View From the Road: It's Time to Grow Up

[Mantonio]

Edit: You know what, here's my unedited, 'I don't care about appearing uncivil' response. This article is just bad. It reeks of either someone who is so stuck in their own view they can't see others, a fanboy who is being apologetic, or someone who's being paid off.

This article is not about RealID. Stop trying to make it about RealID. You're missing the point.

What is your point? You begin your article by saying that, by loads of people stating they want to keep their gaming private, they must be ashamed of what they do. You don't bother to present any evidence for this claim, you just say that they're 'diving under the covers like a pubescent kid hiding a purloined Playboy'.

I told you WHY people are right to criticise having our real names forcibly attached to our gaming choice of habit, and thus why your assumption that 'They're against it because they're ashamed!' is flawed.

I know your entire article is not on that, I was refuting that one idea.

 

[Negatempest]

Love the talk about a persons comfort zone. As long as we play a game called "World of Warcraft" our actions are actually VERY public. There are thousands of people that can easily see what we do in that game at a single time. RealID would have been nothing more than individuals who play WoW to take responsibility for you actions. Heaven forbid a single person should have a moment where they are not responsible for what they do. The only time I will EVER accept a person not taking responsibility for their action is if they were born with some kind of brain handicap.

Actualy it is not. If you googlemy name the first three hits are a Warhammer Tournament in which I participated (I still hate that list, that one already caused trouble for me) a published article by my aunt and the cat-pension of my mom. There is no way to connect my name to my WoW account in any way except for checking Blizzards credit card data. In the above posts you can also already found links how this can be done with people without unique names too but if you choose to claim that my worries about loosing my job are just my ego there's really nothing left to say.

Again, since you have just said you played a Warhammer tournament that is a is quite public to a large audience (depending on size at times) you have just placed a sign on yourself that says "I like playing these type of games." Thus even a game like WoW would not be surprising to be on your hobby list. As said before and I will say it again. What is being touched is our Ego when it comes to RealID and that we think we are some kind of super elite famous person that would be stalked or harassed by thousands of people once they know our name. Again, we as a community have one heck of an Ego.

P.S. It would be very.....idiotic of people if they are surprised that you play WoW considering that Warhammer is another one of your hobbies. (A new Warhammer player myself, still building my army though, For the Empire!)

 

[John Funk]

Edit: You know what, here's my unedited, 'I don't care about appearing uncivil' response. This article is just bad. It reeks of either someone who is so stuck in their own view they can't see others, a fanboy who is being apologetic, or someone who's being paid off.

This article is not about RealID. Stop trying to make it about RealID. You're missing the point.

What is your point? You begin your article by saying that, by loads of people stating they want to keep their gaming private, they must be ashamed of what they do. You don't bother to present any evidence for this claim, you just say that they're 'diving under the covers like a pubescent kid hiding a purloined Playboy'.

I told you WHY people are right to criticise having our real names forcibly attached to our gaming choice of habit, and thus why your assumption that 'They're against it because they're ashamed!' is flawed.

I know your entire article is not on that, I was refuting that one idea.

My point was that people shouldn't have to be ashamed of playing games. And until we stop being ashamed of games and hiding our habits, people will always assume it IS something to be ashamed of.

That's it. Go complain about RealID in last week's comment thread.

 

[Negatempest]

Also to John Funk. I understand the article and what it is talking about and agree. To those that say they don't want their bosses to know that they play World of Warcraft, quite frankly that is a personal question that is quite illegal in the USA to ask(I don't know about else where). That is the same as asking the questions, "Do you party a lot?", "Do you watch sports?" "Do you watch fantasy movies like Lord of the Rings?". An employer asking such personal questions is none of their business. Though asking such questions in our personal environment or during interviews is completely different than getting your real name in a video game website where others share the same freakin hobby.

p.s. There is a huge difference between being ashamed of your hobbies vs not broadcasting to others that you play video games.

