As is being widely reported, Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft have announced an upcoming change to their forum posting policy to the effect that forum users will soon only be able to post “using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it.” With the initial change commencing with the StarCraft II forums on the 27th July, and then being rolled-out to most of the rest of WoW’s forums at some point thereafter.
Blizzard cite the major reason for implementing this change as being an attempt to stamp out flame wars, trolling, etc., – certainly a laudable aim in many respects. However, while the move is being hailed by some users, it appears it is generating considerable ire among others who fear the wider and potentially negative impact of “rl outing”.
I’m not a user of WoW – I’m not a “gamer”, period, and other than OS Grids and an initial foray in Blue Mars, I’ve never ventured very far from Second Life. Certainly, WoW has had absolutely no appeal due to the emphasis (to my untutored eyes) on “war”. But, be that as it may, I don’t need to be a player to understand the concerns that have been voiced by, among others, Before Its News, who provide a neat summary.
What is particularly interesting is that – as BiN states, the Real ID system has, until now been optional – players opt-in (as I understand it from skim-reading a number of articles on the subject) if they want to have their real life name linked to their avatar / character. Under the terms of the announcement, it appears that the linking will shortly be mandatory – if only initially on the majority of WoW forums (Blizzard state a few “classic forums” will not be affected). However, one does wonder where this may end up going, particularly, again as Sean Brooks on BiN points out, Blizzard’s privacy policy reserves the right for the company to, “enhance or merge the personal information collected at a Blizzard site with data from third parties. Blizzard may also provide your personal information to other companies or organizations that offer products or services that may be of interest to you”. Again, while there is currently a opt-out of this dissemination, and there is justifiable concern being expressed that the mandatory use of real life names in the forums could be something of the “thin end of the wedge”.
A wider concern I have with this move (and again, I’m speaking as a non-WoW user), is something Ciaran Laval taps upon – the manner in which our ability to maintain on-line privacy is being eroded by corporations seemingly bent on making Mark Zuckerberg’s belief that “privacy is no longer a social norm” a reality – whether we agree or not. This is a deeply insidious and cynical view for many reasons – not the least of which is that those preaching and/or pushing this mantra tend to exclude themselves from the equation and continue to protect their privacy. In this it is interesting to note that Blizzard are already, it appears, looking to possibly exempt their own forum moderators from having their names displayed on-screen for pretty much the same reasons as those upset by the move has raised as concerns themselves.
Of course, a forum moderator making an unpopular decision might end up a more prominent target for rl “reprisals” than your ordinary Joe Schmo who makes an idiotic or inflammatory remark. However, this doesn’t mean the associated risks in Joe Schmo being “outed” aren’t worthy of equal consideration.
There is absolutely no suggestion that LL are looking in this direction, and it is interesting to note that initial reaction to the news has been fairly mild. Whether it would remain so *were* such a policy to be announced, is a matter of conjecture. If I’m honest, my personal feeling is not even LL would be foolish enough to make any public linking of real life information with Avatars mandatory; certainly, it would fly in the face of all that has come before – and even Mark Kingdon, during the height of the so-called “Facebook pushing” was at pains to point out that any disclosure would remain under the control of the individual residents concerned. But the past is never any guarantee of the future.
It is probable that other providers of on-line games will be watching Blizzard to see if the change brings about the publicly stated goal of reducing the flame wars, trolling, etc., – after all, these are not solely an issue for WoW. The likelihood is probably that it will – if only because the most passionate have opted to vanish into other forums where their anonymity remains secure. Then the concern becomes that of emulation elsewhere (“well if it worked for Blizzard, it can work for us…”). If that were to happen, things might get very messy around the virtual globe…
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
I quit Warcraft for a break last March. This announcement from them means I will not go back.
Yes, other game companies will follow in Blizzard’s footsteps. Take a look at the presentation on Metanomics from Jesse Schell. That gives a clear picture of the type of world the tech companies want.
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Thanks for pointing this out.
Schell’s idea – as postulated in the first 15-20 minutes of his time on Metanomics – isn’t original per se. It’s a variation of an idea I’ve seen put forward in various forms going all the way back to Greg Bear’s brilliant Queen of Angels sequel, “\” (slant). The difference here is that Schell uses the gaming meme – albeit it, as you point out, to a terrifying degree. His entire viewpoint is unpleasant right from his reaction to the first question, “How are you going to make it *not* happen?” – which is also somewhat insidious because it sets the mindset in listeners that the concept is a foregone conclusion, not only in his head, but in the world at large.
In fairness, we are already seeing it – and his pointing at Gmail is well-made. We’re all willing use Google daily, if only the search engine (I also use Gmail and I have used Google chrome), despite the fact Google is constantly scraping all that goes on. This most recently hit home for me when using Google chrome and Google to check-up on information relating to a holiday destination: after several such searches and family discussions, I started noticing that when visiting sites supporting by advertising, the majority of the ads were focused exclusively on the destination I’d been checking, with ads for flight, hotels, car rental, etc., all popping up. But I accepted it (sort-of – I’ve now stopped using Chrome, for what little good that will do); and in that regard, we can be our own worst enemies. And this is something corporations will not hesitate to exploit through an insidious combination of marketing an peer pressure.
The dressing-up of 24/7 monitoring and reward as being on the whole “good”, linking it to the Hawthorne Effect – which is itself is subject to considerable controversy as to its validity – is something equally unpleasant. The fact that the entire concept smacks of a latter day 1984, with Big Brother (potentially in the form of *both* the government *and* advertising agencies) watch over us to ensure we are correctly behaved at all times. Again, I find shadows of Bear’s “\” in the underpinning thinking, with overt monitoring replacing Bear’s more covert “therapy” concepts to achieve the same end – everyone behaving within a bandwidth someone has defined as being “normal” or “desirable” – or more simply marketable.
But who actually defines this bandwidth?
I could go on, but that would turn this reply into an article in and of itself – and the subject matter of Schell’s talk, while equally unsettling, encompass discussion points that go beyond the immediate discussion-point. Suffice it to say, you’re right. Schell presents another aspect of a worrying trend of “privacy is outmoded” / “privacy is bad” thinking that dangerously simplifies things into two absolutes (“being public = more authentic = good; wanting privacy = wearing masks = something to hide); thus avoiding the need to delve in and discuss the vast ocean of grey that lies between these two extremes.
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