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Blizzard Backs Down On Real Names For Forums

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-about-that-lan-feature dept.

Ashe Tyrael writes "Earlier this week, Blizzard announced that they were going to be implementing changes in their official forums (for StarCraft II when it launched, and for WoW prior to Cataclysm) that would require users to post under their real names, as part of the Real ID system. After perusing nearly 14,000 European and 50,000 US forum posts, the majority of which decried this move with various levels of vehemence, it looks like Blizzard has given in to the pressure. From the official statement: '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.' Not that this doesn't leave room for them to re-implement this at a later date, but that's a pretty definite 'no.' It was clear they were going to take criticism, but the size of the backlash was impressive. It seems likely Blizzard simply wasn't expecting that level of antipathy toward their new policy.

3 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Popularity by Translation+Error · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmm... The company with some of the most popular computer games in the world listen to customer feedback and reconsider their decisions based on it. You don't suppose there could be some sort of correlation, do you?

    --
    When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
    1. Re:Popularity by phishtahko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, that's why SC2 an D3 have LAN support. O, wait...

  2. Not real names, but tied to accounts by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blizzard should simply tie forum names to accounts in an opaque manner. You can only create a forum name if you have an account, and you can only create one per account and only if you have a game key activated on that account. The forum name can't be the same as the account username (to prevent disclosure), and once created you can't change it (CS can change it for you, but you have to give them a good reason to). That solves most of the problem without requiring real names anywhere.

    Basically for the purposes Blizzard claims to need to address, real identities aren't needed. What's needed is only two things:

    • Users need to be sure that the person behind a forum name today is the same person as was behind it last week. Usually referred to as "continuity of identity". They don't need to know who the person is, just that it's the same person.
    • Users need to be reasonably sure that a single person can't quickly and easily create multiple new identities to hide behind, so a new forum name almost always does represent a real new person.

    Neither of those requires disclosing real identities.