RealID: Blizzard Heard You

Really.

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.

Blizzard taught us how to come together as a community to slay internet dragons. Sometimes, Blizzard doesn’t like what internet dragons we choose to slay.

– Lissanna, commenter, WoW.com

So, initial WOOHOO rush aside, some comments:

  • Yes, this blog has been all WoW RealID all the time the past few days. I think it’s justified. This has been a pretty big deal. World of Warcraft is, by most metrics, one of the if not the largest MMO in the world, and has the most active community. When Blizzard decides to change the paradigm of how people play its games, from avatar to actual (which I still believe the primary goal of the RealID push to be), it’s a big deal.
  • Does this announcement mean that Blizzard suddenly discovered religion on privacy issues? Of course not. There’s still some not so minor quibbles with the in-game RealID implementation, the lack of any ability to opt out of publishing in-game character data, and a game client that isn’t shy about searching your PC looking for signs of misbehavior. Blizzard is still one of the worst offenders in the gaming industry in terms of abusing its users’ expectations of privacy. However, they also now know that their customers do not have an infinite patience for having their privacy stripped away. This is an important, and necessary achievement, before further progress can be made.
  • The debate by those in favor of Blizzard’s actions have been largely to the degree of “well, I don’t mind if my real name is out there, so what’s the big deal?” As noted by the fact that these blog posts are authored by Scott Jennings and not Lum the Gnome Warlock, I don’t particularly mind, either. However, I made that choice. One should not deny others the ability to make choices regarding their privacy simply because you did not find them necessary.
  • One undercurrent that has been unspoken by many of us, and commented on by the mass media, is that the reason this is such a problem is that gamer culture in general is a mean, ugly, misogynist cesspool. Removing anonymity won’t fix this. Honestly, I’m not sure what would. Consequences for one’s actions? Self-awareness within a tighter, smaller community? Giving me a shotgun? I’m not sure which solution would work but the fallout from this week shows one is definitely needed. To quote Simond from F13:

We won. For now. And all it took was threadnoughts on the official forums, every single mmo blog bar about two saying “This is a fucking terrible idea”, the mass media, a Penny Arcade comic, and the destruction of one CS minion’s life.

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  • J.

    CONGRATULATIONS INTERNET!
    You may resuming killing Internet dragons.

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

    Awesome! Score one for the separation between player and avatar -

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Julian

    I was gonna quote Winston Wolf, but instead I’ll just say it’s not time to sing that witches are dead.

  • http://grimnir.mmofansites.com Grimnir

    Well that’s disappointing. I was really looking forward to Blizzard committing Hari-Kari for all of us to watch. I wonder how much damage was/will be done before the general riotous public will catch on to this? Oh well..
     

  • Elovia

    This announcement shouldn’t endear Blizzard. At best, they’ve betrayed the trust of their customers… thus the customers need to be ever more vigilant than before. If a bully threatens to take away your candy, and then decides to do it later when no one is looking, do you trust and love the bully for letting you keep your candy, however temporary it might be?

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Julian

    “This announcement shouldn’t endear Blizzard.”
     
    I agree with this. If someone sticks a finger in my ass I’m not going to applaud when he takes it out.

  • Freakazoid

    Well damn, there goes my dream of seeing the 800lb gorilla kill itself.

    Now I’ll never get to blame their downfall on issues that made me cancel my account all those years ago.

    Although… I do get to make fun of the few supporters/apologists who thought that was going to be a good thing.

    You hear me, RealID supporters? You are all officially faggots. Bow your head in shame and leave the internet forever!

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  • unbound

    “This announcement shouldn’t endear Blizzard”
     
    I agree 100%.  Blizzard shouldn’t have even entertained this concept…they were betting that they could spin this with minimal impact (probably expecting to lose no more than 2% of the player base).  I’m guessing their legal department wasn’t consulted (or simply has an incompetent legal department), and as a number of potential (and rather likely) scenarios started getting listed and probably a large number of cancelled subscriptions (probably not even 1%, but to have even close to a 1% cancellation rate in a couple of days will not please shareholders), Blizzard started realizing that they weren’t going to spin this one.
     
    Again, they shouldn’t even have entertained the concept.  Noone should have any doubt that Blizzard is no longer a gaming company…just another corporation who happens to be in the game making space.

  • Sean

    Hopefully this means that the virus known as Activision has not completely taken over the host. :P
    While I was not as concerned about the RealID issue as others, I’m glad to see that Blizzard took player feedback into consideration. Hopefully next time they try something boneheaded like this they’ll talk to people instead of just rolling it out.

  • dartwick

    Im guessing it had rather little to do with the player feed back and a lot to do with the publicized data mining of personal information of Blizzard employees.

  • http://www.whysohostile.com Cymbaline

    dartwick: Im guessing it had rather little to do with the player feed back and a lot to do with the publicized data mining of personal information of Blizzard employees.

