Blizzard Nixes Plans to Require Real Names

[Ertis]

It'd be a more sensible idea to make the forum users post under their account name perhaps with their actual characters and armory links listed bellow.

Yet somehow this escapes the "lol real names on the net is gud" people. The FBI and FTC disagree.

 

[kinky257]

Not really surprsing after a Blue posted his real name on the forums, and within 10-20 minutes had all of his personal information posted in the thread.

 

[Low Key]

Eventually, accountability will play a role in the future of the internet, but as of right now with stories of people pointlessly killing others over video games, it's probably a good idea they didn't go through with the Real ID thing.

 

[John Funk]

I'm actually disappointed with this. I like the idea of being forced to use your real identity online, provided it's all safe and secure. I use my real identity, and it's a great idea to crack down on people who abuse the system and the forums. Fine, usernames are good too. But why not let Blizzard do something like The Escapist does, allowing usernames but having real names on profiles, except unlike here, making those real names compulsory? A bit of compromise might help sooth the wounded trolls on the Blizzard forums...

Because when an unhinged psychopath flies into a rage at that thing you posted asking them to nerf his class, the first thing you want is for him to know your name and have the ability to uncover all of your personal information, including your address, right?

There's a reason NCSoft's global headquarters has double steel vault doors separating the company's staff from the throngs of people who constantly send them death threats.

--------

As for the OP, Blizzard's announcement was "We're going to rethink RealID," similar to Google's "We're going to not turn Buzz on by default."

This is a strategic retreat, and they're going to return once you've all gotten used to RealID in the game. They probably won't even announce it next time, since it becomes easier for them to say "Well, we can't go back now!"

We've known Tom Chilton (Kalgan), Greg Street (Ghostcrawler), and Jeff Kaplan (Tigole)'s real names for years. And the community hates them. Don't you think they'd be targets of ire, first?

And I think that saying "Okay, we're not going to use real names in the forums" is in fact backing down. RealID is already in the game and actually pretty damn convenient. It just needs an 'invisible' option and a way to remove the friend-of-friend option and it'll be golden.

Also, they didn't listen as much to "the community", as probably to the negative feedback from even the BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10543100.stm], ABC [http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11108240], Spiegel Online [http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,705406,00.html] or the Washington Post [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/07/world_of_warcraft_real_names.html]

And their World of Warcraft "cancel Subscription" servers that were apparently overloaded and couldn't accomplish their jobs anymore xD

Uh... first, just reporting on an issue doesn't count as negative feedback.

Second, don't you think that seeing people canceling subscriptions is, in fact, getting feedback from the community? "People are so strongly against this that they're canceling their subscription" is in fact the strongest negative feedback anyone could possibly give. I think that's definitely listening to the community.

 

[Jared]

Well, looks like they did listen...I really dont see what the big fuss is...the people who complained just dont want people to know that the person flaming them ios called something silly like Sebastian...

 

[Random Argument Man]

Wait wait wait! Back up little...


"We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums."

Either it's a word play or they didn't totally discarded the option.


Oh well, long live the gentle anonymous!

 

[Ertis]

Pansies. This could have been a real experiment into the effects of removing anonymity and trying to stop the raging assholes who thrive on it and now we don't even get to see if it works or flops. Man up Blizzard.

So you would be ok if the Escapist did this then? "But there's no troll problem here!" Right you are, if Blizzard put half as much effort into moderation as most large and well-known forums do, there wouldn't have been this discussion to begin with.

I'd actually be 100% okay if this was on the Escapist. :3

Then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree /shrug

 

[Treblaine]

do the article anyway, just speak hypothetically as if they DID go ahead with this hamfisted and exploitative betrayal of their fan's privacy and safety.

I assume you were arguing in FAVOUR of something that Blizzard ultimately decided was a bad idea?

Maybe instead you should consider why you continued to defend it while the actual instigators abandoned it?

 

[DTWolfwood]

Wtf lol its like Blizzard has a split personality XD

 

[John Funk]

do the article anyway, just speak hypothetically as if they DID go ahead with this hamfisted and exploitative betrayal of their fan's privacy and safety.

I assume you were arguing in FAVOUR of something that Blizzard ultimately decided was a bad idea?

Maybe instead you should consider why you continued to defend it while the actual instigators abandoned it?

What's that little quote about assumptions again?

 

[Ertis]

Maybe instead you should consider why you continued to defend it while the actual instigators abandoned it?

