You Got Your Facebook In Your Message Board About My Orc Game

Remember those halcyon, carefree days past, when Blizzard introduced the RealID system for friends lists, saying it was completely optional and that you should only use RealID with your closest friends?

According to Blizzard today, once Cataclysm ships, everyone that uses the official forums are your closest friends.

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  • Argon

    Maybe this is just Blizzard’s attempt to cut down on the number of people they have to pay to watch the forums.  If nobody posts, nobody will have to be hired to watch them.  Then they can shut down the forums and replace them with a Ghostcrawler blog.  Excuse me, a Greg Street blog.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Cuppycake Tami Baribeau

    I love this. :)

  • http://twitter.com/heartless_gamer heartlessgamer

    But what if I am really friends with everyone on WoW’s forums… they only outed my real identity once :(

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    It’s a small price to pay in order to find out whether or not you’re in danger of arguing with Chuck Norris.

  • rogo

    This seems quite a boneheaded manouever, but I guess with their stance on RMT and so on it makes sense from Blizz’s point of view. Hard to say I’m in favour of it, because it’s been proven time and time again that MMOGs are a technological drama magnet and I can see this scheme lasting all of 30 seconds before someone abuses it.

    Disclaimer: Haven’t played an MMOG since UO :(

  • Otis

    The Friends List didn’t bother me but this is bad for so many different reasons.

  • Otis

    Oh, I forgot to add this; apparently the Blizz devs read The Noob.
    http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=378

  • http://www.facebook.com/john.boomershine John Boomershine

    Having one’s good name revealed to all and sundry on the Internets every time one makes a post… will result in fewer posts by people who have good names, people who already think twice before making their opinions heard. It will do nothing to stop the real trolls, who will burrow ever deeper into the underground. It will do nothing to prevent the sort of people who don’t care about their public reputation from posting inane or ridiculous things. It will, however, drive away people who are already frustrated with the lack of attention and concern game companies have with their customer’s personal information. The chilling effect on open communication between customers and developers far outweighs any perceived benefits of preventing trolling.

    I believe this measure has less to do with a game company having thin skin about trolling, and more to do with wanting to improve relationships with certain governments which are notoriously paranoid about who these ‘anonymous users’ are and what they might be up to.

  • Dblade

    An even worse problem. What happens to all those posts before the system is implemented? Does it retroactively apply your RealID info to them?

  • http://www.facebook.com/sanya.weathers Sanya Weathers

    I’m an advocate of real names… for developers. If I work for a game company in a public capacity, my users are entitled to transparency and accountability. I chose this career, and so I chose the risk. I unlisted my phone number awfully damned fast, mind you.
    But it was MY CHOICE. It is my experience that the craziest, nastiest trolls are willing to be hateful under their real names. They often find work in cable punditry.
    Side note: I’ve worked for companies that will not allow me to use my real name out of concern that I would be stalked. That was the official ruling of the legal department. Other companies/clients have been fine with my using my real name as long as I was willing to assume all responsibility and not sue them if a crazy player came after me. I find it fascinating that Blizzard’s legal team read the same body of law and said this FFA crap was hunky dory.

  • Rodalpho C

    We’re going to see a lot more about this over the next couple of hours. I can’t imagine Blizzard not backpedaling on this decision; it’s asinine.

  • Athryn

    According to a followup post, this will not be a retroactive change at least. I was contemplating reactivating my account solely for the purpose of deleting old posts.
     
    http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25712374700/battle-net-update-upcoming-changes-to-forums/

  • dartwick

    Holy shit.
    Are they crazy? Im sure its a nice way to to cut down on obnoxious posts, but they are going to get their ass sued when someone claims they got smacked around IRL for something they did online due to their board.
     

  • http://tremayneslaw.wordpress.com/ Tremayne

    Publishing people’s real names will not make the WoW forums become mature and considerate after five years of building a forum culture that, well, resembles something cultured on a petri dish. It’s just going to result in a load of immature sociopaths Googling each other so they know where to send the “die IRL” messages.

    What’s next? Publishing players’ social security numbers to prove they aren’t asian gold farmers?

  • http://www.independentcreator.com Matt

    Wow– surprisingly bold experiment.
    This is such a big move that either they don’t realize it’s a big move, or someone pretty senior got divinely inspired. I’m betting on the latter– I wonder who’s the big force behind this?
    I’m happy to have this experiment carried out for the benefit of all of us, on Blizzard’s dime!

