Blizzard?s Unreal Real ID

[Shamus Young]

Blizzard?s Unreal Real ID

Shamus is 2000 times less famous than Felicia Day, yet he still thinks Real ID is a bad idea.

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[tmujir955]

Er...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101979-Blizzard-Nixes-Plans-to-Require-Real-Names

 

[Shamus Young]

Yes. I wrote this last night. And then two hours before the column went up Blizzard changed its mind.

They did this not because of public outcry, but because they wanted to annoy me.

 

[Cody211282]

Well it's good to see that someone on the escapist staff isn't for this. Nice read as always.

 

[Shepsauce]

Poor Shamus, Blizzard secretly keylogs you to see what you write.

Then when it's something bad about them they fix it the night before and giggle with glee.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Yes. I wrote this last night. And then two hours before the column went up Blizzard changed its mind.

They did this not because of public outcry, but because they wanted to annoy me.

You and Funk both.

 

[Shepsauce]

Susan, you see my Pony-Lover badge.

WTB some OMG PONY action...

 

[tmujir955]

Yes. I wrote this last night. And then two hours before the column went up Blizzard changed its mind.

They did this not because of public outcry, but because they wanted to annoy me.

I can imagine someone at Blizzard is giggling right about now.

 

[Fappy]

Even if its kind of irrelevant now it was a good read all the same. It would kind of ruin the whole "escape" aspect of Blizzard games for the rich and famous. I'll be honest though, I'd harass Felecia Day at least once...

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

(I am always sensitive to the fact that some people don't like it when my columns are overly wordy. To help with this, feel free to read this summary of Real ID instead of the previous paragraph.)

Well played, sir. Well played.

 

[Asturiel]

Yes. I wrote this last night. And then two hours before the column went up Blizzard changed its mind.

They did this not because of public outcry, but because they wanted to annoy me.

Its Ok Shamus, it's not your fault Blizzard is giggling at everyone who has put effort into debating this issue, you can't be the only one

OT: Nicely said Shamus, although it's a bit inconsequential right now, it's still nice somebody advocating for the little (big) guys out there! So few people actually mention celebrities being harassed as a con, its pretty refreshing is all.

 

[Woem]

Yes. I wrote this last night. And then two hours before the column went up Blizzard changed its mind.

They did this not because of public outcry, but because they wanted to annoy me.

They even removed the http://us.battle.net/realid link, it now returns a 404.

 

[Dev Null]

Even more irrelevant for me to comment on it now (and the link you posted has been pulled, so I can't even check my facts) but I thought that the change was only going to be about associating real names with forum posts. That way its not really a privacy issue unless you see the forums as a primary part of what you're paying for out of Blizz's games. I genuinely thought it was a clever way to just get people to stop using their forums at all, so they could stop paying the occasional employee to wander through and read a few drops of the hurricane.

 

[Keava]

Aww, i almost feel the empathic urge to let your persona exist on my desktop wallpaper for a day at least, so you could get one step closer to that evil Felicia Day. Then again, i suppose it would not be without cons either, since increase in popularity could lead to more invasion of privacy. Oh perfect evil plan that i can hide underneath the cover of good doing.

And a very good article, never personally bothered to use celebrities as an argument in the discussion mostly because majority generally hates celebrities so they make poor 'relate-to' material...

 

[Treblaine]

[HEADING=2]Shamus Young versus John Funk[/HEADING]

Come on John, you said you had written a whole column in defence, we all want to hear it now. Shamus has thrown down the gauntlet.

 

[Xocrates]

To be perfectly fair, you can have a friend list without using RealID, and you can use RealId without using Facebook, it's perfectly reasonable to use RealID only with people you trust. The only downside of not using RealID in-game is that you lose cross-game chat.

Also, how is:

Friends will also be able to see what you're playing and even where you are in the game, so don't bother telling your Starcraft-playing friends you're spending the evening delivering baskets of chocolate-covered kittens to orphaned grandmothers if you're just going to be leveling an alt in the Outlands, because your feeble duplicity will be laid bare by Real ID and your friends really hate it when you lie to them like that, jerk

That different from what Steam does? Just a quick search on the steam community tells me you were last online 5h20m ago and played Resident Evil 5 34.3h in the past 2 weeks.


That said, I enjoy that Blizzard decided to back out on this.

 

[Chimaera]

Well it's good to see that someone on the escapist staff isn't for this. Nice read as always.

I wouldn't put us all in the same bucket with this topic.

Excellent read, Shamus!

 

[Starke]

That different from what Steam does? Just a quick search on the steam community tells me you were last online 5h20m ago and played Resident Evil 5 34.3h in the past 2 weeks.


That said, I enjoy that Blizzard decided to back out on this.

Well, Steam doesn't say who I am. So that guy from these forums that randomly got confused into cyberstalking me for about 8 minutes and got to my Steam account through my forum account only knew that I'd play Star Trek Online way too much. Not my given name (I think).

On the subject, I'm a little surprised no one's brought up the potential to bully people using their given name. I took an inordinate amount of shit for my last name in school, and I can't imagine that behavior was exclusive to me (my GF had a similar experience with hers) or that this kind of behavior was limited to just the school playground.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Nicely done Shamus, but the whole thing is moot since they backpedalled anyway. Kudos on the MS Calculator joke though; that was sublimely nerdy.

 

[Blackbird71]

Also, how is:

Friends will also be able to see what you're playing and even where you are in the game, so don't bother telling your Starcraft-playing friends you're spending the evening delivering baskets of chocolate-covered kittens to orphaned grandmothers if you're just going to be leveling an alt in the Outlands, because your feeble duplicity will be laid bare by Real ID and your friends really hate it when you lie to them like that, jerk

That different from what Steam does? Just a quick search on the steam community tells me you were last online 5h20m ago and played Resident Evil 5 34.3h in the past 2 weeks.

Steam seriously does this? Wow, one more reason for me to be glad I haven't given in and installed anything requiring Steam! I don't care if it's not using a real name, what and how much I play is no ones' business but my own, and there is no valid reason for that information to be openly available to anyone.