Blizzard's New True Name Policy

[Huggles]

I just found out that Battle.Net owned by Blizzard who makes World of Warcraft, will change their forums so that your real first and last name show up with every post.

....

Who's looking forward to Guild Wars 2?!

[AngharadTy]

Yeah, I wish I had an active WoW account right now so I could cancel it. It's pretty much the stupidest thing that company has ever done. It may be be one of the stupidest things any internet-based company has ever done. Ctrl Alt Del had this to say--but it's wrong, because you know what does change? People get stalked more. And internet stalking isn't taken seriously by authorities. Hell, real-life stalking is barely taken seriously. Did you see where a Blizzard mod laughed at how worried people were, posted his real name, and his entire family was harassed within the day?

Also, Star Wars is where it's at, yo.

[Huggles]

No, but I wish I had. I went ahead and emailed privacy, support, and billing with the same message explaining why they're stupid. The notion that access to a verifiable real name on the internet doesn't create havoc is utterly absurd. I went ahead and looked my name up several places, and it turns out there are only between 5-15 people in the entire country with my name. If you know any other characteristic about me, my state, my birthday or my race, you can find out just about anything else for free, and get my credit history if you pay a couple dollars. I don't use Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter. I played WoW to get away from real life, not to have the two inextricably linked.

[AngharadTy]

Googling my maiden name gets lots of results with me, but luckily my married name does not. And I like it that way.

What makes me sad, though: Diablo 3. I would have really liked to take part in that goodness. Oh well. Maybe they'll partake in some head-from-ass-pulling and I'll be able to enjoy that when it eventually comes out.

[Huggles]

I also think it's silly for people like what's-his-face at CtrlAltDel to exclaim how their real name is pasted everywhere for the world to see. That would be like Keith saying that everyone on Subeta knows his real name, what's the big deal? (No, he hasn't said anything to me and neither have a read anything like that from him) When you are a celebrity, even just on the internet, you're also provided with a cushion to go along with the loss of privacy. I can't go to a bank and claim to be Paris Hilton without a slight raise of an eyebrow or two, but who says I'm not Jane Doe or Mary Smith?

[Wingsrising]

I'm confused. I only play Diablo 2, and I don't play online, so maybe I don't understand the issue. I thought this was only going to be required on the Battle.net forums. Do you have to post to the forums to play WoW? I thought that it was something entirely separate. I know I don't have to post there to play D2.

I'm not saying it's a good move -- I think it's a horrible one, in fact. I would never post to an Internet forum under my real name, not because I'm worried about stalkers but because I don't want anyone who Googles my real name to read all my posts. Stalking just doesn't worry me as much -- for some time it was trivially easy to find out my real name, my email, and where I worked from my postings here and on PPT. Only one person ever did, and it was only to post, "So how do you like being a psychology grad student?" to show that he could.

But anyway, at the moment it seems simple enough to avoid by just not using the battle.net forums. That's not going to stop me from playing D3. Not having a computer that will run D3 might stop me from playing D3, but not anything that happens on the battle.net forums, which I don't use anyway.

Given the outcry, I doubt this is going to last for that long, though.

I'm sorry to hear Bashiok has had issues, given that he seems to be the main source of info on D3 at the moment!

[AngharadTy]

"Just don't use the forums" is the rallying cry of Blizzard's supporters right now. And there are a lot of them. You have to post on the forums if you want technical support. That's their primary source of tech support. Also if you want help of any kind from other players. Also if you want to give feedback on any changes that Blizzard puts out. Also if you want to recruit for your guild. (Some guilds are LGBT-friendly guilds, and having real names visible will actually OUT their own members.) Also if you just plain like the community--we could use RealID on NC, and tell our posters, "Well geez, if you don't like it, just don't post." It's upsetting to an established community. And on top of that: Plenty of people just won't see the danger and could end up hurt because of it; they'll post in public, not realizing how easily you can find out who they are, not realizing the things that can set someone off. Gender, sexuality, race--there are a lot of people who love to hate. There was a guy who stalked someone who killed him in Counter-strike and tried to kill him. Six months of stalking and a murder attempt. Blizzard would like to cut that six months down to a day or so. Even one example of this kind of insanity is too much. Companies shouldn't do something to increase that kind of danger.

Also, they claim it's to cut down on trolling. It's not, and it won't. They're talking about adding a self-policing reputation system, and that'll do more to help trolling. They could also use some of their millions and, oh, this is revolutionary: Hire more mods.

I also find it a huge concern because if they're willing to be so careless with their customers' privacy in this way, then they definitely won't scruple to add it to in-game content down the line. It's a sign that it's a company I can't trust at all, and I do not want to support that kind of terrible policy by giving money to them. It's not enough that I know I could personally avoid the forums--for me, it's a stance I have to take against the policy.

The outcry is huge, yes--e.g., 40k posts on WoW's official forums. Right now, there are 1446 comments on a WoW ladies post. Over 1000 comments on a later post in the same community. The problem is that those numbers are so high in part because of people arguing. On LJ, there are women being dismissive of concerns other women have about stalking. I hate to see it.

Also, the outcry is so far being almost entirely ignored. And when it's not, it's being dismissed out of hand. "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 ... There's a lot of scare-mongering going on about the change, but there seems a need to make something very clear. The forums have always been an optional extra -- something you can choose to participate in if you wish to. With our Real ID changes for the forums, this is still the case. The only difference will be, if you do choose to participate in the forums, then you will do so by using your real name. But only after you've been warned and accepted this in advance." That's an official response. "All your worries mean nothing to us," that's what I'm getting.

