RealID linkspam.

I should really be doing useful stuff here like, yanno, cleaning up the layout and what-not but no, I’m going to post a linkspam round-up about RealID. Because that’s how I roll (and I’m sure my Buzz followers are sick of seeing these links).

It’s worth noting that because of the subject matter, many of these links may contain potentially triggering content, particularly around stalking and harassment.

Edit 10/07:

In light of Blizzard’s announcement that they won’t be going ahead with implementing RealID on their forums, I’m officially retiring (i.e. will no longer be adding new content to) this post. (Phew.) There are still a lot more great articles and posts on there on the subject, but I’m sure everyone’s a bit RealID’d out by now, so I’ll let y’all get back to killing your internet dragons for a while instead.

Huge Post Is Huge: Blues. News outlets, trade media and related. Direct fallout. Personal stories and commentary. Pro-RealID posts. Security flaws in RealID. Conspiracy theories. Rumours of dissent at Blizzard. Opting-out of RealID. Debunking.

Blues

Battle.net: Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to Forums

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting.

WoW Europe: Battle.net Update: Upcoming Forum Changes

We have been planning this change for a very long time. During this time, we have thought ahead about the scope and impact of this change and predicted that many people would no longer wish to post in the forums after this change goes live. We are fine with that, because we want to change these forums dramatically in a positive and more constructive direction.

WoW Europe: Battle.net Update: Upcoming Forum Changes

A lot of legitimate and understandable concerns are being raised. It would be hard for myself or any caring individual to not empathise with the fears and concerns people have. But amidst these concerns there is also a bit of something going on that I can’t easily describe with other words, but I’ll try.

WoW Europe: Battle.net Update: Upcoming Forum Changes

We want you to know we are very much aware of the range of reactions being displayed here. We’re very much aware of the feedback being given. We’re listening and carefully considering everything being said. Posting in this thread is not a waste of time, the feedback is being gathered and delivered. You may choose not to believe it, but we do greatly appreciate it when you take the time to give us your constructive thoughts and reactions.

WoW US: Battle.net Update: Upcoming Changes to Forums

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature -www.battle.net/realid/ , a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

News outlets, trade media and related

ABC News: Bye-Bye Trolls? Blizzard Forums to Use Real Names

Associated Press content, duplicated in a few places.

Activision Blizzard Inc.’s move to require people to use their real names if they want to post messages in online forums for games is the latest sign that online anonymity is falling out of favor with many companies.

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

About.com: Blizzard: Real Names, Real Risks

If Activision Blizzard is really that concerned about player security, why incorporate changes that put players directly in harm’s way? Perhaps the real motive behind their Real ID program and real name forum posts is to further their marketing plans, which includes the roll out of in-game advertising to Battle.net players, including:

“…the display of other similar in-game objects, which are downloaded temporarily to your personal computer and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Massive may collect some information about the game and the advertisements delivered to you.“

Ars Technica: Blizzard: post about StarCraft 2? Use your real name

The reaction to this news from the community has been overwhelmingly negative. “And what’s to stop random people from reading, disliking your ideas, and trying to find out all your information based on your name just so they can stalk/harass you?” one gamer asked. “You’re delusional if you think this is a good idea.”

Australian Gamer: Blizzard decide to give out subscribers’ real names

The WoW (and Starcraft II) community has cried WTF so loudly that if you log onto the forum right now you can still hear “eff… eff… efff…” echoing. It’s currently sitting at the top of social news website Reddit.

The reasons this is a bad idea are myriad but essentially come down to this: never share your real life information on the internet.

AusGamers: Blizzard Switching Forums to Real ID System

I might always display my full, real-life name in forums and as my online handle, but that’s mychoice. Blizzard are removing any choice for how you’re known online, by shifting their forums to the Real ID system, meaning your online handles will now be officially replaced with your real, full name, post-Cataclysm launch.

BBC: World of Warcraft maker to end anonymous forum logins

The online community was swift to respond, with almost a thousand replies in less than 24 hours; the majority of which expressed their displeasure at the move.

“I can’t even begin to fathom why you would do this”, posted one user, while another wrote that it seems “like someone who likes Facebook came up with it, while being blissfully unaware that an awful lot of people deliberately avoid Facebook”.

CBC: World of Warcraft moves to slay forum trolls

“People are up in arms because their real name is going to be displayed in the forums,” one commenter said. “This means that someone could type your name into Google and suddenly all your forum posts will be displayed. It means that prospective employers can read all your forum posts before they bring you in for an interview.”

Some also said the move wasn’t being made to clean up conversations but rather to let Activision/Blizzard create a social network and monetize people’s personal information, similar to how Facebook sells targeted advertising

Center for Democracy & Technology: Blizzard Looks To Chill Forum Speech with Real ID

Real-name use brings real-world consequences: At the end of 2009, there were over 11 million active WoW players, many of whom play over 30 hours a week. In-game competitions can get heated, and relationships between players sometimes go sour – does Blizzard really want players’ in-game names to be associated with their users’ real names in a public and searchable fashion and make it that much easier to take in-game drama into the real world?

The Consumerist: You Want Your Real Name Publicly Associated With Your World Of Warcraft Account, Right?

If you want to use certain official World of Warcraft forums, you’re going to have to come out. That is, you’re going to have to make your real full name visible on forums. No, not your character name: your real name. No, it’s not a severely delayed April Fool’s joke. And no, Blizzard, the company behind the game, doesn’t seem to care that their players like to post on forums but also might have problems with stalkers or identity theft, and also occasionally seek gainful employment.

The reason for the change is good old-fashioned trolling. Oh, Internet.

Crazy Gamer News: Blizzard’s Real ID Removes Anonymity From Their Forums

Real IDs on forums isn’t going to bring the community together. Hell, it may cause people to shy away from using the community section ever, or at all. The WoW forums are well known for flame wars and trolling, I don’t see that changing any time in the future. More than likely, they will have more problems, especially if something breaks down to personal harassment. Especially with the ability to search for a person’s name online. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until we see “World of Warcraft forum altercation destroys teen’s life.” on the news somewhere.

CVG: Fans rage over Blizzard forum plans

The internet is raging this afternoon over Blizzard’s plans to put World of Warcraft users’ real names on their official forum posts. The bastards.

Daily Mail: Row as World of Warcraft gamers are forced to use their real names in forums

Users of online game World of Warcraft have reacted furiously to plans by its developers to force them to post comments using their real names.

Blizzard, the game’s publisher, says the move is intended to stop the game’s forums being used purely to argue.

Thousands of gamers responded angrily to the planned changes within hours of the announcement taking place saying that the rule change.

Many worry that their name being made public could affect their employment prospects or or lead to stalking in the real world.

EuroGamer: Blizzard forums to require real names

Although popularised by Facebook, Blizzard’s move away from anonymity is unprecedented in gaming, and still extremely rare in the general area of internet community management. There’s no doubt it’s brave, but will it have the desired effect on its community, or kill it altogether? Does it pose a threat to the protection of your privacy or identity?

Examiner National: World of Warcraft Players WoWed by Blizzard’s REALID announcement

Deciding to allow players to chat with their friends in-game is one thing, but requiring subscribers to reveal their real-life identities runs the risk of alienating an extremely active and vocal gaming community.

Only time can tell as players take a deeper look into Blizzard’s Privacy Policy as they determine if maybe this is only a sign that Activision Blizzard has lost touch with their player base and is now more focused on generating profits than creating great games.

Examiner National: Blizzard’s Real ID is less than well received

While Blizzard is arguing that this practice will make it increasingly difficult for online flamers, trolls, spammers and gold farmers to conduct business under their regular modus operandi, it is still an unsettling prospect for many WoW players as well as the greater Blizzard community. After all, it begs the question of personal security if anyone can simply be looked up. No doubt the security measures would prove invaluable, but in the unlikely event a player, stricken by a relatively painful bout of being a sore loser were to seek real-life revenge, it would simply become another case of video games encouraging violence in reality.