     
    I would amend that to read “Blizzard C*Os” rather than “Blizzard employees.” I think that Joe Supportguy’s data getting exposed matters about as much as player protest, which both matter less than subscription cancellation numbers, which probably matters less than the CEO’s personal info being plastered all over the internet.

    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.

    One wonders if this means “we just decided that we won’t use real names” or if this means “we decided that we won’t use real names right now.”

  • CF

    All of you wanting to see Blizzard implode, think about what you are saying for a second.  Blizzard is what is really keeping PC gaming afloat as a commercially viable venture for most big development companies.  Can you name another serious name in the gaming business that even comes close for the PC market?
    If Blizzard goes down you will see all but the most “indie” of developers stay with the PC scene.  We may all hate WoW, but you can’t argue that other PC developers directly benefit from its success as an engine for their own endeavors.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Julian

    Real ID is not “dead”. Not even “on hold”.
     
    Blizzard thought they could introduce Real ID without lube. They couldn’t. Now they’re surely trying to come up with some.

  • Brask Mumei

    Woohoo!
     
    I know, I know, my cynical side will point out the “at this time” weasel words, and worry that they are just going to try a different tactic to foist world of facebook on us.  But I do try to be an optimist, so I’m going to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt and assume there isn’t a nefarious higher purpose to RealId, that it was just a really stupid idea they almost pushed through.
     
    I’m still going to have false info on my battlenet account for SC2 or D3.  But at least I can purchase those without feeling like betraying my principles.

  • Buur

    I am shocked that the good guys won for a change. Nice to see.

  • Aufero

    “At this time” has an uncomfortable ring of “We’re waiting for the outcry to die down and then we’ll introduce the whole thing again more gradually.”  While I’m glad they saw the light this time, I don’t trust the people who came up with this idiotic plan to have any respect for my privacy in the future.

  • Elovia

    Let’s wake up to reality. No one won. There are only survivors who get to live another day … until the prolonged cataclysm …. errr … catastrophe … finally arrives.

  • http://www.cataclysmlevelguide.com/ Snafzg

    “Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose [an Activision] hegemony.”
    - Noam Chomsky [and me]

  • Sok

    Well, good on Blizzard/Activision for backing away from this nonsense.

    Cymbaline:   One wonders if this means “we just decided that we won’t use real names”or if this means “we decided that we won’t use real names right now.”

     

    I figure it’s wisest to presume “right now”, recalling the recent Facebook “hey, your private info is now public!” uproar. They want to go this direction; let’s hope they just come up with a less stifling way to do it.

  • http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/ Stabs

    Good job Scott and everyone who opposed this.

  • mitha

    Next thing we will see: optional RealID on Forums.
    Then maybe certain areas of the forums where you need to use RealID to post atl all.
     
    And boom, there it is. RealID in your face!

  • goodgimp

    CF: All of you wanting to see Blizzard implode, think about what you are saying for a second.  Blizzard is what is really keeping PC gaming afloat as a commercially viable venture for most big development companies.  

    This doesn’t make much sense to me. People in the past have complained that World of Warcraft has KILLED the PC industry, although I don’t find that to be true either.

    It’s not like WoW is pushing hardware that other game studios can then take advantage of. Blizzard’s success in the PC space is a benefit to Blizzard.

  • http://needmorerage.blogspot.com Ratshag

    Very happies fer to have played a small part in a big victory. ‘Scuse me while I ungird me loins.

  • John Smith

    Julian: “This announcement shouldn’t endear Blizzard.”   I agree with this. If someone sticks a finger in my ass I’m not going to applaud when he takes it out.

     

    Pretty much this a thousand times.

  • John Smith

    CF: All of you wanting to see Blizzard implode, think about what you are saying for a second.  Blizzard is what is really keeping PC gaming afloat as a commercially viable venture for most big development companies.  Can you name another serious name in the gaming business that even comes close for the PC market? If Blizzard goes down you will see all but the most “indie” of developers stay with the PC scene.  We may all hate WoW, but you can’t argue that other PC developers directly benefit from its success as an engine for their own endeavors.

     

    Bioware. Valve. Ncsoft. Nexon. Rebellion. All those other f2p mmorpg developers and random indy devs that churn out hundreds of titles each year that fill every niche imaginable. I’ve been gaming online for over 10 years now, and I haven’t touched a blizzard product since the first star craft (and even that was short lived for me).

    There are plenty of other people out there makings games that people like. And if they never make a game you want you can also go into modding. We, as players/consumers, do not need blizzard for anything. Especially if we aren’t/never were WOW customers. I personally find the company’s existence to be offensive. They set trends such as “cash shop in a subscription game, 25 dollar mounts” and other such nonsense that other developer’s see as “well wow got away with it, let’s try it too!” I would argue that pc gaming would thrive much more (in innovation and creativity), like it did 10-20 years ago, if there wasn’t some super giant constantly setting “industry standards in customer fleecing”.