For example; Let us say that we watched a drama with your girlfriend/boyfriend and enjoyed it more than you thought you would. You would talk about it with your friends or relatives because you are comfortable with them and trust them. You may not talk about it with a boss or some co-workers because it would be getting personal with them. Your not ashamed of watching the movie, but you don't want to just talk to anyone about it because others may not like they movie you saw because of preference. This is an example of liking something (like a hobby) but not talking about it with just anyone. How people reacted to RealID was nothing like this. It was just plain shame.

 

[theaceplaya]

Oh man, it felt good reading this. Nice to know I'm not the only person that thinks this. I declare myself a gamer where ever I go, so I can help dispel the 'stereotype.' For the record, I'm a 23 year old African American male that has a full time job as an IT Manager.

 

[SaintWaldo]

You really missed the entire point of the article, didn't you?

It's not childish to want to keep your hobbies private. That wasn't what I was arguing. Rather, I was saying that we should stop acting like the hobby itself is for kids and something shameful to be involved in.

Don't put words in my mouth.

Look around this thread. I'm not the only one who seems to have missed the secret point of your article, something apparently different than what was in most of the words. Maybe you didn't speak it as clearly as you thought?

And maybe, given that you just reiterated your point, you would listen to mine again: I differ strongly with the assertion that my choice of how to publicize my gaming has any bearing whatsoever on whether there is shame in the activity. That assertion exists in your above statement and in the third sentence of your article. You specifically take exception and invent a single reason why a respondent in those forums would answer that common refrain of "I don't want entity X to know I play WoW". You see it as shame over a game, and the entire article is semi-scolding of a notion that you invented.

I see it as assertion of control over privacy, among other things, and in no way indicative of any state of maturity in either the game community or society's reaction to it. You seem to be attempting to turn your assessment of a motive for a response you don't agree with into some sort of ailment or deficiency in the self-esteem of a HOBBY. I am merely trying to point out that you could possibly have picked the wrong reason behind some if not many of those responses, and to turn it into a crisis of the gamer self-image seems overblown question begging.

Look, I grew up in the 80's playing D&D and flaunting my c64 prowess. You either have self esteem, or you grow some, or you always lack it. What you do while you suffer through your trials has little to do with the trials, and you grow up whether you are playing WoW openly or not. It's the jerk next to you who wants to fire you because you play WoW or smoke weed at concerts or don't believe in the sky-father he does who needs the growing up. Perhaps that was your target, all along.

To say gamers need to grow up is, to me, shooting at your saddle buddy. We are grown up. We also live in a grown up world where sometimes things are fine to want to keep private, even if they are overall accepted socially. This is perhaps why you were so regularly misunderstood on this one.

 

[braincore02]

Is it really so surprising? " Unless our bosses see that the model employee who comes in to work on time every day is the same guy who leads a WoW raid three nights a week, how can we ever expect them to understand that these games are for responsible adults, too?"

What if the employee is not model, and spends as much work time as possible researching the requirements for the next piece of uber epic gear he must have, and spends the rest of the time asleep under his desk because he only got 2 hours of sleep thanks to his WOW addiction? I knew this person, and he has probably grown from there (and he's my friend, I'm not meaning to come across like I'm bad mouthing him), but WOW definitely helped him be as far from a model employee as possible. I'm sure most of the people who don't want others to know have a bit of a bad habit in regards to WOW. I find their desire to remain secret completely unsurprising.

PS I wouldn't blame WOW for my friend's behavior as much as himself, but just wanted to illustrate a perspective from which you would very OBVIOUSLY not want your boss to know you play WOW. As far as not wanting your significant other to know? Well then you got problems.

 

[Negatempest]

I just realized something very humorous. Quite a few people went to the blizzard facebook (maybe even twitter) to put their opinions on what they felt about it. You know facebook, that social network site where you could post your real name, but alot of them post pictures of themselves and their friends...... Oh yeah, fear the consequences of RealID on Blizzard......

Yeah, if your posting pictures of yourself on Facebook and considering how many of these same people add friends they don't even know but share some slight interests.....

Yeah, seems pretty freakin ridiculous to be upset over RealID.....