GameFocus: Blizzard To Kill Anonymity On Forums

The move is intended to combat the flame wars and trolling that’s commonly found there as well as help push the forums into a more social-networking direction.

It will be interesting to see how the fans respond to this as Blizzard is basically trading in some measure of it’s participants privacy to help police its forums.

Gamespy: Blizzard to Require Real Names on Official Forums

The Blizzard post immediately generated an epic thread (56 pages and counting) of posts full of shock and fury. One poster, Whlplshr, echoed the sentiments of many others when he stated: “Wow. Even as someone who hates the fact that these forums are a joke and overrun with trolls and morons.. I can’t stress enough how terrible a solution this is. I don’t want my real name out there. I’m sure that many people who are not trolls and just want to have civil conversation will also not want their real name out there.”

Inc Gamers: Blizzard Going Too Far With Real ID?

But what about gamers who do not care about Facebook? I know that I would not waste my time messing about on a personal Facebook page to have 1000 so called ‘friends’ look at what I was doing. Gamers are internet savvy; they know how to keep the people they care about close without having to open up their personal life to the world. Blizzard has stated the introduction of Facebook will entice more casual gamers to its games so there is money to be made, but at what expense to the already massive fanbase Blizzard enjoys?

ITWorld: Blizzard to share your name with angry video game nerds

Then there are the practical questions: what if you change your name? There’s apparently no way to change your “real name” in your Blizzard profile. And while long-time, loyal Blizzard customers are ‘stuck’ with whatever they entered for their real name months or years ago, new players come into the system knowing full well that whatever they list as their real name will be displayed, and can adjust accordingly. Lastly, people anticipate Blizzard using name changes as yet another cash cow; that is, that Blizzard will offer a real name change as a paid service.

Joystiq: Your real name to appear on Blizzard’s official forums

Blizzard’s eating its own dog food, too — its community representatives, previously known only by aliases, will also be posting under their real names. Additionally, forum posts will be subject to a new ranking system, replies to forum threads will be grouped, and Blizzard posters will be able to “broadcast” messages out to everyone on the game’s forums.

Kotaku: Blizzard Forums Will Soon Display Your Real Name

It may go against everything internet forum posters believe in, but it strikes me as an amazingly simple and effective solution to a problem that’s been around for years, and I’m not just talking the flaming and grief.

I’ve been playing MMO games for more than a decade now. I spent a good couple of years in EverQuest, interacting with the same people every day, yet I don’t know any of them. They were my closest friends at the time, and they’ve all completely disappeared from my life now that I don’t play anymore. This change could keep that from happening to Blizzard fans.

Kotaku: Blizzard’s Real Name Forum Policy Has Fans In An Uproar

Many female players voice similar concerns. They talk of the dangers of being a woman on the internet, the chance of becoming the target of a crazed stalker, and the fact that from a young age, women are conditioned to guard their personal information in regards to the internet.

Massivley: The Daily Grind: Real ID — Do we finally have our WoW killer?

Given the fact that the most gamers cut their teeth on internet security lessons, this announcement was met with a predictable storm of protest. It can be argued that it’s a pretty short leap from someone’s real name to their forum posts to their game name/account information, even if they choose not to link their character names directly — and that’s treading in dangerous territory. Everyone either has a horror story or has heard one.

A huge number of the over 13,000 forum posts are variations of “See ya”, including many popularMMO bloggers.

Massivley: Anti-Aliased: What’s in a name

Beyond that, our taken names are usually more unique than our real names. This has the added bonus of allowing us to quickly identify one another with zero confusion. Instead of saying “Hey, there’s Bill!” and having your friends say “Bill who?”, you can say “Hey, there’s Lightshadow!” and everyone’s minds instantly focus on Lightshadow. They remember the epic time he saved your raid by off-tanking. Heck, I have industry contacts I call by their usernames, simply because those names stick out in my mind quicker than their real names.

MaximumPC: Blizzard Aims Gun at Foot, Pulls Trigger – Real Name-Requiring Forum System Comes Out

Makes enough sense at first glance, right? Look closer, though, and you’ll realize that Blizzard’s missing so many points that anyone not hiding behind a giant, red bull’s-eye probably oughta duck. Foremost, there’s the issue of potential identity theft or other forms of harassment. In this day and age, odds are, if you’ve got someone’s name, you’ll find a treasure trove of personal information waiting for you on Google. Also, in these games, you are your handle. You are your character. Why play an MMO if not to become part of another reality – live another life? Worst case scenario, having your real name attached to your character could even change how you act in-game.

MMORPG: Player Perspectives: A Pain in the RealID

RealID isn’t terrible, and my aim isn’t to encourage players to never use it. The problem is that RealID is poorly implemented. There are no controls to manage your RealID; you can’t even disable it unless you use parental controls. You can’t set your real name to display as a fictional moniker instead; you can’t choose to not show up on the ‘Friends of Friends’ lists; you can’t choose to refuse RealID requests automatically. There is no ‘turning off’ RealID. A player’s only choice is to participate, thereby accepting all the above concerns, or to not participate at all.

MSNBC: ‘WOW’ players angry over plan to use real names

That’s right, a company that has made its fortunes off a game that encourages players to adopt fake identities and spend vast amounts of their time in a fake world has decided it wants players to get real.

Needless to say, the resounding response has been: WTF?

MTV Multiplayer: Blizzard Cracks Down On Anonymity In Official Forums

However you feel about Real ID, the changes are happening and Blizzard didn’t start their new thread to ask permission. If you don’t like the world knowing your name and do enjoy discussing “StarCraft 2,” though, this might be a sad day for you.

News.com.au:  Starcraft II gamers forced to use real names in Blizzard forums

Real ID, Blizzard’s new system, will require users to post under their real first and last name.

Within 24 hours, more than a thousand people had responded on Blizzard’s forums to the move, the majority of them expressing displeasure with the new rule.

Gamers are often reluctant to reveal personal details because, although the online arguments rarely spill into the real world, some fear it could become more common if their identities are public.

PCGamer (UK): Why Blizzard’s new forum plan is an epic fail

The gamers that live and breathe their service, at every level, from the bottom, to the super-hardcore pro-gamers, simply don’t identify themselves by their real name when they play. They live by their identity or handle. Battle.net isn’t a social network. It’s a fight club.

PC Mag: Blizzard to Require Real Names to Be Used in Forums

Naturally, the announcement has provoked controversy, with pages and pages of posts either supporting or criticizing the announcement. In part, that may be because the Real ID program was (and still is, according to site) positioned as a voluntary enhancement to posting and interacting with other gamers across the various Blizzard properties.

The Register: Blizzard exposes real names on WoW forums

As one Reg reader says: ” So every man, woman and child who plays World of Warcraft or the upcoming Starcraft 2 will only be able to post on their forums if they’re perfectly happy for anyone who may want to know what their name is. The mind boggles at the security implications from social engineering passwords, email addresses and account names or even safety if people  have ex partners or stalkers etc. And then there’s the idiots who you meet in the games themselves who can now take their abuse to real life with just a little googling and rare name or background info.”

TechEYE.net: Blizzard forces users to show real names: Internet security they have heard of it

There are also gamers who are completely barking and the last thing you want is for them to have your real name.  Such types get so cross if you kill their character that they are likely to track you down and show up at your place with a real gun.

There are also fears that employers might do searches on real names to find out how much you spend online. All up it is being considered truly daft and will cause more trouble than it is worth. Blizzard, however, does not seem to see the problem.

USA Today: ‘WoW’ studio Blizzard to require real names on forums

At the time of this post’s publishing, a separate thread on theWorld of Warcraft forums has generated over 1,100 pages of comments, while the Battle.net post hosts an additional 57 pages of remarks from users. The majority of comments have blasted Blizzard over privacy issues.