  • Synral

    I’m incensed. Revealing someone’s real name to the entire WOW community may not be illegal, but it opens the door for multiple opportunities for griefing someone IRL simply because you don’t agree with their opinions.

    This is corporate foolishness in the extreme. Wow is not Facebook, and it shouldn’t be.

  • Otis

    Athryn: According to a followup post, this will not be a retroactive change at least. I was contemplating reactivating my account solely for the purpose of deleting old posts.

    OK, so the cynical suggestion made earlier that this is intended to kill the forums so they don’t have to pay people to moderate them may have some weight behind it.

  • Mark Asher

    “Are they crazy? Im sure its a nice way to to cut down on obnoxious posts, but they are going to get their ass sued when someone claims they got smacked around IRL for something they did online due to their board.”
    It’s an opt-in thing for a fee-based service. I find it hard to believe anyone can win a lawsuit over agreeing to the terms of service and then using that service. Can I sue my internet provider because I get spam?
    I am a bit surprised, but I suspect in the long run if Blizzard pushes this through, no one will care after awhile. Good news for the Vault network, though. They’ll probably get some increased message board traffic.

  • Kristen “Caydiem” DeMeza

    There are no words for how flabbergasted I am by this move. It’s so divorced from what makes a game community thrive, and there are so very many problems with it.

    Minors, for example, are supposed to be on an account bearing the name of a parent, but in practice this rarely happens. I doubt the kids playing WoW are telling mom and dad about this little change, and many parents will go completely unaware that their sons and daughters are posting on the internet with their real name. Those that do actually follow the guidelines will be unwittingly allowing their children limited anonymity by being able to use their parent’s name instead — and I doubt strongly that all the minors will have the good judgment not to tarnish their parents’ names. Can’t wait for that to show up on Google!

    At the heart of it, it breaks down the escapism people often seek from these games. While I’m sure the response to that argument by those who made the decision was something along the lines of “Forums are an optional service for the game,” they’re still a significant part of what makes a game and a realm community work in the long run. I like the people with whom I play, but I don’t need the person asking for more people for his raid on Saturday to know my real name. I don’t need to know his, either. This is going to chase a lot of the people who use the forums for legitimate, community-building communication to unofficial forums — which is a win for Blizzard in the business and marketing sense, since the forums will become more manageable. It’s a serious loss for the game community, however.

    This move might finally get me to stop stalling and start my own blog.

  • Stormwaltz

    One of my coworkers was quick to post this in response to the news.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    I don’t think even the most vitriolic of forum posters there has much to worry about.  Stick your first and last name into Google and marvel at how many people share your name.  It’s pretty weak accountability.  They would have to include your city and state as public knowledge so your potential stalkers know which phone books to look in.

  • Kristen “Caydiem” DeMeza

    geldonyetich: I don’t think even the most vitriolic of forum posters there has much to worry about.  Stick your first and last name into Google and marvel at how many people share your name.  It’s pretty weak accountability.  They would have to include your city and state as public knowledge so your potential stalkers know which phone books to look in.

     

    That is entirely dependent on the name. Sure, if your name is “John Smith,” you’re practically anonymous anyway, and I’m sure those few bilious individuals with a name so plain as to render finding them impossible will still go to town with gusto. However, I know quite a few people who have very unique names. If they stuck their name in Google, as you say, they would find results only related to themselves. I know of perhaps one other person on the wide internet with mine that I’ve caught thus far, for example.

  • http://tremayneslaw.wordpress.com/ Tremayne

    geldonyetich:
    I don’t think even the most vitriolic of forum posters there has much to worry about.  Stick your first and last name into Google and marvel at how many people share your name.  It’s pretty weak accountability.  They would have to include your city and state as public knowledge so your potential stalkers know which phone books to look in.

     
    Speak for yourself – my name is rare enough that every single thing I can find on Google using that combination does, in fact, go straight back to me. Searching on real name plus “WoW” or “MMORPG” would probably help narrow it down for those with more common names if they’ve ever posted something about their hobby on a blog or Facebook.

  • Carson

    I very rarely posted on the WoW forums before, but I definitely never will now.
    I understand their logic, but I wonder how many good folks they alienate vs. bad ones they discourage. Lum makes a good point, strong warnings from Blizzard about only sharing this information with your close friends would know in real life… and oh by the way now that includes the entire internet.
    I suppose it’s optional in the sense you could just never post but that’s dubious reasoning since you could also argue RealID is optional in that you never use their product.