  • Ant ButterNut

    Blizzard dodged a bullet.

    I was betting that within 6 months of using real names on the forums we would see the following news article on CNN:

    “Last week a pedophile tracked down a female minor by her name on the Blizzard forums, raped, and then killed her.  Today the victim’s parents have filed a lawsuit for $100 million against Blizzard for posting their daughter’s real name without any verification of her age.”

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  • http://www.mmomisanthrope.wordpress.com Dblade

    But in the end though, all they did was change a way of moderating forums. It’s not like this was done at great cost to them or involved a significant change to the concept of RealID. A danger is reading too much into this.

  • Vetarnias

    I’d never have thought Blizzard would cave in to the demands of mere customers. I was certain that it would have taken the long arm of the law to rein them in; or maybe Legal was finally asked for its opinion of the matter.  Nonetheless, Blizzard will be back with something like that, and I would guess not that far off.
     
    And you’re right, it doesn’t help that gamers are seen as immature grown-ups (when not teens) who get emotional over a bunch of pixels and chase everything over Vent that sounds as though they might be wearing skirts (except in Scotland). Hence you get news items such as this, where the journalist pretty much toes the company line: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/07/warcraft-activision-blizzard-trolls.html . You would have thought that after the Facebook fiasco, news outlets would have been a little more sympathetic towards players.
     
    P.S.: I recall reading the obit of the nurse in that picture quite recently. She was in her early nineties, if I remember.

  • http://goamsy.blogspot.com Ritchian

    It seems like a grudging victory to me.  Probably a temporary one to boot.
    As others have pointed out, the issue isn’t going to go away. It’ll likely return at a later date, probably with a more appetizing presentation to lull some of the protesters of this round into at least a quiet indifference.  Don’t misunderstand me.  RealID’s lack of anything resembling rudimentary privacy controls outside of ‘Just don’t use it’ is a horrible, horrible idea – and forcing people to use their real name to post on the official Blizzard forums doubly so. But it’s also a such a potentially lucrative idea that I can’t imagine any company completely giving it up.
    Round one looks like a victory for privacy.  Let’s see what round two brings us.

  • TJ

    I must say I’m quite pleased with the outcome, I am still not a fan of RealID but I’m still very happy that the gamers came together and scored a victory in this instance.

    Many thanks to all you bloggers who wrote so eloquently on the subject and brought national media attention to this.

    On a side note, wouldn’t it be funny if this was the plan of Blizzard all along…throw the topic to the forums and let the outrage of the gaming community show the bean counters that this was a horrible idea?  Hmmm.

  • Gx1080


     
    Sweeeet.
    Guess that they decided to not do the legal experiment “will be hold liable when somebody gets killed for this?”

  • Jeff

    You know that surge of victory the Rebels felt after destroying the Death Star? Well let’s enjoy it, because it won’t be too long before Darth Kotick is trying to destroy our privacy AND our awesome snow base.

  • VPellen

    I’ve always detested the harsh avoidance of responsibility or concession in any official announcement ever.

    We’ve been discussing your concerns. We have decided. At this time. Due to our discussions.

    Just once I’d like to see a press release summarized as “Hey, we fucked up, whoops, sorry, we’ll try not to do it again”. Instead of, you know, issues and circumstances, discussions and concerns, calm meetings held with stern and responsible people.

    Nothing leaves a bad taste in my mouth like corporate bullshit.

  • Blizzard billing department

    We didn’t listened you customers.
    We listened money cash flow and noticed a change and were worried of the impact in our balance.
    So we urged our company to take a different decision in such matter.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    They’re probably still going to go RealID sooner or later – too much money tied up in their Facebook partnership not to.  They’re just going to be significantly more subtle about it.

  • Jeff

    @geldonyetich
     
    I agree, which makes you wonder why they weren’t more subtle in the first place.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Julian

    I’m gonna guess it was 15% player outrage, 10% blogs and the rest divide it however you like amongst MSM pieces, short term stock price and long term profits from SC2, D3 and whatever comes next.
     
     

  • Tinman_au

    Either:
    a. They really though they could bring this in without causing too much of an issue.
    b. They knew it would cause an issue and that they’d have to pull it, but will reintroduce it at a later date in a modified format (i.e. SOE and it’s in-game trading) which most folks will respond with something like “Well, I don’t really like it, but it’s better than their first try and limited to certain servers/in house/someone else, so meh”.
    c. They knew it would cause an issue, but they have something else happening that the RealID “perfect storm” has helped cover up (this is a classic manoeuvre with politicians, but is a bit “tin foil hat” with anyone else).
    My guess is it’s more B., but then I’m pretty cynical about games companies these days…
    A “Connect with RealID” button under the Facebook and Twitter ones would really complete the irony here :)

  • http://www.cesspit.net Abalieno

    “I think it’s justified.”
     
