View more from World of WarcraftBlizzard backs off real names in forums
Flurry of negative feedback gets company to rescind plan for Real ID.
After a ton of negative feedback on Blizzard's forums and elsewhere, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime released a statement that Blizzard will not force users to use their real name when posting after all. Morhaime said that the company is still committed to making the forums a constructive place for players to visit and use and that other announced changes will stay in effect.
The backlash was in response to Blizzard's announcement earlier in the week that it will post user's real names when they use the official Blizzard forums.
See Morhaime's letter to fans below.
Hello everyone,
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizz should be sued just for mentioning the idea. As it goes against all protocols of online safety.
Blizzard did another thing last year when they required you to use an email address to log into Battle.net to get access to your accounts. ie they took away the anonymity of your logging information.
I don't even know if that information is correct or not, but it worries me enough that I have told my son to not play blizzard games anymore.
It doesn't matter that they reversed the decision about the forums. He doesn't post at the forums. He plays on account that is associated with my name. I don't want his or my name on view.
There are plenty of other games to play.
Works on self (including, i think, your own friends list) only, fails if RID is disabled. Does not work if someone else calls it on you - but a malicious addon could run it *from you and spam it elsewhere, or a hacker who got your account could use it to get your name to increase the success of ID theft.
No such thing as putting cats back into bags - a little caution is not a bad approach. Turn it off in parental controls and keep playing. :)
Activision and Blizzard are still relatively seperate and "share" reasources; Kotick does not like sharing.
For those thinking my tinfoil hat is to tight; this is America...Red Dead Redemption(*)'s trailer had our country about right. You don't get anywhere in the Corporate World being nice.
(*)"This is America, where a lying, cheating degenerate can prosper"
If the tinfoil hat fits, wear it.
Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm!
Aside from the deep and complex parts, WoW is not deep and complex. Jordster
There are only 2 types of goldsellers in these parts. Dead ones, and dead ones that don't know it yet... Dread Lörd Kaolian
Stop hanging out with morons. That's probably impossible though because there are tons of morons out there. Mentalfrog
I see there was feedback and Internally discussing, and as a result of the discussing, not the feedback, a change was made. It's nice to be acknowledged
I am very surprised that forcing people to post their real names passed the legal department. It seems to me that it was a game ending law suite waiting to happen as soon a one kid finds out that the nerd down the street owned him one to many times.
The forums do need fixing. When ever there is a problem accessing or in game then there are 4000 post all on the same thing but with different subject titles. Blizzard needs to recognize concerns and find a way to gather like posts together.
Myself I never use the forums because they are too time consuming, I'd rather be playing. To find a definitive answer takes hours looking through post like "OMG it hapen agin" to "I crash to desk top while fighting in Un'goro". Which one of the 500 post did Blizzard post the correct answer on?
The very first thing Blizzard will tell you to do in order to keep your account secure is to NOT give out personal information (like the name on the account).
Thank for your insightful, fair and objective post showing your maturity. (in case you missed it, that was sarcasm)
I didn't cry or whine about the idea, but there are very good reasons for why giving personal info away online is a terrible idea. It ranks up there with the reason why some companies won't take your credit card info over the phone. It's just too easy already for people to give away more information about themselves than they ought to, but to force a user to expose their real identity is absurd. You know people have lost or been denied jobs because of things companies find folks saying online? How many FaceBook or MySpace pages that have totally crucified someone's chances of getting somewhere? There's more to worry about than someone finding your name online, stalking you and killing you or your family. Maybe you don't get a raise or promotion because you once said you hated Jews or denied the Holocaust on an online forum? Mel Giboson just lost his representation with his 30+ year Talent agency because of that sentiment, and he didn't even have to post it online.
That being said a very nice alternative exists, and that is the same implementation of a Real ID that Microsoft uses...XBox Live Gamertag.
Pros:
-Doesn't disclose personal information unless the user wanted to
-Unique and prevents "trolling" (or in Xbox's case "griefing")*
-Costs you money if you want to change it (CHA-CHING!)
Cons:
-Free to setup since Live ID is free*
Honestly, can't figure out why Blizzard didn't go with the above mentioned version...EVERYONE else has.
I had also planned to dig up publically availible phone numbers of everyone who supported this change and posted on the forums. No threats, no harassments, just a friendly one-time-only phone call letting them know that I tracked down their phone number thanks to the name given out by Real ID.
The issue with most of the supporters is they don't fully believe that just a name can be tied to every piece of personal information about you. It's not until the facts show up at their doorstep (or call them) that they realize just how dangerous giving out JUST your first and last name can be.
Alliance 80s - Ilya, Dawnchanter, Teonum, Muranum
Horde 80 - Ereyd
Perhaps being able to downrate the poor posts and uprate the good ones will clean up the o-boards. It works here, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work there.
Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm!
Aside from the deep and complex parts, WoW is not deep and complex. Jordster
There are only 2 types of goldsellers in these parts. Dead ones, and dead ones that don't know it yet... Dread Lörd Kaolian
Stop hanging out with morons. That's probably impossible though because there are tons of morons out there. Mentalfrog
While there may well have been some positive effects, I also think that there were some people who were legitimately concerned about this change... that for one reason or another, posting under their real name was unacceptable to them.
So here's the thing. Regardless of whether this change has gone through or not, we can all make the forums a better place. And we can start by not calling people we don't agree with names. Am I being fair, or no?
Somehow, I doubt that this will be the last controversial announcement Blizzard makes. But at least it's a good thing that the company has fans that will be there to overwhelm them with feedback when needed. :P
Edited, Jul 9th 2010 3:16pm by Davejohnsan
I agree that all player toons should be linked together with one username or ID, but using real name is just BAD. I would be in support of using a global username though. Sort of like what we were using before battle.net changed us to use our email addresses.
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