“Anonymity is double-edged blade, yes, but I assure you this will not stop people from flaming/trolling the forums, not even close. All it does is invade my privacy,” reads a comment from user Luph on the WoW forum thread.

Voodoo Extreme: Is Blizzard’s Real ID Safe, Or A Playground For Sexual Deviants?

So dig it…

1. You have to share your World of Warcraft login e-mail address with someone you want to be “friends” with (even though Blizzard has said many times never to share this information with anyone, including friends).
2. The system shows your legal name (or at least the name that registered the account) to your “friend”.
3. Blizzard says this should only be done with people you trust with this information, however if your “friend” becomes friends with someone you don’t know, that person can see your full legal name as well now, something you didn’t agree to share (hence why they aren’t a friend) – This feature is called Friends of Friend, it is not optional currently.

The Wall Street Journal: Real Names Rile Online Warlocks and Wizards

The new policy caused some Blizzard game customers to experience a fury and hurt that many likely hadn’t suffered since their last siege on a castle in World of Warcraft. In Blizzard’s discussion forums, game players said the policy would lead to everything from identity theft to spam to stalking by “Internet crazies.” One poster said he was worried that a new girlfriend will could discover his “closet-gamer habit” by Googling his real name.

“This is disgusting, Blizzard, and a violation of our privacy rights,” said one poster.

Direct fallout

Micah Whipple a.k.a. Bashiok soars in google popularity

Given the fact that he gave his identity willingly, many people took advantage and reposted them in sites such as WoWRiot and even 4chan. Since then there have been rumors of mail/message spamming in both online accounts and personal communication devices, and even having pizza delivery men deliver pizza to their house that they did not order (a classic internet prank), The profile page for Micah Whipple (www.facebook.com/micah.whipple) have suspiciously been deleted as well.

RealID Changes; The Very Real Ease of Stalking In The Internet Age.

With just his first and last name and his wow toon’s name, I was able to find his twitter, facebook, home address, home phone number, work address, work phone number and parent’s names. The whole process took about 20 minutes. I immediately called the house, but no one was home. I sat on the idea of calling his work for a bit, and eventually decided to do so (he did ask for it).

Real Names on the Official Forums [New REAL ID function]

So Blizzard are now making it so instead of showing your character on those forums, it’ll instead show your real name with the option of attaching your char name too it (no option of not showing your real name).

Now I think it’s fairly safe to say that this is perhaps the dumbest idea that anyone has ever had ever.

To alleviate people’s concerns, Blizzard employee Bashiok decided to say his real name on the forums, his real name is Micah Whipple

What’s in a name?

Big warnings on this one; for the entire premise of the site and also for misogynist language.

All information posted on this site is PUBLICLY AVAILABLE information found online starting with only knowing a first and last name. Which is actually less than you’ll have to go by if you try finding out about someone from World of Warcraft, since in-game you may have met them before any know information such as what state they live in, and the FULL NAMES of ALL of their realID friends.

Personal stories and commentary

Altered Deals: Yet another RealID Essay

It is another division in the game based on what you are willing to “pay.” When the Sparkle Ponies came out I largely didn’t care, but I knew it was another aspect of gameplay I wouldn’t experience unless I was willing to pay $25. Now I am having something I always had access to restricted unless I am willing to pay, but this time it isn’t money, but rather my identity. Just like a sparkle pony was not worth $25 to me, the privilege of posting on the official boards is not worth the price of my real name. The other big difference is instead of not having access to something I never had before unless I pay, this time I am having something removed unless I pay. It is like having the Barrens no longer playable unless you pay a toll.

And I Didn’t Even Catch Her Name…

Back in those days, I was a big fan of Livejournal. And I went to some random Livejournal community for new graduate students, and tried to make light of my situation by venting. I joked that I had shown up drunk for my very first seminar class of my PhD program (which, as I mentioned previously, wasn’t actually true). It made me laugh to think I could be that careless, and when I want to share a funny story, I always use artistic license and exagerrate a bit, if you hadn’t noticed. Making a joke out of the whole thing made Foucault look a little less terrifying to me. It helped me to downplay the severity of the situation in which I found myself by making it all into a big joke. And since I knew absolutely no one, and had no friends, I turned to this internet forum.

And for some stupid reason that I will never understand, I posted with my real name.

And now what?

I think it takes a little more than this though to get the PR department really worried. If some national media picks up this story and the reactions – and possibly some examples of players who have been stalked and harassed in reality – it will at least make them a little worried. They’ve worked hard on trying to make gaming into an accepted activity, a form of entertainment that all of the family can participate in, feeling safe and comfortable. It’s hard enough to build this image and they don’t need stains on it.

[Image] “And suddenly, /v/ understands completely why this is a bad idea.”

[Video] Angry Rant over WoW’s Real ID feature

An interesting experiment in online social forums

Whoa. No pseudonyms at all, all anonymity removed. They can actually do this because everything is linked to subscriptions to their games, so they can demand accurate billing information…and they have just announced that part of that billing information will be made public. There have been a lot of debates about privacy and anonymity on the internet, and here’s an actual exercise in testing the Penny Arcade theory by eliminating one of the parameters.

Anonymity, Intelligent Posting, and Trolls

First off, I do believe that anonymity is somewhat of an enabler for assholishness. The guy who calls you a nigger cunt fag jew is probably not going to say that to your face. However he was still an asshole before he was able to be anonymously profane. Or as Chastity put it (omg what’s his real name!?) It is a common misconception that trolling is caused by anonymity. It is not. It is caused by people being assholes. Anonymity removes some of the inhibitors which normally keep assholes in place. It’s virtual booze, which explains all the anger and sadness. Some people are troll drunks.

An Open Letter to Blizzard

We don’t want our friends to just be John Smith, or Jane Doe. That’s not the point. That’s not the point of what you’ve given us. What you have given us is an awesome, amazing, awe-inspiring game where we don’t have to be ourselves. Where we can pretend we are Kronk, gruff and oft-misunderstood orc warrior with an odd penchant for interior design. Where we can pretend we are Gisella, noble paladin of the Light and kidnapper of baby wolvar . Where we can forget about the real world, the real world’s problems and issues, the real world’s pressures and annoyances and just settle back and kill some internet dragons.

“An Open Letter to Blizzard,” or “It seems like everything I write online turns into a manifesto”

Mandatory Real IDs on the forums? As a student of computer science and being raised alongside the internet, I have come to respect that “real name” and “online” are two of the scariest things you can put together in a sentence. Even before the prevalence of social networking, search engines made it trivially easy to find out information about people. Any non-idiot knows that the world wide web WAS F’INGDESIGNED TO TURN SMALL PIECES OF INFORMATION INTO LARGE PIECES OF INFORMATION.

A Small Voice

Looking at what is coming with Real ID, I’m going to have to keep an ear to the ground, but from my rough figures of possible people who will actually quit WoW over this, is probably about a penny to every $10 that Blizzard/Activision makes, if that.

In the end, it means that me and two of my best friends are never playing WoW again.  I know this for sure. If 3 are never going back, that probably means more will follow suit.

As Real ID Oozes Forward, More People Lose

There will always be people who doesn’t care if others know their real name and who will continue to behave like an ass-hats regardless of what sort of information about them is made public.  And then there are those with names common enough that knowing their name tells gives you no information whatsoever, some percentage of whom are jerks. (I wonder if there is a correlation between having a common name and bad forum behavior?  Is somebody name John Smith more likely to mouth off?)

Blizzard Entertainment: A Whole New Level of Fail

Holding forum trolls accountable for being piss poor human beings in the first place by putting all our real names out there is not the answer. I also like the idea of holding people accountable for being jackasses on forums. However, putting everyone at risk to do so is not acceptible. This is a big giant freaking scary world we live in, with all sorts of nutzo people in it. There are bound to be a number of them playing Blizzard’s games, and RealID is another example of the Facebook flaw.