    No, it’s not. You were only part of this dancing ceremony whose outcome was already written.
     
    This was probably a product of internal faction war within Blizzard, and one faction simply pushed the other to go public just so that everything that happened would happen and the first faction proven right. If you think a number of people at Blizzard didn’t expect all this then you are naive.
     
    No one won. You were only given the illusion that you made the difference when instead it’s just Blizzard proving again: we are relevant and everyone talks about us. We’re serious stuff.

  • Tox

    @VPellen: You sound like someone who hates Obama for having a cool head when he’s dealing with serious issues. Personally, I want people who make the decisions to be calm, considerate, and careful. It’s not “corporate bullshit.” It’s leadership, which entails a great deal of responsibility to a lot of people.

  • Idealist

    What I wonder at this point is what the odds are that this was a limited hangout that did not quite go as expected.
     
    Or maybe worse, it did. So what’s next?

  • http://www.muckbeast.com Muckbeast

    CF: All of you wanting to see Blizzard implode, think about what you are saying for a second.  Blizzard is what is really keeping PC gaming afloat as a commercially viable venture for most big development companies.  Can you name another serious name in the gaming business that even comes close for the PC market? If Blizzard goes down you will see all but the most “indie” of developers stay with the PC scene.  We may all hate WoW, but you can’t argue that other PC developers directly benefit from its success as an engine for their own endeavors.

     

    Big Fish

    Outspark

    EA

    *grimace* Zynga

    Need more?

  • VPellen

    @Tox
    I’m Australian, and I’m politically left. I’m all for Obama.
    The thing that bugs me isn’t the stout resilience or stiff upper lip, it’s the complete and total refusal to ever take responsibility for anything or admit that any decision was ever a bad idea.

  • Tox

    @VPellen: Understood. But I’d argue that an admission of error or wrongdoing can be irresponsible. Sometimes an apology is necessary to quell a riot, but as a tactic of crisis management, it’s a last resort. The legal and economic risks are not insignificant.

  • Freakazoid

    CF:
    All of you wanting to see Blizzard implode, think about what you are saying for a second.  Blizzard is what is really keeping PC gaming afloat as a commercially viable venture for most big development companies.  Can you name another serious name in the gaming business that even comes close for the PC market?
    If Blizzard goes down you will see all but the most “indie” of developers stay with the PC scene.  We may all hate WoW, but you can’t argue that other PC developers directly benefit from its success as an engine for their own endeavors.

     

    Are you aware that blizzard has not made a new pc game since late 2004, when WoW was released? They have not been relevant to pc gaming as a whole, just as a provider of a couple old games and one super-MMO. Starcraft 2 might break that regression, or it might not, but that still makes it nearly 6 years between titles.

  • http://beafraid.com hellfire

    Abalieno: “I think it’s justified.”   No, it’s not. You were only part of this dancing ceremony whose outcome was already written.

    That much is certain. The “announcement” of RealID went exactly how Blizzard expected and (likely) wanted it to go. If you look at all the major changes they’ve wrought to the MMO space in the last 5 years many were prefaced by rather Machiavellian manipulations. Many of the regulars here discussed that very thing in the RMT/Glitterpony thread a few months ago. The parallels are staggering. Blizzard has been exceedingly proficient in herd management. Frighteningly proficient.

    In the end Blizzard will do exactly what Blizzard intended to do because just like any other multi-billion-dollar company they have a strategic plan designed to increase the afore mentioned multi-billions.

  • Ant ButterNut

    I understand now.  It all makes sense.  Blizzard has too much money.  And Battlenet keeps shutting down.  So Blizzard is going to buy Facebook, and we will all log into our Orc Game from there!  Plus then the game will automatically post “Chiapet needs help forming a group for Naxxramas.  Click here to accept the group invite” right on my Facebook page!  SWEEEEEEEEET !

  • http://dancingelephants.wordpress.com/ Cayle

    There is irony to this discussion, seeing that I can log in with my facebook account to post. I’m not in the industry, but I do know this. The official forums are a cesspoll of the underside of humanity. Oh, let’s cut to the chase, a huge part of the gamer community as a whole is a cesspool of the underside of humanity. It’s no accidents that community managers burn out.
     
    Whether its opened or Facebook Connect or whatever, the world is moving away from pseudonymity and its generally moving to a better place because of it. I once blogged about the cost of pseudonymity ; and that was just based on my experience running worlds in the NWN persistent world community. The communities there were small and intimate in comparison.
     
    Oh and the outcry now won’t stop it. It has too many benefits for MMO operators – including stronger communities – once players come to accept it. Remember debates about item stores? Ten years from now, it will be normal for us to use our FB account for our games.

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