You could argue that it was a good idea, just that everyone was against it. Not that I thought it was...

 

[MisterShine]

Very sad to see this. I felt pretty strongly this would lead to some positive changes on the forums, it actually had me excited to get back in them. Maybe they'll have some kind of permanent 'nickname' like ctrlaltdlt suggested? Nah, that would still piss off the trolls.

/heavysigh

ah well, makes it easier to stay off the warcrack this way.

Second, don't you think that seeing people canceling subscriptions is, in fact, getting feedback from the community? "People are so strongly against this that they're canceling their subscription" is in fact the strongest negative feedback anyone could possibly give. I think that's definitely listening to the community.

I'd just like to say to this: I've played WoW since release, on and off for nearly 6 years now. Every single patch and change to be announced, every single solitary one I have read about, has had people threatening or claiming to have already cancelled their accounts for those changes.

People saying that means absolutely nothing.

 

[John Funk]

Uh... first, just reporting on an issue doesn't count as negative feedback.

Second, don't you think that seeing people canceling subscriptions is, in fact, getting feedback from the community? "People are so strongly against this that they're canceling their subscription" is in fact the strongest negative feedback anyone could possibly give. I think that's definitely listening to the community.

They didn't just "report on the issue", they took clear sides.

The BBC says:

One World of Warcraft player, Jim Brand, contacted BBC News to say how disappointed he was over the change.

"I have been using the forums for over five years, reporting bugs and trying to be helpful. Now, to have the privilege to help people on the forums I have to reveal my real name; I'm dead against it," he said.

"I work in a charity and deal with governments officials. If they do a search and see I am a gamer, it could affect my employment prospects," he added.

Although most social networking sites have links to a person's real world name, gaming sites have always used anonymous handles.

There have been a few rare cases of online gaming disputes spilling out into the real world, and users are mostly reluctant to reveal personal details, given that video games can sometimes elicit strong emotions.

Mr Brand said that one Blizzard employee posted his real name on the forums, saying that there was no risk to users, and the experiment went drastically wrong.

"Within five minutes, users had got hold of his telephone number, home address, photographs of him and a ton of other information," said Mr Brand

ABC:

The upcoming change has upset many gamers who prize anonymity and don't necessarily want their gamer personas associated with their real identities.

...

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Blizzard is the latest company to require real identities. But he added businesses have "a lot of freedom" in doing so.

...

Online games are among the last truly anonymous frontiers. As such, Rotenberg called Blizzard's decision a "bit of a sad day" in the world of gaming.

The Washington Post:

As of this morning, 74 pages of comments follow that post. The ones I've read don't seem too positive about Blizzard's move. Typical reply, from "Marine71": "What an awful idea. Who comes up with this trash? Seriously. What happened to you, Blizzard?"

Other Battle.net threads debating the move dwarf that: On the World of Warcraft "General Discussion" forum, the argument now runs nearly 2,000 pages long--and that's only for North American users.

Even think tanks have gotten into the debate: The Center for Democracy and Technology's Sean Brooks decried Blizzard's move in a post titled "Blizzard Looks To Chill Forum Speech with Real ID" on the Washington nonprofit's blog.

...

To me, Blizzard seems to be making two core mistakes. First, in most dysfunctional online forums (anybody remember Usenet?) the problem isn't anonymity but unaccountability: If anybody can easily look up everything you've written, and if a site's administrators limit duplicate "sock puppet" accounts, you can't hide from your past words, even if you didn't post them under your name. Second, if people joined a forum under certain ground rules it is, at best, extremely poor manners to change those basic principles years later.

So although I can't tell you anything about the mechanics of WoW and, indeed, would probably get killed instantly in the game, I think I know why its users are angry. How about you? How would you have had Blizzard handle this?

Spiegel Online (which is a big and prominent German publication) is also extremely critical, although I don't feel like translating some of the stuff but Google can help [http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fnetzpolitik%2F0%2C1518%2C705406%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8].


To be honest... you guys are one of the very few to take a positive stance towards this, I don't know exactly why but it is a little worrying.

The Washington Post, sure. All the others seem to be (correctly) reporting that the community is against it. That's not taking sides, that's correctly reporting facts.

The Escapist has not taken any stance towards it. Individual members of the staff may have, and just judging by my twitter a lot of other games journos had positive opinions on it, but there was no "we're all in favor of it, ok?" agreement.

My feelings were always divided on it.

 

[Plurralbles]

victory?

Too bad about you losing so much time writing a worthless column though... haha.