[Discussion] Blizzard has officially lost its mind. All official forums will require use of your real name

Blizzard is heading right towards their first privacy PR disaster

Social networks using real names can work, but the history of Facebook shows that one fundamental rule for these networks is that you can’t have people signing up with some level of presumption of privacy, and then withdraw that privacy protection later. Thus it would be okay for Blizzard to lets say release their next MMO game with a RealID system and inform everybody that their real name will be used in that game. It is *not* okay to let people play for nearly 6 years under anonymity, and then strip that anonymity away.

Blizzard likes Farmville, too bad we are the sheep

Blizzard is, in my opinion, attempting to overcome the social stigma in this country against gaming and gamers in general. They are doing this by slowly (though not slowly enough, some of the sheep are noticing) becoming one with social media.

That is why they partnered with Facebook.

That is why there are IPhone apps.

That’s why Ozzy played Blizzcon.

That is why Mr. T is still on my television tossing mohawk grenades, and why William Shatner is casting chain lighting.

That, my friends, does not come free.

Blizzard is paying good money to try to make its games more and more mainstream.

How do they see that investment paying off?

Blizzard sez, “Hey, that guy who killed you…”

Blizzard announced via their forums today that you’ll no longer have to go through a long and arduous procedure to stalk your WoW enemies and virtual love kittens in real life. They’ll make it that much easier for you by giving you their real names on the forums. That’s right, with the help of Battle.net’s RealID feature you can find that guy who sold you that wicked glowing axe, which you later found to be way over priced, and track him down on the forums. After you get his name, it should be a Google search or two away from getting his home address, the home address of his dentist, love slave, and fishing buddies, and anything else you might want to know before finding him, and doing unheard of horrors to him in real life.

Blizzard’s Real ID Shenanigans

The time/resource battle between responsible users and griefers in any unmoderated online community is already weighted in favor of the griefers. Griefers, by definition, have less concern for their reputations and their valuable time than responsible users do. For a responsible user, time spent working through channels to have griefers dealt with is time thoroughly wasted. For griefers, time spent causing frustration to others is the entire point of the exercise. Making public revelation of real names required for posting on the Blizzard forums strikes me as simply giving stalkers and griefers a brand-new shiny toy to screw around with.

Blizzard’s RealID: The good, the bad and the stupid

As if that weren’t enough to make you feel leery about the system, here’s another doozy: Blizzard’s own employees don’t like it! Numerous reports have now surfaced of employees having their say against the system being implemented by their upper management.  Many Blizzard employees will no longer be seen posting on their own official forums, either as their Blizzard or private accounts, because their names will be easily visible.  It only takes a quick Google search to find their LinkedIn or FaceBook profiles, leading to the revelation of even more private information.

Blizzard Wants The World To Know Your Name

This is an important issue, because names carry markers of gender, ethnicity and real-world relationships that may be irrelevant to someone’s game play, but open up the possibility of harassment. It also makes it easier for harassers to follow people beyond the internet, making it a matter of personal safety. I find Blizzard’s decision unfortunate in every possible way. Forcing people to reveal personal details is no substitute for firm and consistent moderation, and will raise the barrier to entry of community participation.

Blizz, kindly keep the real world where it belongs, not in my video games.

Long have I played this game, and even though I always knew Blizzard was a company I always considered them as doing things in the best interests of their clients. Last night though I found myself unable to find any joy in playing.

Three times I logged in, and not once did it last longer than  a few minutes.

The real world kept encroaching on my fun time.

Blog-O-Steria: Just a Few Dozen Reasons…

Dear Blizzard,

Below are 30+ reasons to reconsider your decision about Real ID and it’s implementation within your forums.

All of them don’t necessarily agree with each other.  Some of the discourse has been a little nasty, but for the most part?  There is a ton of healthy debate going on.  Good, old-fashioned anonymous debate.

I’m sure that some of these bloggers wouldn’t want to be lumped into the same mix as your regular forum posters, but for the most part I believe they share this common thread –  the majority of these passionate gamers wouldn’t feel comfortable making posts or participating in these conversations if there wasn’t some level of anonymity.

[Discussion] But my name really is Deathblood Blackaxe

Changing My Name

I know Blizzard isn’t wild about changing the billing name on an account to try and curb account selling, but really? What if someone takes over an account and just uses game cards? Um, I think I’ve just seen through your crazy defense system. Yes, it’s a potential hassle that you couldn’t auto bill to a credit card, but I really don’t think it would be that big of a deal.

Dear Blizzard, I Second This.

And you know all those facebook games that you wanna imitate Bliz?  I play them – yes I do.  I usually play them till level 40ish [a week] and then I quit.  And I have never spent a single dime on any of them.

Did Blizzard just miss to do a reality check?

They may have thought this over, but not long enough. And couldn’t they have… like asked us?

Like Hatch points out, this is a very effective way of driving out every intelligent adult from the forums. If you don’t want your future bosses to know that you’re deeply involved in gaming, you’d better stay away. If you’ve ever been stalked or treated badly, for instance for being a female, you have no right to express your opinions in the forums anymore.

[Poll] Do you want RealID and your real-life first and last name to be published with every post you make on WoW/Battle.net forums?

Failing in trying not to think about it

And another voice says: it’s too late. Because what they’ve done is to break the illusion about that you’re slipping into a fantasy world where everything is possible, where you’re putting on another costume and doing something completely different to your everyday life, that no one else knows anything about. An alternative world.

Fail of the Century

I’m not a paranoid hatstand type hiding out in the mountains waiting for the end of the world while I stockpile guns (well, I am in the mountains) but this whole WE MUST KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE ON THE INTARWEBZ!!!! really, really, really, REALLY fucking annoys me.

It’s a game. Or, it’s this blog. It’s something I do in my spare time that has NO relation to my professional or a large part of my personal life and I see no freaking reason why everything should be made public when it’s not my explicit there-and-then decision to share said info.

From the Bad Moves Dept.

In related news: Facebook stalking and trolling mysteriously expected to go up in August.

[Comic] The Grim Curriculum

Fucking Penny Arcade. This is all your fault you unfunny jerks. Fuck you and the Greater Bullshit Theory you rode in on. Okay okay; this post is not for editorialising shut up Dee blah blah.

I Had a Dream

Blizzard’s RealID isn’t the end of the world, but neither is it wise.  It is a step away from my dream of a meritocratic community and an interesting game world.  It is yet another piece of the puzzle of the bizarre corporatocracy in our fraying country, and a look at the arrogant mindset of those who make the rules and who have the money.  The strangest part of all this isn’t that Blizzard is doing this, it’s that they honestly don’t seem to understand the implications.

Or, perhaps the scariest part is that they do understand the implications, and are simply seeking to make a buck, and think the risk is worth the reward.

The interesting experiment is already getting interesting

Their player base is already enriched for the competitive male gamer element, i.e.arrogant jerks. I’ve heard from and read about many women who are very careful to hide their sex while online, because they know exactly what kind of harassment they will get. Look at the cases of Kathy Sierra and Jill Filipovic for perfect examples of what to expect. There are some prominent gay guilds on WoW, too — their members may not appreciate being suddenly outed. Sure, it may reduce some of the flood of trollishness online at their forums…by transferring it offline, to real world abuse of anyone who doesn’t fit the smugly heteronormative line of the testosterone-addled.

In which Blizzard drinks the realID coolaid

I’m just puzzled at Blizzard taking the step from, “Of course you will be able to control who sees your realID,” to “we changed our minds and decided that anyone who browses forums should see it.” I presume forums will definitely be easier to moderate when no one posts to them.

Lost Faith

I personally thought that Blizzard cared about this game and well, this has shaken the community. A lot of people feel alienated, using your real name online is a privacy risk. Sure, some people do it, at their own risk, but when you sign a privacy contract, then they say they’ll give up your personal details that easily because of some other contract, guess that makes the internet dragons seem a little less worth the £9 a month.