 

[Kragg]

Don't forget certain companies won't hire you if your a known WoW player, and women/men/signifigant others are crazy on the BEST of days.

Which companies? I've never heard a single credible report to this matter, and have actually seen reports that employees attribute leadership to what they learned in WoW guilds, like the Starbucks guy.

I've honestly heard more stories of people bonding wuith the interviewer over the fact that they both play wow than I have of companies rejecting potential hires on the grounds that they play.

-m

why risk it? if it is not sure to be a positive thing i would like to keep it away from interviewers

extreme example that holds no basis in reality: you are a mass murderer, maybe you let your interviewer know, maybe he is one too and you bond and you get the job yay ! but i guess it would go wrong, i dont see how, but there is a way

Assuming you have a choice, why would you want to work at such a blinkered company in the first place? Better to be honest from the outset to find out where you both stand.

With reference to your extreme example if the interviewer isn't also a mass murderer you probably wouldn't get the job and could probably expect a call from the cops in the not too distant future. If the interviewer survived the interview that is!

if you can pick and choose where you work thats a whole different game though.

you know im sure most people arent ashamed of playing games, just playing WoW haha

 

[Falke]

Again, since you have just said you played a Warhammer tournament that is a is quite public to a large audience (depending on size at times) you have just placed a sign on yourself that says "I like playing these type of games." Thus even a game like WoW would not be surprising to be on your hobby list. As said before and I will say it again. What is being touched is our Ego when it comes to RealID and that we think we are some kind of super elite famous person that would be stalked or harassed by thousands of people once they know our name. Again, we as a community have one heck of an Ego.

P.S. It would be very.....idiotic of people if they are surprised that you play WoW considering that Warhammer is another one of your hobbies. (A new Warhammer player myself, still building my army though, For the Empire!)

I feel like I'm talking in circles and it would make me frustrated and angry but I just can't be angry at Optimus Prime. This is a vicious world I live in...
Anyway I think the point I failed t make is that even this Warhammer entry is already a major problem for me. It has popped up in no less than two job interviws. Yes I did participate in a large public event (1996 by the way,I really had no idea how things would go) and if I could go back I most certainly would not participate again. In fact I would withdraw from all 8 tournaments I was in if that would get me of that one stupid list that is sitll online. Not because I'm ashamed but because it has caused valid real life trouble for me. Problems at getting jobs. And these people didn't know what Warhammer was, I was able to sell it as something like chess then asked. They would know what WoW is and there would be no way around this. So basicaly I'm still trying to get rid of a 14 year old entry in one silly local game tournament, maybe that helps you undestand how I would feel abotu Blizzard broadcasting my gaming habbits around the world. Also I'm not talking about possible problem but quite real ones that I actualy had so no one can convince me it won't be this bad. Once more, it is not for me to decide what I have to be ashamed about, it's society around me. I wouldn't mind telling people waht games I play but I do if it has negative impact on me earning my living.
As for the Facebook part... I have to agree with you. If you already broadcast everything about you on Facebook I wouldn't get what the problem is either. But then I don't use it.

 

[Gralian]

Oftentimes when i mention to people i play games or try to talk about some games i particularly enjoyed, an achievement-worthy moment in gaming, or about the story of a game, people always give me this weird look. My friends are aware of games for example, but they frown at me if i talk about it for more than ten seconds. So i have to put all of my hobby to the side and talk about how Spain won the world cup, or what was on the telly the night before, and how awesome the latest movie is. They particularly screw their face up if i start going on about wow.

Now that's friends. Could you imagine the reaction of co-workers, or dare i say, your boss? Their first impression of you wouldn't be very good. And as for Funk's comment on people not avoiding gamers as employees, employers do sometimes look you up on facebook and stuff to check your interests and all sorts. If they googled your name and saw you were Faywen the level 80 Archdruid in Azeroth with epic gear, i don't think they'd be too thrilled. At the very least, they'd get the wrong idea about you. Which leads me on to the next point.