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  • Brask Mumei

    geldonyetich’s point stands, however.  Real ID is only an effective stick for a segment of the population.  There is a reason why governments went with social security numbers and what not, names are very crappy ways to identify people.  Not only is there tons of false matches, but there are tons of variants for the same person.  First names can often be long or short forms.  People get married, divorced, and just plain change their names.
     
    So, we have a class of internet trolls which will be unphased by this “real world” identifier – you can’t track down all the John Smiths, or better yet, if you happen to have a real name that is shared by a popular in game player, you get to have them take the fall for your rants.  Or they are posting from stolen credit cards anyways, so don’t particularly care about whatever poor saps name gets dragged through the mud.

  • pharniel

    Can’t wait for the THINK OF THE CHILDREN crowd to rain down massive lawsuits, and some over eager DA to charge them with accesory for stalking and all that.

    also, welcome to getting C&D and PPO letters since you want to share real names now.

    WOOO HOO

  • pharniel

    err, the woo hoo was for all the baby lawyers I know. IT’ll really help looking for a job.

  • john smith

    It’s about as opt out as not paying your monthly fee. Which, by itself, sounds reasonable. But in reality it isn’t. People invest large chunks of their time and money into what has quickly stopped being games and instead extensions of the real world. And blizzard knows this. Now we are seeing this further in the REALID nonsense.

  • Arkazon

    It’s a radical move, for sure.  However, it’s nothing that we should feel completely betrayed by.  After all, the official forums are just a side service, completely optional to use.  I rarely, if ever, use them.  I know I never will now.  Whatever their intentions, they have to understand that this move is going to greatly decrease the interest and use of their official forums; whether or not that was their goal is open for interpretation.
    However, having played many games like these for many years, I can tell you that I expect a certain level of space between my real life and my interactions in the game.  I can get by playing their game without the forums.  If they ever try to force this on the in-game friends list, though, I’ll stop using the friends list altogether and just keep a pad and paper nearby to write player names down.

  • sleepysam

    I like this thought:
    Amusingly enough, this change violates Blizzard’s terms of service, which promise to ban anyone revealing real-world information about a player.  Clearly at one point they recognized the importance of pseudonymity; hopefully someone will stop this change before it goes through.  There is currently a strong fan response pouring in and we’ll have to wait to see how Blizzard responds.

    http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=2614

  • http://tremayneslaw.wordpress.com/ Tremayne

    The other thought that occurs to me is that this is part and parcel of WoW becoming less and less of a fantasy virtual world. Out go exploration, open world pvp battles and immersing yourself in a virtual alter-ego; in come instant dungeon group finders that teleport you to the action, small team arena e-sports and social networking integration. All of these changes add convenience at the expense of immersion.

  • http://www.independentcreator.com Matt

    You guys have an… expansive view of how the legal system works.
     
    If this change were retroactive, it might be lawsuit territory. Maybe. But suing because the service does exactly what it promises to do? …

  • VPellen

    Stalking just got easier!

  • Geoff

    FYI, it sounds like it will now be optional to post a character name.
    Now the security bug with addons, on the other hand, does expose your real name to people who only know your character name.

  • Imp

    Hmmm, What happens when this works at cleaning up the forums (not nessisarly saying it will). Then they descide Barrens chat could use a simular clean up? After all, chating in open chat is optional, it isn’t required to play the game.

  • Bleaktea

    I have to wonder which university’s psychology department put them up to this.  You could easily squeeze a PhD out of observing what’s about to happen.

  • VPellen

    Okay, so, after some thought.. How can Blizzard possibly think this is a good idea? I mean, look, I get the theory: Hey, people are assholes because of anonymity! No anonymity, no assholes! But that seems like a fucking bizarre trade-off to make given that it’ll basically kill the forums. But hey, maybe that’s really what they’re going for. The question is, how big or WoW’s forums in the big scope of things? I’m wondering if the effective loss of the forums will make a dent in their subscriber numbers.

    Probably not.

  • Vetarnias

    Blizzard, meet the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.  They tackled Facebook; you’re next.

