, such as for claiming the account of a deceased relative," requiring supporting documentation such as a death certificate. That is handled case by case through a Blizzard Support ticket and is not a contractual right of inheritance. Microsoft's ownership of Activision Blizzard did not change this: the EULA still names Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. as the licensor, Battle.net remains a separate account system from the Microsoft account, and the Blizzard Support ticket is still the path.

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