Part of the reason, from the reaction i got, was people not wanting their friends and colleagues etc to know they played female characters. Sounds silly, right? Well the stereotype of people who choose to play the opposite gender is that they're some kind of crossdresser who pretends to be female, like a trap. No-one i know would ever admit to having a female avatar, simply because of that stigma. I don't know if it would be possible to change your avatar on the forum to any character (say you have three, night elf orc and human, you could pick the orc male) or much about the forum features because i don't frequent there, so i apologise if i got that bit wrong or am misinformed.

My final point about this is not that 'oh noes my real name i'm not safe!11", but that it's taking away our freedom of anonymity. It was no longer a choice, it was a requirement. Freedom of anonymity is one of the many things we take for granted - and value - on the internet, and when that is stripped from you, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be outcry. It's not the process itself, it's the god damn principle. It's not the process itself, it's the implications behind it. The fact it's now an obligation. It's like a governing body passing a law that you all suddenly have to obey when you were used to a different way of life. People feel they had their right to remain anonymous taken away from them.

 

[MaltesePigeon]

I'm not ashamed to play WoW. I love my blood elf paladin and my tauren druid. Hell I even like my human warrior, Melgibbons, that I made after the last article on RealID. He ran around Stormwind yelling, "I fling poo at racists!" until I was sure that everyone on my server had him on their ignore list.

They are all characters that I created separate from myself and each other. I don't ask friends of my lvl 80 pally to run my lvl 51 druid through dungeons. It's about roleplaying. I don't want my boss (currently unemployed) knowing that I play WoW because he might actually play it and want to play with me. I don't want my escapism shattered by someone asking me if I finished the tps reports!

 

[neuran]

Personally, I think the majority of people would be unaffected by the RealID change, however, how many is too many? I think that the number of people being affected, whilst probably quite low, is too many to justify it. Also I'm willing to bet there's a huge bunch of kid's accounts that don't have parental control on, and won't be aware of their mistakes until later on. (Yeah, it's a "think of the kids" argument, but not while they are kids )

I admit I have googled myself, under my various internet names, and cringed at some of the things I wrote, even though I thought it was good at the time.

However it WOULD affect my life. I have a relative, who does google my name and main internet pseudonym from time to time, to find out what I'm up to.
This brings me to the WoW point. A long, long time ago this particular relative and I had a largish argument, of which they really rather disagreed with me playing WoW AT ALL.
Long story short I had the following choices:
1. Not play
2. Play, but hide it
3. Play, get found out, and get several of my privileges revoked (or possibly kicked out of the house).

I chose 2. I am a semiactive poster on the forums I frequent (only just started frequenting these ones though), and was basically forced to re-register under one of my WoW's char names lest I get "discovered" and have yet another argument.
These days, seeing as I live in my own house, the consequences would be that I would not get along with segments of my own family any more (for lying and playing WoW lol). As long as my gaming habits aren't omnipresent, it's all good.
RealID takes that choice of anonymity I need to get along with people I meet regularly, which means no more trying to assist other WoWers in the forums, or bantering in offtopic. Whilst it isn't a great loss it is still a loss.

I _want_ to be open about my gaming habits, but there are just people who don't want to listen. As it stood, the person KNEW I was a gamer, they know I'm responsible, but couldn't understand someone who would pay monthly for a game, and then spend a fair chunk of time playing it. (My family's TV hours aren't that different from my gaming hours. Work that one out)
Whilst my job is the kind littered with gamers, others aren't. Sometimes it's easier to make a small sacrifice (not admitting to something) to avoid day-to-day grief. I think a lot of geeky types live in this limbo.

 

[neuran]

Oftentimes when i mention to people i play games or try to talk about some games [..] people always give me this weird look. My friends are aware of games for example, but they frown at me if i talk about it for more than ten seconds.

Yeah, had that before. Usually relatives though, for me. One way of getting them back is to do the disinterest right back at them if they go into too much detail over their interest. Some people twig, lol.
What's more annoying is if someone asks about the details about your day, and then cuts you off partway through. You asked, and then asked for more! Whaddya expect! XD.