Might as well

It’s kind of strange to notice that the community that has been non-existing so far is suddenly very much united and active. It’s kind of like the Japanese before the Mongol invasion in the ancient times: warring and shattered society only to unify against a common enemy. Like Finns before the start of the Second World War: class struggle flowing through the society, creating more devastation than progress, only to beat the invading, vastly superior might of Soviet Union back in a desperate struggle.

Talk about David and Goliath. This time David has about 12 million pebbles to shoot, though.

Moving On

I’m not going to quit the game, even to send some kind of message, because I still like the game. The game is fine. I keep finding more fun things to do in the game, increasingly with Cassie, and I’m looking forward to what the future may bring in Cataclysm.

I reserve the right, however, to change my mind if and when Blizzard continues to show a lack of respect for the privacy of it’s customers.

News Filter: The Real ID Thread Will Never End

And as expected, some people think that everyone else is overreacting. And the first group thinks they are being dismissed out of hand. And really, no one is actually talking to one another. Just like the WoW Forums really.

Planning for a Cataclysm

Going much further back, and using nothing but my name and some clues about what city I live in, and probably a story about where I’d lived in the past, I had somebody post a link to my real street address, and threaten to come over to my house and kill my son because I love bacon.

Seriously. Blizzard. Take a step back and get a grip on reality. This is a bad idea.

The Point of RealID and How to Stop It.

Blizzard’s strategy in at least the last five years have been in large part trying to recreate their success with Starcraft in South Korea in other regions (most notably China and United States). China’s a bit off topic, so I’ll skip it. Starcraft took the form of competitive sports in South Korea, so Blizzard tried to push WoW arena as a competitive sport when WoW attained the popularity potential in the US. Even Blizzcon is marketed as a pop culture spectacle instead of the usual “convention-style” marketing.

What Blizzard didn’t anticipate fully was just how deep the cultural trench against video games is (it being a thing for young boys to play in America and nothing more despite all evidence to the contrary). Even though millions of Americans were playing WoW, not enough were openly discussing and mindlessly praising WoW to truly bring it into the mainstream, often due to players’ fears they would be looked down upon, or even jeopardizing their social life and careers.

Portals to Real-Rage

Blizzard, I want you to know, that I’m not angry, just disappointed. Apart from, y’know, the bit about being really really angry! Seriously Blizzard: What The Fuck? You were always the one company out there that I not only respected and admired, but actually liked. Your work is fantastic, your games are works of art beyond comparison, and throughout it all you’ve kept a sense of being a fun, interesting and friendly bunch of people. And then you screwed us.

Privacy “creep”: Real ID on the Forums.

In a way, I feel like the situation with the quality of the posts on the forums is one of Blizzard’s own making by allowing posts by character name.  In most forum environments, you choose one handle.  That forum handle is your only identifier, and you don’t get an alternate identity.  No posting on a “level 1 alt”.  No pretending to be someone else posting in the same thread to agree with your own character.

An obvious solution to trolls is to simply give each person a unique handle, as other forums do.  People are likely  to speak respectfully if there is some form of accountability.  Someone who has the same “name” day in, day out, is not “anonymous”, and will gain a reputation for good or bad posts.

Privacy matters for constructive posters, not trolls

• Because I have an uncommon/unique name, where it would only take 2 seconds on a google search to find me.
• Because I worked so hard to maintain my privacy over YEARS of being a semi-public figure, and I don’t even have a face book account because I think it is too invasive of people’s privacy.
• Because people on the forums don’t always like me and make posts like this at least once a year.I’m not really sure I want to give my phone number, address, work information, and all my other personal information to every troll who decides to have a personal grudge against me.

RealID = Account Cancelled

RealID – you will not share my personal information, including my name, with others without my direct approval.

The optional ingame RealID is unacceptable, even if optional.

Your proposal to integrate with Facebook and reveal my identity in forums or anywhere else is completely unacceptable, and as such you leave me with no choice but to stop playing a game I have enjoyed for years and would have otherwise continued to enjoyed.

Real ID: A Forum Compilation

I put together a small handful of interesting posts from the protest forum.  I also copy and pasted the contents of said posts for people who may have issues seeing images/ clicking through.  Most of the images were unfortunately too large to post full size on the blog.  All posts are quoted in their entirety and are unedited (including the errors in my own).  They all raise good points, and one of them in particular is a real tear jerker (at least for me).

RealID and Forums: Your Name, Please

While it is nice to think that the utopian online society has everyone being responsible because of their real names being used as tentative collateral in the social contract, it ultimately fails because of people with privilege. Privilege to disregard or not understand that there are still very few consequences for the aggressor and quite a lot of consequences for the aggressed. Anonymity is not only a glamor that one uses to express themselves on Internet, or a cloak by which to hide behind, but a form of security that some people quite desperately need for both their sanity and their personal safety.

RealID and WoW Forums: Classic Identity Design Mistake

The idea Blizzard has is a common initial misconception – that people will “play nice” if they have to show their real names to each other. I’m sure they are using Facebook as an example – I often do this in my consulting practice. There is no doubt that Facebook users are better behaved in general than their YouTube counterparts, but the error Blizzard made is to assume that their player relationships are like those of Facebook.

This is critical misconception, and the community is responding with the longest threads in WoW history, and blog posts everywhere.

[RealID around the web] The future will be written in Chicken

Does Blizzard really care so much about the bulletin boards that they’d rather piss of the segment of the community most likely to use them than just give everyone a single forum id and call it done? Unlikely. They have further plans.

RealID debate brings all the posters back to the official forums

And what dire PR for the company just before SC2 is released. There was a time when Blizzard was viewed as a company run by and for gamers. That time is now over. Even aside from the wrongs or rights of the proposal, no company that fails so badly in understanding gamer culture can really claim to be one of us any more.

Real ID: Do you trust the friends of your friends?

They could have designed the cross-server chat to be less invasive, but they chose to reveal too much personal information in a fantasy roleplaying video game, and didn’t implement enough choice & privacy options.

Unfortunately, it’s not just YOUR friends that can see all your personal info. It’s also the friends of your friends. If I invite someone to be my friend, and they have 100 friends, all 100 of those friends can see my RL info, and that makes me very uncomfortable.

RealID Forums

But seriously, Blizzard, what’s next? Having our Real ID name show up next to our characters in the armory? Showing our Real ID name over our toons’ heads below their guild? Cut the crap, stop forcing us to abandon you in order to maintain some privacy.

Geez.

RealID For Your FakeOrc

But anyway, when you have as a core belief that people who want to be anonymous, for whatever reason, are lying liars, then providing opt-out features seems kind of beside the point, doesn’t it? And Blizzard really, really, really, for whatever reason, dislikes opt-out features of any sort. The only way you can opt-out of the RealID in-game system, for example, is through a “Parental Control” system that is intended for children. And, not coincidentally, required by law. The features of RealID chat in-game that arouse the most ire – the inability to set an alias for one’s real name, the inability to flag alt characters out of visibility, and above all, the inability to block people from browsing your friends list – are all easily fixed via code. Yet Blizzard won’t do it.

RealID – Good Goal, Bad Idea

I just can’t imagine this possibly going live as stated. Not because of the fact that the response is overwhelmingly negative, or the fact that US sticky on the topic is the quickest growing WoW thread of all time. Not because of the fact that some people might cancel their subscriptions with this as the stated reason, or the fact that it might mean some negative PR for the company.

I just can’t imagine it going live due to the potential legal complications; even if it’s A. O. K. in the states, many other countries – such as Germany – are very strict on internet privacy, and I can’t possibly imagine this would be kosher with them.

Real ID in WoW Forums. Guess I’m never posting there again…

Do not want. Seriously do not want. I have an internet alias for a reason. Prospective employers google for me, they’re not going to find this blog, or my fanfics, or any evidence that I am a fangirl who knows far more about Lotr, HP, D&D, or WoW then most people.  My friends know about it, and while I’m not ashamed of it, I see no reason to give people a reason to not hire me or take me seriously.

There is still quite a stigma attached to being a geek in this society, after all.

