In a huge victory for the thousands of posters to the Blizzard official forums over the last few days Mike Morhaime posted a response to the recent uproar about Blizzard requiring Real ID names on the forums:
“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.”
And there was much rejoicing.
I don’t know. I liked the idea of real ID on the wow forums. I rarely post on them since BC was released, but that’s to do with the fact that the trolls where really starting to come out of the wood work then. This is a game after all why bother putting up with assholes. I know most trolls are just kids craving attention. I still wouldn’t put up with it. I’ve watched far to many important to the game posts vanish because of troll. Do hope that Blizz ends up doing what they have for years before BC and revoke Blizz forum access to the trolls out there. If they had kept with it the entire time this would never have become an issue. Eather start the banning from the forums back up or do the other thing Blizz did for a while, ignor the whiners and go ahead with the real ID change to Blizz forums.
I liked it too. Hopefully there will be better troll control so to speak
I didn’t really care one way or the other as I don’t post nor read forums aside from the occasional peek into a sticky from time to time when looking for info. That said, I did believe that this was a huge invasion into the privacy of the players. I would have immediately vowed against posting anything on the forums ever again, and that’s a huge loss to the community and I contribute to the forums about once every year. So cheers on the success, I guess. Long live the trolls!
Minor correction–Mike Morhaime’s forum name is NOT Nethaera (who is in fact a woman)…as far as I know, he doesn’t have a forum identity of his own which is why his announcements are made via Community Managers.
Give me a break, nobody wanted it and now that Blizzard is saying “OK, we won’t do it”, you’re all saying that you liked the idea. Make up your mind! Bunch of cry babies…
I still actually liked the idea of using my name… I have nothing hide.
Please…stop using my name….
Nice splash image Randy
I like the idea of transparency. I prefer to know who the jerks are. Too many people feel free to ruin the experiences of others by hiding behind an avatar.
The people who liked the idea were in the minority. Perhaps 1/10 of the wow subscriber base. Bottom line – you shouldn’t force people to give up their names to total strangers. It’s wrong.
I would have cancelled and never looked back if they didn’t retract this. By putting real names on forums they’d be encouraging RL violence and harassment, as well as discrimination.
Good call on listening to your subscribers Blizz.
And to everyone who says the people cancelling were throwing a “tantrum” or were “whiners”, just be thankful you didn’t have some stripper show up at your house expecting to be paid for the 50+ pizzas and show ordered in your name.
Also I’d like to add Bashiok (Micah Whipple) is probably in witness protection by now. I feel bad for the poor guy, since he was the only one of the Blues to have the guts to post on his real name.
Took ppl all of 5 mins to post his entire life on the forums. Both his face book and twitter pages have been taken down, and apparently he’s disconnected his phone too.
Bashiok took the bullet for the rest of us, poor guy.
Did I hear Bobby Kotick whisper, ‘this is merely a set-back’
The fact remains Activision remain commited to making Battle.net (and therefore WoW) a more social experience.
Or in other words a player base that they will deliver to advertisers
When WoW first came out, I enjoyed the forums, and they were as much a part of the game as the game itself. It didn’t take long for them to turn ugly, and after a time, I abandoned them and never looked back.
I was starting to think this might fix the troll problem, and I might return, but now that prospect seems to be no more.
three little words “at this time” this is not the end of this story.
@Greygamer
Yes, but we’ve made our point. Do this and you lose a significant amount of subscribers. I think they are going to be sneakier about it in the future and we are going to have to actually read the TOS.
But money talks and the bottom line is they lost money over this and lost the trust of their customers. For now, they will be on their best behavior since they are on thin ice.
@Darrell
What they were trying to achieve with the trolls could just as easily been achieved by forcing users to create a unique handle for the forums and only allow them to use that name. Problem solved, nobody endangered, nobody threatened.
They took it to an extreme and got backhanded by the community.
I agree, I was completely against having to post with my real name. I’d already decided not to post there anymore, though. I’m glad I’mmstill be able to, and I hope Blizz implements the one handle idea.
I wonder if this had something to do out it:
July 8, IDG News Services – (International) Germany may fine Facebook over privacy issues. Facebook faces a fine from the Hamburg, Germany, Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information for failing to obtain the consent of the people whose contact details it stores. At issue are the site’s invitation and address-book synchronization functions, through which it uploads and stores contact information from the e-mail and mobile phone address books of its users. The problem is that some of that personal information relates to people who are not Facebook users, and who have not given their permission for the site to store their personal information, nor use it for marketing purposes. Many citizens of the German state of Hamburg have complained in recent months of Facebook passing their contact information to third parties and storing information about their relationships in this way. Such storage of data by third parties is “inadmissible” because of its implications for data protection, said the head of the state’s data protection service. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Facebook has until August 11 to make its case to the data protection commissioner if it wishes to avoid a fine. Source:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178984/Germany_may_fine_Facebook_over_privacy_issues_
While I think it was good of Blizzavision to eventually show they were listening, I’m not impressed that first, they actually thought this idea would fly with their community, and secondly, that it took nearly 50 thousand posts for them to come to this conclusion.
Will be watching very carefully.
I think the best way to get rid of the trolls is to start banning there account from the formus. just like that spam filter in the game add it to the formus then they an see what the reported people are say where and if there found to be troll there out.