Optional. You know what else was optional at first? Battle.net. You know what's not optional today? Battle.net.

So to sum up: Slimy policies don't earn my money. Dismissive responses don't earn my money. And the very real threat of further reckless carelessness with privacy means Blizzard does not get my money. Probably never again, the more I think about it--even though I sounded hopeful earlier today. But even if the company revokes this policy before it goes into effect, the fact that it's come up at all is damning.

(Incidentally, Diablo 2 is unaffected by this.)

[Jessi]

Penny Arcade did a strip about this today, of course, and Tycho linked to a really great post about the whole thing in his news post that I think sums up the whole thing perfectly. They sum up a lot of my thoughts about this.

Also, just to kind of reiterate what Ty said, the only MMORPG I've played in excess is International Ragnarok Online. You don't need to post on the forums to play the game, no, and iRO actually has a really awesome ticket system that works for nearly all technical support, so for the most part I wouldn't have to worry about that. However... during the last big server merge, there was a huge post on the iRO Forums about what was going to happen with it all. People were posting and asking questions because it was a very confusing and drawn-out process. Gravity encouraged us to communicate about it on the forums where they could answer faster than having to dig through thousands of tickets. It was the first time I'd ever used the forums, and I did so pretty frequently.

Granted, I haven't posted on them since, and I probably never will again - but if it was going to display my real name, I never would have in the first place. And my name isn't exactly rare - googling me brings up thousands of people. I mean, quite a few of you guys here have my real name and address, because I trusted you enough to give it to you. But I've also met some real nutjobs in-game, people I wouldn't want knowing ANYTHING personal about me. So I would have avoided using the forums all together, which means none of my questions would have gotten answered, which means I probably would have said "Fuck it" and not bothered to get my account ready for the server merger in the first place.

So... yeah. Just avoiding the forums isn't always an option. I feel bad for people who have made friendships via the WoW forums and who now feel uncomfortable to keep posting on there due to this. It's just a stupid "solution" that won't solve anything.

[Joey]

I felt that this was a good topic to split off, hope no one minds. Not sure on how accurate the new title is, but you guys can fix that.

I don't have anything eloquent to say on the topic at this time, other than that it sounds like a horribly stupid idea for the reasons you guys have already said and linked to.

[Wingsrising]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I think it's a stupid idea, and even more stupid if people have to post there to get good tech support.

It's just that for me personally, I'm currently about as fussed as if they decided we needed to use real names on the Neoboards or on the Subeta Forums. I would think it's an incredibly stupid idea, and I can see why it's upsetting to people who actually do use the Neoboards/Subeta Forums and feel like they're part of the community there. But ultimately it has zero implications for me because I don't use the Neoboards or Subeta Forums anyway.

This seems to be following the same pattern as a lot of the privacy things that have been cropping up on the Internet recently. Company-That-Really-Should-Know-Better introduces some new privacy compromising feature, users get up in arms, Company-That-Really-Should-Know-Better explains why users actually really want this feature, users remain up in arms, Company-That-Really-Should-Know-Better eventually mostly backs down.

Since I don't play WoW, if this is still in place when D3 comes out (2011 if we're lucky, but I'm expecting 2012) I'll worry about it then, but personally I doubt it will last that long.

That's just me, though, and why I'm personally reserving my limited supply of outrage for other things. If I posted to the forums there I'd be a lot more upset, but I prefer fan forums anyway. YMM, and clearly does, V.

[Jazzy]

Mm, I agree with Ty and Huggles. It does also affect people who don't play World of Warcraft - say someone makes a racist, sexist, libellous post on the forums under their real name, and you happen to share that name. If someone searches for you, that post comes up; the only attached avatar is of an orc and the sig just talks about the person's guild and characters. How do they know it isn't you? If you're John Smith, no-one's going to say "that must be him", but if you have a more unusual name (and particularly if the post was, say, the next result after your Facebook profile) people could easily put two and two together and make seven. And that's even aside from the possibility that other sites might copy Blizzard. (As an extreme proposal, what if a new COPPA made it mandatory in the US on all forum posts and online accounts?)

That would be like Keith saying that everyone on Subeta knows his real name, what's the big deal?

Does anyone else remember the night when his driving licence, the contents of his email inbox, and naked photos of him plus friends (underage, too) were posted on this forum?

[AngharadTy]

"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."

Still don't feel like I overreacted, though. Blizzard sets the tone for the gaming world, much as I wish otherwise. I'd much rather have smarter people in charge of this crap.

[Huggles]

I am not unhappy? The whole fiasco leaves a decidedly unpleasant taste in my mouth; it's kind of like bile mixed with nougat. I spent last night reading that Blue's thread, and perusing the unending supply of new posts on the issue. I found a few of the mentions of voice chat and females especially amusing. Don't want to be harassed? That's easy, all you have to do is not speak. Oh, the hilarity that ensued.

And no, Jazzy, I don't recall that happening. Although, I might have purposely forgotten about it if it occurred around the same time as the shenanigans here.

[AngharadTy]

Yeah, that about sums it up: not unhappy. It's good that they decided against it, and it was fairly quick (considering the bureaucracy I imagine a company that big has). But how it ever came up as a good idea and made it to the public view is still baffling. Not to mention the unreassuring "at this time" they threw in there to cover their asses.

[Wingsrising]

I don't know, but like I said, this sort of thing seems to happen a LOT even with companies that should know better. For example, why on Earth did Google, an otherwise intelligent company, think that the Google Buzz rollout was a good idea?