Real ID on Blizzard forums, the good and the bad *Updated*

There is however another side to this coin. There are a ton of people who try very hard to separate their real life from their game life. They post helpful guides to trade-skills, or how to level efficiently on the forums for general reading. They offer insight to class changes and constructive criticism when people ask for help. This group of people also has something to lose by this change going live, as does the community in general if they stop posting. Some people like the anonymity of their toons as a way to just separate their lives into distinct parts. If they stop posting because of this change, that will be very sad indeed.

Real ID: Putting my Feminist Thinking Cap on

Blizzard is coming at this from a viewpoint of white male blindness.  It’s really the least cynical explanation I can see for why they can’t seem to understand that many people do NOT WANT.  Basically the thought process goes something like this…
I feel/think this way
Everyone else (or everyone else who counts) feels/thinks like me
Therefore anyone disagreeing with me is irrelevant or insane.

Real ID, RP, and why only one person gets to have mine

Really, I think the biggest turn-off for me, right now, is the fact that it displays your full name. The name on your battle.net account. The name, in my case, that is on my birth certificate but is not the name I go by or identify with. And the only way I’ve found to CHANGE the name on your account is to provide Blizzard with proof that the name you want to change it to is your OMG LEGAL NAME (that is, a scanned ID, copies of legal name change forms, etc.).

RealID Saga Part One: Silencing Voices

Lack of anonym ity does not remove trolling. People are quite will ing to put their real names to miso gyn istic, racist speech and har­ass ment all over Face book. ‘Real Names’ is not some magic pill that is going to make every one act politely. Phys ical prox im ity to a per son doesn’t do that — going to a club I can see a person’s FACE and that doesn’t pre vent them from grop ing me without my con sent. Walk ing down the street I can be sub jec ted to sexual har ass ment by strangers (who I can clearly identify). The idea that a real name (which can still be false, as it appears that some folk can register fake names to their Real ID. I am unable to change the name on mine.) will increase account ab il ity is false.

[Discussion] RealID soon to apply to all forum posts, other upcoming official forum improvements

Real ID to be mandatory in game

I know that the company I loved, is not the same any longer.I now know, that the years and years I have spend playing Blizzard games, are not the same companies games I am playing any longer. I know that I am beginning to hate everything Blizzard stands for OUTSIDE of their games.

The fake charities, used to test the waters, to see if we would buy their in-game crap.
The fake implementations of Real-ID to only be so that we could chat with our friends cross-games and cross-servers.
The sneaky ways they keep adding stuff to make us pay more for less content.

RealID — Unethical and Dangerous

Blizzard’s stated goal is to help reduce trolling on the forums. The idea is that when a poster has an identity they can’t escape, they’re less likely to threaten their reputation. Their other, less-discussed goal is the creation of a Blizzard-owned Facebook which they can directly monetize and which can also provide an advertising platform for future games.

They’re doing this entirely at the expense of your personal privacy. If you want to use a service you had used in the past, you now have to be willing to post your real name to the public alongside every post.

RealID – What The Forums?

I don’t buy this myself for two reasons. In the main, I think that people will be disruptive on forums regardless of their real name being displayed. Why? I’ve seen it happen before. I’ve served time as an admin on Wikipedia, arguably one of the largest sites on the Internet. I’ve seen shocking behaviour from users who registered with their real name, just as I’ve seen it from those using a pseudonym.

There was also a struggle to convince academics, scholars and professionals that using their real name was a good idea. There were several occasions where I saw people get harassed by those they disagreed with. And I’m not talking about a few angry emails here – I’m talking being stalked at work, being forced out of their job and so on.

Real Issues with Real ID

I won’t go into it very much, but let me just drop this on you… None of the “good” parts of Real ID, the cross server chat, cross game chat, seeing people’s alts, and so on, required the use of real names and an “all or nothing” design.  Why aren’t some of these features part of World of Warcraft’s existing friend list design?  Why does it have to be ALL of my characters on ALL of my servers?  Do I have to get a second account now if I want some “alone time”?

Real Issues with Real ID 2

There are many many solutions that would work equally as well for removing trolls.  But… there is a greater thing at work here.  See, Blizzard has all your information anyway (most likely).  Your name, your address and billing info, email, and so on.  They can’t do anything with it though because it is privileged information, it’s private.  However, once Real ID makes certain items public, it becomes sellable data.

Real Names

I am working for a number of companies right now and three of them were advised by their legal departments to… not do what Blizzard is doing. One does not allow me to use my real name despite my case for doing so. Another allowed me to use my real name after giving them something in writing that stated I absolved them of responsibility in the event of harassment or worse. And a third company doesn’t let ANYONE use any handle, in game or out, that Googles up as a real name lest the real owner of that name get harassed. As I said on Scott’s blog, Blizzard clearly doesn’t think they are liable. These three other MMO companies clearly think they could be. We won’t know the legal truth until Blizzard gets sued for wrongful death.

Real names on the WoW forums.

You say that you’re trying to improve the level of discourse on the forums. Do you realize that what you are doing is driving out every intelligent adult?

Any grown-up with a career outside the games industry? No longer posting on the forums, because it will hurt their career for their boss and peers to know they play WoW. Gaming is not understood by the masses, especially the career-minded.

Anyone mature enough to have a healthy sense of how to protect themselves online? No longer posting on your forums.

Any female who has ever been stalked (ie almost every female)? No longer posting on the forums.

Any female who has ever been ignored or disrespected simply for being female, but found herself finally treated as an equal in WoW because her gender was hidden? No longer posting on the forums.

What’s left? Teenage boys who don’t have enough career aspirations to want to keep their gaming a secret. The dumbest, most immature, most dead-end teenage boys.

The Real Story

What was the life cycle of this idea? Did it come from a casual suggestion by an outside executive? Did it sway a senior Blizzard produceer? Did that producer see a virtually seamless integration with battle.net and a Starcraft II release? Did a few, but critically sizeable, World of Warcraft producers and designers opt to incorporate it into their MMO? Did the Community Managers have any input? And was it their responsibility to have known about this windfall? Or does forum reaction mean nothing to the life cycle of the game?

And what is the ultimate role of the forums in a game like World of Warcraft? Is it to provide connections between players? Is it a place to chat, or vent, or goof off? Is it a source of customer support? Is it a source of feedback for designers? And when push comes to shove, which one of these roles wins? And which one serves the players best? Which one satiates and fosters the most financially profitable segment of the paying community?

I think that at least some of those questions are the right ones to be asking. But I don’t get the feeling that company has offered much unbiased feedback on them.

Seriously Not Okay

This is not going to prevent trolling, this is not going to create an atmosphere of respect and mutual support. All this is going to do is make the forums less safe. People do, in fact, get stalked online. People do, in fact, get harassed and abused online.

It is a common misconception that trolling is caused by anonymity. It is not. It is caused by people being assholes. Frequently, it is caused by people beingracist asssholes or misogynist assholes or various other sorts of assholes who like to target people of a particular type

A person’s “real name” is not neutral. Your name allows people to label and judge you according to a set of criteria they, not you, decide upon. If you check out the comments on the wow.com post where this is announced, you’ll notice that an awful lot of the people who are most strongly against this change are women. Much as we would like to deny it, geekdom in general and the WoW community in particular is horrendously hostile to women, and as a result many women choose not to openly advertise their gender in the game.

Conversely the only people I’ve seen supporting this change have either (rather hypocritically) posted under pseudonyms, or else have been called things like “Kevin Ross.”

slap the good girl’s hand and elevate the asshole to new heights

Women, people of colour (someone on wow_ladies noted that there are plenty of Joe Smiths speaking up in support of this change, but nary any Fatimas, or Jaleels, or Naveahs), GLBTQ folks, people in sensitive positions – many people in the military play WoW because it’s a good way to keep in touch with folks back home – and so on are unhappy with this.  Forum participation is optional, but mostly in the same way that associating a character name with your real name is. The only place to look for customer service, report bugs and make suggestions about game play are – you guessed it – forum based.