 

[Negatempest]

I feel like I'm talking in circles and it would make me frustrated and angry but I just can't be angry at Optimus Prime. This is a vicious world I live in...
Anyway I think the point I failed t make is that even this Warhammer entry is already a major problem for me. It has popped up in no less than two job interviws. Yes I did participate in a large public event (1996 by the way,I really had no idea how things would go) and if I could go back I most certainly would not participate again. In fact I would withdraw from all 8 tournaments I was in if that would get me of that one stupid list that is sitll online. Not because I'm ashamed but because it has caused valid real life trouble for me. Problems at getting jobs. And these people didn't know what Warhammer was, I was able to sell it as something like chess then asked. They would know what WoW is and there would be no way around this. So basicaly I'm still trying to get rid of a 14 year old entry in one silly local game tournament, maybe that helps you undestand how I would feel abotu Blizzard broadcasting my gaming habbits around the world. Also I'm not talking about possible problem but quite real ones that I actualy had so no one can convince me it won't be this bad. Once more, it is not for me to decide what I have to be ashamed about, it's society around me. I wouldn't mind telling people waht games I play but I do if it has negative impact on me earning my living.
As for the Facebook part... I have to agree with you. If you already broadcast everything about you on Facebook I wouldn't get what the problem is either. But then I don't use it.

See, now that you have explained about the Warhammer bit, it makes ALOT more sense now than it did before. But I will say that quite frankly, personal hobbies should never be discussed by interviewers. (Unless it is not illegal in the area you live in) It is a severe violation of personal space by the interviewer. If I ever heard the question, "Do you collect Star Wars items?" I'd would tell them, "That is not a question I will answer." I don't, but that isn't something you ask.

 

[TheBaron87]

Honestly, I'd rather gaming go back to relative obscurity. While dealing with prejudice is certainly not the ideal situation, I'd much rather have that than gaming becoming the next Hollywood (which, sadly, it already has). I don't WANT to be part of a society that can do such horrible things to other people for such irrational reasons as their entertainment preferences. Even if you manage to get this crappy society to accept gaming, you're not actually fixing anything. They're just going to find something else to scapegoat. For the last decade or so I've been really jealous of D&D and tabletop game players because they've managed to keep their hobby small and niche and don't have the droves of outsiders flooding in and overrunning their market.

I would've preferred having to keep my hobby a secret if it meant that we still got decent games at an acceptable rate instead of this Hollywood mainstream garbage up to our necks, and a community that knew what the hell they were talking about and could actually cope with criticism.

 

[CitySquirrel]

I'm sure in the 150 plus comments someone else has said this, but I feel that, when it comes to employers and coworkers, being known to be a gamer can cause people to not take you seriously and therefore can hurt your career. I'll by your argument when it comes to friends and family, but when it comes to the workplace, what one does with ones spare time should be private.

 

[IanPrice]

Hat's off to you, John Funk. Oh hey, look at that - my real name's been on my Escapist account all along, right there linked to facebook.

The fan community blow-up over RealID was a self-fulfilling prophecy, a closed loop, and the reason we can't have nice things.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Don't forget certain companies won't hire you if your a known WoW player, and women/men/signifigant others are crazy on the BEST of days.

What the fuck? Isn't discrimination like that illegal?

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

The truth is, when I was in high school if people played video games few of them ever spoke about it (I was more up front about it, but then again I loved my free FF7 T-shirt)fast forward a decade and I'm subbing in a classroom and a group of students are casually talking about playing MW2, and these are kids of a wide variety of social cliques (a Cheerleader, a hippie, a jock, and stoner among them). I had to keep myself from jumping in and talking about my favorite sniper spots with them (not out of shame, more out of professionalism). When I was in high school that would have never happened.

It's slow in coming Funk, but it's coming nevertheless.

Yeah but MW2 is like the Avatar of gaming. Talking about it is hardly makes you a gamer, just like talking about Avatar hardly makes you a movie buff.