Xbox Live Gamertag Switch Causes Nickname Anguish

Thanks to TeamXbox for its story discussing issues requiring some Xbox Live players to switch their GamerTag name IDs, since, according to Microsoft: "There are many names on the Xbox Live service that are extremely similar to other Gamertags (in most cases differentiated by only a single space.)" Some gamers who have had the same nickname for almost 2 years are understandably upset, though Microsoft is offering "a free game... [and] 1 year subscription to Xbox Live" by way of compensation. An official Microsoft spokesperson on the Xbox.com messageboards indicated: "This problem has nothing to do with the way we code...it's what we need to do to normalize data as we connect to other partners that need to work w/ [Xbox] Live... We are very upset that we had to do this" - some commenters claim (though it's not been specifically stated) that EA's upcoming Xbox Live debut has helped precipitate the name switch.

Comments

Who?

[satoshi1]

Who has to change names? Gamers that already have the names? Or the newer gamers that have ones similar to the older ones? Some gamers who have had the same nickname for almost 2 years are understandably upset leads me to believe that the gamers who've had their tags for the longer period of time are the ones getting boned.

Re:Who?

[Snowmit]

Who has to change names? Gamers that already have the names? Or the newer gamers that have ones similar to the older ones? Some gamers who have had the same nickname for almost 2 years are understandably upset leads me to believe that the gamers who've had their tags for the longer period of time are the ones getting boned.

Or it could mean that MasterChief has had his nickname for almost two years +(20 seconds). Suck it up, m4sterche1f.

Re:Who?

[fireduck]

reading the forum postings in the 2nd link, it sounds like both parties with similar name are being forced to change. lots of people complaining about identical names with and without spaces being hit (e.g., fire duck & fireduck); most of the complainers seem to have been beta testers from the beginning of the xbl service. so it's understandable they'd be annoyed.

Madness

[Snowmit]

Anyone else feeling like it's kind of unfair that the people who couldn't find a name more creative than kill3r are now getting FREE LOOT?

LOL LOL

[superpulpsicle]

I am surprised Microsoft didn't go to PS2 online games and make PS2 users change names for a free xbox game.

Who cares if they all have the same name. Give them a freaking unique ID. Hello? Database 101.

Re:LOL LOL

[Daetrin]

which brings us back to unique names, why not use that...
Oh they have! that'll be the Gamertag.

Have you not been paying attention, or are you being intentionaly obtuse?

The problem is that they can not have two people using the same nick because the nick is currently the unique ID. Using unique ID numbers along with nicks, so as to allow people to choose whatever nick they want, does not "bring us back to unique names," because a unique ID has always been required from step one by the nature of the system. The only question is what the unique key should be.

And i hate to tell you this, but in the real world there are people with the _same_name_ who are in fact _different_people_. And we seem to deal with it okay. I may know several Sarahs, but i have no trouble telling them apart. If it ever comes up in conversation and there's the possibility of confusion i can say "Sarah X" or "Sarah who lives in Place_Y" and everyone deals just fine. I expect it would be the same way in XBox Live or any other online system. It seems unlikely that the average person would have too many people on their friends list with the same name. They'd just have to put in the unique ID once when they added them, and that would be that.

If you're confused because the only people who will play with you are frag_bastard, fragbastard, and fr4g|3astard, i expect that's more of a commentary on your personality rather than the feasability of the system.

Re:LOL LOL

[JFMulder]

Gamer Tags are not the actual database ID. They're USER NAMES. People are getting confused because for any John Smith nick name you can have JohnSmith, John Smith, John Smith, Jonh Smith, john smith. That's what's confusing people.

Re:LOL LOL

[Mattintosh]

Actually, you could have users 23098203, 20934865, 94832029, and 12893573 all share the exact same nick. You wouldn't need to differentiate between "FragBastard" and "Frag_Bastard". You wouldn't need to exclude spaces from names, either. Imagine that... you could actually name yourself "Frag Bastard" and not fear the total breakdown of XBox Live's user database when the game puts your name up in lights.

It's called good design, and far too few programmers (yes, even /. geeks) bother with it. It's a "who cares" attitude, and I hate it with a passion.

Real name

[LordNimon]

My gamer tag is my full, real name, but I've only had it for a few months. I'd be pretty upset if I had to change it, because then I'd have to come up with a nickname.