  • Mark Asher

    Do you really think this will kill the forums? A lot of people use their real names on the internet. Others will grudgingly go ahead and use real names on the Blizzard forums because they want to post there. As busy as though forums are, I don’t see this killing them. Even if they dropped down to 25% of current traffic, they’d still be extremely busy.
    The sheer amount of traffic the forums get now kill them for me. I read them now and then, but never post because every post gets buried under hundreds of new posts every minute.
    It’s interesting that no one is bothered by Blizzard and other companies exercising censorship on their message boards, because hey, they’re private services so the ideal of free speech doesn’t apply. They can do what they want to protect their interests. Now they apparently want to clean up the boards and hope to do so by removing anonymity and the sky is falling.

  • Arkazon

    I am not one of those who looks at this situation and sees wild lawsuits, and government intervention, and all that nonsense.  I know the real world doesn’t work that way.  However, I do see the logical course that this will take.  It is pretty obvious that the forum usage will drop.  Dramatically.  Perhaps to the point where they become a ghost town and the developers no longer are able to receive customer feedback from them.  

    As someone else rightly mentioned, that may be good for Blizzard.  Forum traffic will migrate to non-official sites.  Even though Blizzard offers forums as a service, I wonder if they really have much stake in getting people to use it.  The feature provides no additional revenue, but is generally expected of most MMOs.  Do they really stand to lose much by turning the forums into a ghost town?  I don’t know that many people will cancel their accounts just because they feel they can no longer use the forums.
     

  • http://serialganker.blogspot.com sid67

    This latest news is a great example of why I feel completely justified in providing Blizzard “fake” account information when I created my accoutns. Maybe six or seven years ago now I started a fake “Sid” persona that I use exclusively for gaming things. I’m not trying to “hide” my real identity so much as control what shows up on Google searches for my real name.

    I had the mis-pleasure of being accidentally outted once on a gaming forum I used to visit about 10 years ago. Basically, I was just credited by someone else for something I had written. I’m sure they thought they were doing me favors but even today it still shows up on the second page of Google.

    Flashforward to today. I have two identities setup on the internet (facebook accounts, emails, etc). One is for Sid. The other for the real me. If you have a unique name like I do, I strongly suggest doing the same thing.

  • VPellen

    Mark Asher: Do you really think this will kill the forums? A lot of people use their real names on the internet.

    Yes, a lot of people use their real names on the internet. Not a lot of people use their real names on their Night Elf.

  • http://bdadv.wordpress.com bonedead

    Why’d you post on a level 1 alt?  Too scared to show us who you really are?
     
    THATS WHAT I THOUGHT

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  • http://www.facebook.com/acbeckers Alex Beckers

    I, for one, am fascinated to see what the ramifications of this will be, assuming it actually works. From a strictly gameplay point of view we can now enter bizarre realms where I can post on the Silver Hand world forums, “Heya, this is Rhogan (L80 Hunter), anyone want to run ICC?” and someone else can come in and say, “WTF, you’re not Rhogan, I’m Rhogan!”
    Unless they want to have some way to permanently associate character names with real names. On the forums.
    It gets even more fun if there’s another WoW player named Alex Beckers on my server.
    Character/Server pairs are unique. Real names are not.
    In terms of what this does to the forums… yeah. Will the fear of nonymity be enough to drive away players drooling for a blue (BLUE!) response?

  • Jeff

    This is wrong for so many reasons. I know people that religiously avoid using their real name anywhere on the internet due to issues with real life stalkers. They play games like WoW and post on the forums for a break from real life. Beyond that, whatever happened to privacy? I understand the need to deal with trolls on the forums, but there has to be a better way.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Zubon

    I, for one, look forward to when they take this in-game.  Right-click anyone’s name for a name and billing address.

  • dartwick

    geldonyetich: I don’t think even the most vitriolic of forum posters there has much to worry about.  Stick your first and last name into Google and marvel at how many people share your name.  It’s pretty weak accountability.  They would have to include your city and state as public knowledge so your potential stalkers know which phone books to look in.

     

    I just googled my name and the first 3 links are My dad, me and my great uncle who died in WW2. Im over half the links on the first 2 pages and my dad is many of the others.

    It wouldnt take much of a brain to find me and my address just using google. And Im someone who makes a modest effort to keep my name off the internet.

    I do agree its unlikely that someone will come to your house and beat you up. However I think its quiet likely that they could fuck with your name. By creating fake face book account, digging for bank info etc.

    So I edited your post and removed the errant commentary.

    geldonyetich: I don’t think.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Android8675 Andy O’Brien

    Just for fun I googled myself and my facebook page came up (page 3) so I don’t like this too much. Not that I’m not afraid to use my real name (see this post), but I can see where lots of people might just find this appalling.

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