Tag: World of Warcraft

After creating no small furore with their announcement about real IDs being displayed in their forums, Blizzard have performed a 180-degree volte-face with this announcement, from the CEO:

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.

Given the speed with which the announcement has come – barely three days after the original was made – one can only come to one of three conclusions:

1. People still have power….and when many speak in one voice very loudly, corporate ears cannot help but hear…and act.
2. Blizzard were potentially testing the water to see how people would respond.
3. Some ideas only look bright at 3:00am in the marketing dept’s meeting room.

Certainly, WoW have a large enough user-base for the former to potentially have impact; and I’d venture to say they are in a tougher marketplace when it comes to the risk of losing players to a rival than Second Life / LL; so if the voices are loud, persistent and demanding enough, it might shake the tree sufficiently to encourage a climb-down. But after three days? Hardly.

No, the clue is in the final sentence, we’ve decided at this time. This strikes me very much as confirming that Blizzard were dipping their toe in the waters of “privacy is no longer the norm”. As has been pointed out, games companies, as well as technologists in general, seem to be falling in love with the idea that privacy is no longer a “good” thing. Whether Blizzard fall into line with this remains to be seen. However, the announcement does make it clear Blizzard appear to consider game play anonymity as and entirely separate issue to that of forum identity, as the announcement also states:

I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game.

Note the distinction there: anonymous interaction is defined in terms of “in game” [sic]….

Even so, while it may only be a respite, rather than a complete abandonment of the idea, Blizzard’s reversal on the matter is no doubt more than welcome among the legion of WoW players – and the rest of us should draw at least a small measure of comfort from it.

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…