Blizzard to Force Real Names on Forums

http://www.yougamers.com/news/28624_…_with_real_id/

Not a bad thing if your name happens to be John Smith, I suppose, but this could be outright dangerous for a lot of people. What the Hades was Blizzard thinking!?

This is just like when people complain about crappy servers. Prepare to be ignored. But I agree, there are a lot of unstable people out there, so I'm pretty sure some disgruntled player will make a housecall to another in the near future. Not to mention stalking of female players.

Another angle: "I work in a charity and deal with governments officials. If they do a search and see I am a gamer, it could affect my employment prospects", from a BBC news story. I can imaging this being a BIG problem for some.

I think this is awesome. It'll really cut down on the "l2play fgt" type posts. I think they should go a step further and show every character on every server associated with your name via a drop down menu - It would provide for much more civility if you took away people's anonymity.

I forsee privacy problems and possible lawsuits. Either that or people will find a way around it. Should be interesting to observe.

It might help a bit, Temecula, though I think locking out people under age 18 will do at least as much. But the cost in privacy is just way too high, IMHO. Names are NOT unique, especially without the middle name, but it's still too much. You can often guess a person's gender and you might even be able to make a good guess at a person's race and/or religion for some names.

Plus screen names are a heck of a lot more fun to use. If you thought xx_Dark_Ninja_xx was dull, wait until you have to use real names. Heck, you don't even get nicknames!

Enforcing real names in an environment with millions of players, with a tradition of full anonymity is begging for trouble.

Too much ignorance in this world, and there's no way Blizzard won't be held partially accountable when the odd maniac will turn to violence over some epic item he/she didn't get.

Maybe not in legal terms, but their public face will be hurt.

I see no way around that.

I would be very surprised if they don't remove this soon. The whining will simply never end (far more than the average my-class-got-nerfed-whine).

Originally Posted by Corwin
I forsee privacy problems and possible lawsuits. Either that or people will find a way around it. Should be interesting to observe.

A foresee a large, powerful company using their existing base to channel into new markets, ie. social networking. After all, MMOG's are just one giant chat room anyway.

Then they can potentially generate revenue as they sell your private data to 3rd party companies.

That's what the YouGamers guy seems to think, Lucky Day, though I'm not seeing how that ties in. Couldn't they already do that now?

They're already removing it:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th…68987278&sid=1

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.

That just gives me the giggles.

yeah, nice corporate-speak for "ok, we've heard you spazzing out on teh forums and decided that it was a stupid idea".

And it truly was, it just isnt right to put people's full names out there. It would freak me out, personally.

Some guy said something very smart. That this might have been a smart marketing move. They announce something like this, the whole internet explodes, then they announce it won't be forced upon players, and Blizzard gets to appear as the developer that listens to fans. Plus they get a whole lot of attention.

And it pretty seems like a smart move imo, if they did that. It's a win-win for Blizzard. No way were they stupid enough to force something of this magnitude on players imo.

If that was a stunt then it was pretty amazingly stupid of them to try it. If it wasn't a stunt, then it was pretty amazingly stupid to try and force real names out into the open. Whichever it was, they still end up looking like boneheads.

I regard this as a foreseeable reaction to crackers and pirates hiding behind nondescript fantasy names.

From that perspective, it is imho most understandable.

But I agree with the problems that might also arise (privacy concerns).

Blizzard could keep these names secured, and stored only internally, with people giving the possibility to use fantasy names for their forums etc. …
I know at least one or two developers or publishers who do this.

Sorry, but since they didn't manage to keep my email address private as I reguested, I sure as hell wouldn't trust them to keep any other info private.

I don't think it was a stunt so much as putting feelers out there and having the guts not to do a google news on the players.

Zloth, in answer to your comment, forcing into a social networking may sound a bit conspiracy theory but if there's revenue to be made I don't see it as a stretch for any company.

How many staff meetings in any company, especially by upper and middle management, are focussed on two things: how can we make more cash; and how can we cut costs?

Check this out: http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php

I try to make it a point never to say anything in a a game persona that I wouldn't say in RL, face-to-face. There are just so many jackarses hiding behind their characters in WoW, I have a hard time seeing this as a bad thing.

Originally Posted by Daeanor
I try to make it a point never to say anything in a a game persona that I wouldn't say in RL, face-to-face. There are just so many jackarses hiding behind their characters in WoW, I have a hard time seeing this as a bad thing.

First time you've had someone track you down using your real name off the forum and attempt to rob or kill you, you might change your tune. Given the harassment that females already get in-game, I shudder to think of what would happen had they been forced to give out their identity.