To all the people saying “This will stop trolls”. This would do nothing to trolls, why would a troll care if you think Jack is his name. Unless you’re implying with his name real life repercussions can come of this, which is stupid. Because even trolls don’t deserve to be harassed in real life because they made a troll post.
Also, to the people saying “I have nothing to hide”. I don’t either, I’m proud of what I’ve done with my life, does this mean I want prank calls and pizza deliveries at 4 AM because some bored 14 year old found out my phone number because I posted on the forums?
This short comic explains my thoughts.
http://www.cad-comic.com/comics/c0a129271278475206.jpg
No.
This was a horrible idea and I’m shocked anyone was in support of it. At least people supporting it were in the minority though.
Also, Blizzard’s true intentions were not just to stop trolls with this. It was to make Battle.net closer to Facebook little by little.
Oh yea, this is really just the beginning for all of us who have agreed to the terms & conditions of playing this game!
Updated EULA information:
DISCLOSURES; THIRD PARTY FEATURES.
1.
Massive.
Blizzard’s Games and the Service may incorporate technology of Massive Incorporated (“Massive”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”), that enables in-game advertising, and the display of other similar in-game objects, which are downloaded temporarily to your personal computer and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Massive may collect some information about the game and the advertisements delivered to you, as well as standard information that is sent when your personal computer or game console connects to the Internet including your Internet protocol (IP) address. Massive will use this information to transmit and measure in-game advertising, as well as to improve the products and services of Massive and its affiliates. None of the information collected by Massive will be used to identify you. For additional details regarding Massive’s in-game advertising practices, please see Massive’s In-Game Advertising privacy statement at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122085&clcid=0×409. The trademarks and copyrighted material contained in all in-game advertising are the property of the respective owners. Portions of the Service are © 2008 Massive Incorporated.
All rights reserved.
At least two accounts will remain cancelled & future income will not be spent on their products unless Blizz/Acitivisions Frankenstein-type MMO/Social Media experiment ‘REALID’ is put to sleep.
THIS war may be won, however the batter is far from over.
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I have to say, I don’t see what all the fuss is about either way. So people would have known your full name? Big deal. It’s not like anyone could do anything with that information. For example, I just threw my name into google, and ten pages on, I still hadn’t found anything about me and I knew what I was looking for.
On the other hand, I do believe the whole RealID thing is a stupid idea for another reason: It’s a computer game. I think people forget that sometimes. I think Blizzard forgets that sometimes. I don’t see any other games out there doing this. Why? Because it’s absurd.
Cool, Robert Smith thinks divulging his name is perfectly safe.
Go read this, Rob: http://www.metafilter.com/93492/But-my-name-really-is-Deathblood-Blackaxe#3171416
Yep. I Couldn’t see them going through with this.
Yes you can, especially if you have a unique name. Throwing my name into Spokeo.com I get one result, this site shows my address, phone number, age and current economic state.
There was a thread on the WoW forums that got deleted where someone posted his real name. I found his Facebook, from there I found his first ten friends and they were all from the same location.
I typed it into Spokeo.com and found about 7 results. It was easy to see which one he was knowing his city, so I clicked it. I now knew his age, relationship status, address, phone number and economic state.
I called him asking “See why real-ID is a bad idea?” but he hung up. Twenty seconds later he posted “I’m getting prank calls now?” confirming I got the right information.
You can do quite a bit with just a name, especially if you have a unique name. Please don’t be naive.
Guys, you gotta think beyond the ‘yeah but my name isn’t unique and it will stop the trolls!’
I see this has already been posted, but if pennyarcade was convinced by it, it’s good enough for me.
http://www.metafilter.com/93492/But-my-name-really-is-Deathblood-Blackaxe#3171416
Stopping this RealID process was an extremely good idea. Unfortunately the wording of the announcement probably means they’re just going to wait a little and really slam it upon us.
I’m not gonna lie, anonymous guy responding to Rob, that’s REALLY creepy. It makes for a good story, but seriously, that’s like a good evening devoted to stalking a stranger and ten of his friends just to make a point.
I don’t necessarily even disagree with you. You just frighten me.
I understand that people are disturbed by the measures taken to prove how dangerous this move would have been, but consider that apparently this decision went all the way through to announcement stage at Blizzard *without anyone there* thinking that the inherent danger wasn’t serious enough to warrant not going through with it.
People weren’t *just* being jerks when they started highlighting the risks. It was genuinely frightening to be told that I had a set amount of time before I would be faced with not being able to use the forums without revealing the fact that I’m a woman who has a name that only pulls up information about me in google. It was the finality of their announcement, and the fact that posting your real name for the whole internet to see *is dangerous* for many people that led to a small minority feeling like their only option was to prove just how bad it could be.
I don’t think it’s admirable to do what they did, but I do think it’s ridiculous that it wasn’t until Blizzard’s employees were being harassed that they reconsidered. It makes me question if this decision would have been rescinded WITHOUT extreme measures being taken, because it honestly never should have left the drawing board.
The internet isn’t the only place jerks exists, but luckily, on the internet all anyone can do is say mean things. In the “real world” the consequences can be far worse, and I’m glad Blizzard failed at combining the two.
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