It’s a silencing technique, pure and simple.  The people who have spoken up against hate language in game, against sexist policies, against homophobia and transphobia and xenophobia, could do so in the forums.  It might be flame bait, but at least I could hop on my level 12 hunter on a nobody server and tell some racist pinhead where to cram his views.  Who will speak up now, at the risk of being followed home, or called incessantly, or risk their work email blowing up with spam?

So I’ll never post on the BLizzard forums again.

What will happen to the forum? People to dumb or too young to care about this, will be almost the only ones posting. Rest will be people who want it to be known that they have thoughts on WoW. People who wants in some form or another to create a gaming career.

So long, and thanks for all the fishing dailies…

The problem is this. As noted, Blizzard’s forums are a cesspit. They are full of trolls. They are full of people who think it is their mission in life to mock the weak, by which they mean anyone who can be hurt by being mocked. Now, Blizzard feels that making trolls post under their real names creates “accountability”.

Does it? Most of the trolls probably don’t care — indeed, most of them are posting on their parents’ accounts anyway (minors can’t have WoW accounts, they can only play on accounts associated with their legal guardians). But insofar as it does, it creates that accountability because, posting under their real names, they’re subject to consequences. So what do you think they’ll do? I think they’ll stop posting, true. I think they’ll keep reading the forums and harassing the other posters, though. In the past, the trolls harassed people in the forums and in the game because that was the only avenue they had for harassing people. Now, they’ll be able to harass people in real life. Especially people with unusual names. Especially women.

Statistics from the first 31,414 posts of this thread

31,414 posts
10,972 unique posters

The threat of RealID

Obviously the real name does not in any way increase Blizzard’s powers of forum moderation. Whatever name you used on the forums, Blizzard already knew your real name. Thus the hoped for effect is other players preventing the troll from posting. And how will they do that? Well, they still have absolutely no forum moderation powers. The only thing they gain is the knowledge of the troll’s real name. And for that knowledge to be a threat sufficiently strong to prevent the troll from posting something offending on the forums, it must be possible for other players to hurt the troll by the use of his real name.

Unperson

I will say, however, that Blizzard is creating Unpersons by forcing us to use our real names IF we choose to post on their official forums. How is that? By devising a means whereby a large group of people “feel obligated” to stop posting, they are silencing those voices, erasing them from existence. Sort of. Obviously these people can talk on other forums, but Blizzard says they don’t use other forums to achieve the feedback they seek. They want good discussions on their official forums. So it’s an Effective, not literal, creation of Unpersons.

UnReal

However the really worrying part of this for me is not what happens to the forums, which whilst unfortunate, could potentially just be the tip of the iceberg. The thing that bugs me is the way we have gone from a totally optional system to a system which has some mandatory features, in the space of just a few weeks. Compare this to how Blizzard got us all to switch over to Battle.net. First it was an optional feature, then they offered an in-game vanity pet as an incentive, but then eventually it became compulsory for all. Now of course, Battle.net didn’t really have a downside to it, but it shows how ‘optional’ handy features can quickly become ‘mandatory’ requirements without which you won’t be able to play.

When Journalism Meets Naivety: CrunchGear Edition

Trolls will not stop being trolls just because they have to use their real names. Ever been in a pub or party argument with a complete tosser? Ever seen people getting into flame wars on a mailing list? Of course you have! Revealing true identities doesn’t magically bestow people skills. Let’s face it, insensitivity is the real cause of flame wars and trolling.

Why Real ID is a Really Bad Idea

Back in the start of World of Warcraft, several years ago, I knew a guy who knew a guy. He was a forum warrior of sorts. He posted inflammatory stuff all day and night. One day, a group of people decided to reign him in and right the wrongs he’d besieged the community with. Long hours spent with search engines occurred and eventually a real life name was found. A few weeks later, a bouquet of roses and a dildo was sent to his door in care of his mother.

With the tables turned, the forum warrior was discovered to be just a helpless boy. He didn’t have an actual shield or sword like the name forum warrior implied. And his mother wasn’t very happy about the whole situation. The troll became trolled–and the realm of the internet carried over somewhat viciously into the real world.

Well.

Sadder: the feeling I have knowing I am part of this community that either doesn’t care about my needs, didn’t even think there might be legitimate reasons not to want my real name all over the internet, or doesn’t want me.

World of Warshaft

The choice is a highly coerced one. “Use this service that you may like, but expose yourself naked to the world… or just stay silent” is not much of a choice. The concept of ‘choice’ is oft abused by those who pretend that a choice made with a gun to one’s head has not been in some way influenced.

The other problem I have is that those who this change won’t hurt will disproportionately be male and cis. Transgender people who have not yet changed their names legally cannot have their RealID name altered by Blizzard. This has already been confirmed after one trans friend of mine tried to do so. This change requires a court order, something normally reserved for banks, and government issued IDs. Now a trans person needs a court order to protect their privacy in a video game? Give me a break.

Worst Idea Blizzard’s Ever Had

This is not only an invasion of privacy and something that will lead to stolen passwords and accounts even beyond the scope of Blizzard’s products, but it’s an incredible risk and will likely result in major real world problems (such as people being murdered because of who they are on the forums… and no, I’m not exaggerating).

WoW Fail

But today, Blizzard, the company that owns WoW, announced that they would implement this system, the RealID system, in their public forums. That means every post you make will have the name linked with your account published. On a public forum. Where everyone can see it. If you want to ask a question in their Customer Service forum, if you want to post a Bug Report, if you want to talk to other people in your realm, the name associated with your account will be displayed. And it’s supposed to be your real name.

You can’t turn it off. You can’t opt out. You can’t opt to have only your first name displayed, or a nickname. It’s your real name.

There are people who’ve moved servers to get away from people who were stalking them on other servers. There are a lot of women players who hide behind male avatars to avoid being harassed. Where are they going to go?

WoW: Twelve Days to Live

I have been on the internet since I was a child. On every site that I am a member of, I have my privacy settings so high that I do not show up when I Google myself. I have taken every precaution to make sure that my real name is never associated with any of my public accounts. Even this blog is linked to an e-mail for which I use a pseudonym.

But when I enter my name here, my personal information comes up within a couple clicks. My full name, my parents names, an old address, my family’s income, and a picture of my family’s neighborhood. My family’s home. With my sibling’s car parked in the driveway.

All of my precautions over the past decade have been for naught, because with my full name my security is highly compromised.

Pro-RealID posts

General privilege warning on these ones, obviously.

Best Idea Ever

I giddy to see how this goes…actually giddy. Couldn’t be happier. For me, if you want to wear the big-boy pants and spew on forums, let’s make sure you held accountable and have your real name sewn in those pants. We all know that it’s the anonymity that makes people into jackholes, so perhaps this move will give some pause before commenting on forums.

Don’t like Blizzard’s new anti-anonymous commenting policy? Tough luck.

I do love how so many people are up in arms over this. And for what, exactly? All that’s going to happen is that your first and last name will be attached to what you write. If you can’t stand behind what you write online then perhaps you shouldn’t be writing it in the first place. You’re not exactly writing the Federalist Papers here, now are you?

Needless to say, I do honestly think that people are against the new policy because it holds them accountable to their opinion. It forces people to interact with others with a little bit of decorum—a completely new concept to many people on the Internet.

Keep it secret, keep it safe

On the one hand, I love it. I think it’s a riot (it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine… I get a kick out of things that make people rage). While deep down I have suspicions that, given the response this has received, Blizzard will rescind its decision, I wish so incredibly much that they follow through with it. I am absolutely dying to see what would happen

RealID in forums with a different spin

The post is an invitation for people to leave pro-RealID arguments in the comments.

I’m seeing a lot of people, myself included, who think changing forums to only show commenter’s real names is a bad idea. These people have listed many, many different reasons why they feel this way, and some of those reasons include personal safety from internet predators.

I’m seeing a handful of people who say that they think it’s not such a big deal. Having their real name out there doesn’t bother them.

What I’m NOT seeing, not one single time, is any commenter saying, “This is a great idea that I have wanted for a while, and I’m glad Blizzard is doing this.”

Not one.

Loading… RealID: What’s In A Name?

Putting your name to your words is something I’ve never been opposed to. We’ve said a lot of controversial things over the years in Loading…, and our real name has been plastered on every single Loading… we’ve written. I’ve gotten some email hate and forum rage, but never anything more serious than that. I suppose the potential is there, and I can certainly understand why devs and the women on our staff would want obscure their real names (stalkers are no joke), but on the whole, I think that if you’re going to speak up, you shouldn’t be afraid to put your name to it.

When privacy meets hypocrisy: Blizzard Real ID edition

Blizzard says it’s moving to the new system largely to clean up your wretched behavior. Sad but true. Perhaps if Blizzard didn’t have to spend all day long moderating its forums because so, so many of you decided it was acceptable to behave like blockheads while under the mask of anonymity then you wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. So in a sense it’s your own fault.

Security flaws in RealID

[Add-On] BlizzBugsSuck

It goes without saying that there are no actual guarantees on this one, folks; use at your own risk.

Block the exploit that allows AddOns from getting your Real Name from the Real ID system.

Security flaw allows addons to expose full real life names without user permission

There is a flaw in the design of the Real ID system which, (as we understand it) thanks to you being an automatic Real ID friend of yourself, allows any addon to expose your real life name to anything or everyone; even if you have not marked those people as a Real ID friend.

Surprise! A Security Flaw in Real ID!

I expect to hear this story repeated again and again because some part of Blizzard, the part that wants you to expose your information, does not strike me as very interested in security.

Again, as I said in my previous post on the subject, the whole Real ID things seems to go completely against the grain of what I am told is Blizzard’s biggest problem, account security.

WoW Real ID: Common Myths About WoW Real ID

6. Real ID is optional.

Only the illusion is optional. Your real name is linked to your toons and already exposed via addons even if you never opt-in or use the Real ID feature. You can test this by running the following:

/run for i=1,100 do if BNIsSelf(i)then BNSendWhisper(i,”RealID whisper from yourself..”);break end end

While this only displays your own real name, it does demonstrate the the connection has already been made, without your approval. And that it could be accessible to a third-party addon developer. When Blizzard merges accounts with Facebook (their next move), will the connections to Facebook friends already be pre-established, even if you don’t opt in? If so, how will Blizzard/Facebook use that information?

Conspiracy theories

Blizzard and Facebook’s friendly social networking deal launches with ‘StarCraft II’

Our goal and vision in this partnership is to really to cross-populate the social networks and to easily find and add your friends from Facebook onto the new Battle.net service as the first step and extending it to other features in the future. … Later on, of course, we have lots of things we are talking about with Facebook. We haven’t announced anything specific, but we have lots of ideas about ways to cross-populate and share data between the two services.

Interview Reveals that RealID is a Scam

I love that veil of anonymity.  I don’t understand where they get this idea that we are all now accepting of casting aside our anonymity on the internet.  Did they get that idea from all the recent Facebook privacy lawsuits and uproar?  Or all the reports about people losing their jobs because their employer checked Facebook?

Is Korean Law Driving Policy at Blizzard?

In 2009 South Korea’s government created a law that was meant to curb online defamation by insisting that all users who comment on sites with greater than 100,000 users per day must use their real name. The first US company to feel the effects of this law was Google. South Korea insisted the Youtube comments require all users to post with their real first and last name. Google got around this law by forbidding anyone with a South Korean IP address from posting to Youtube. Recently South Korea backed down and exempted Youtube from the Real Name system.

Given these facts it might not make sense why South Korea might enforce the Real Name system on Blizzard. My guess would be that the government is very aware of the immense popularity of Starcraft in South Korea.

Who is Activision/Blizzard’s Customer Base

Actiblizz’s recent actions seem unfathomable.  They are going against the wishes of the vast majority of their players.  They are startlingly unresponsive to criticism from the customerbase on the Battle.net and Real ID issues.  They are taking actions that are clearly contrary to the best interests of their players, and are going out of their way to avoid explaining them (except through the ocassional half-truth like “cleaning the forums”).  People are canceling WoW accounts and SC2 preorders left and right over something that seems so easily avoidable or fixable.  Don’t they care about losing so many customers?

You have probably guessed where I’m going with this by now: we, the players, are no longer the World of Warcraft’s customerbase.  Advertisers are.

It’s pretty clear from this interview and other statements about Real ID about how they ”have been planning this change for a very long time” that Real ID is the lynchpin in an effort to leverage an untapped asset that Actiblizz has more of than any other company out there except Facebook: our personal information.

WoW: RealID

But it’s not really about the forums at all. This is part of a long term plan to monetise their player base’s privacy. Games like Farmville make most of their money through lead generation, targeted advertising that allows advertisers to identify, say, thrash metal fans then send adverts to them.

Google already does it, adverts you see on Google are influenced by your previous search behaviour. Someone who had searched a lot of Christian themes would see a different set of adverts if they typed the word “Eve” than a gamer would.

It will be a fundamental part of Blizzard’s future business model now that they’ve agreed a deal with Facebook. In addition to selling you games, collecting subs, having one-off cash items like the sparkle pony and server transfers they will now also collect money from marketing people wanting to target their players.

Rumours of dissent at Blizzard

followup thanks and updates

To be perfectly honest, it does seem out of character that Blizzard would spearhead such a change, as they have long held that they go out of their way not to associate real-life identities with the in-game characters. This fact has been used to bolster Blizzard’s stance that the WoW Armory is not invasive: no one should know about your character unless you tell them about it. Obviously, these RealID changes contradict that philosophy in every way. I have trouble believing that the same company who kept players’ personal information private for years, going so far as to write such privacy into the TOU of the game, would make an announcement like the one we just saw. I would love to believe that it’s coming from somewhere beyond Blizzard itself.

Rumour: Blizzard RealID Unpopular Internally?

Got in touch with my ex-flatmate, whose sister works as a GM for Blizzard, to see what the internal buzz on this was. Apparently, at the moment the employees are largely as pissed as the players, and she stated that despite attempts to keep it hushed, it has become known that the big creative players within Blizzard are pretty much as unhappy about this as we are. Everybody has been told they are not free to comment on this situation outside of specially prepared statements.

Opting-out of RealID

Customizing and opting out of Real ID

To be clear, everyone who does not have a parentally controlled account has in fact opted into Real ID, due to a security flaw. Addons have access to the name on your account right now.

Delete All WoW Forum Posts

Again: No guarantees of any kind on the security of this script. Use at your own risk.

This script will add options on your Login Select screen on the World of Warcraft Forums to delete all posts by any character on your list. The script works by both searching by username and user id on the forums for any posts you have made under that character, confirms that it did come from your character (and not one on another server), and sends a signal to delete the post. This is all done from the Login Select screen with only one initial reload necessary.

How to opt out of RealID

The trick is to pretend that you are an responsible adult and your account is played by a child. Thus you need to visit Blizzard’s parental control websitem either the US version or the EU version.

Young Lady, you will not use that Newfangled “Real Eye Dee”

In order to address the addon security flaw that would allow addons to datamine my real name via Real ID, though I have no Real ID friends, I switched on parental controls and disabled Real ID.  I had been trying to avoid parental controls, since their current implementation is also an account security risk.  Lesser of two evils?

Debunking

That scary GearScore/Real ID screenshot is fake, guys

There’s a screenshot circulating, which is cropped above, that shows a new “beta version” of the infamous GearScore mod that is able to see your Real ID name — that is, your real name — just by mousing over your character. It’s not real.

Final Fun Fax: WordPress tells me this post has over 13,000 14,000 words. Lol.