

Blizzard to Integrate Facebook into StarCraft 2 - cgherb911
http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/05/05/blizzard-to-integrate-facebook-into-battle-net-platform-and-starcraft-ii-game/

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ihodes
No, no and no again! This is terrible news. Let me play my games in peace.

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coderdude
I know it's kind of hip all of a sudden to act like Facebook is the enemy of
the people, but do you even have a reason for saying what you just said? What
is it that Facebook is going to do that will interrupt your peaceful Starcraft
2 matches?

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leif
Maybe this is being too adherent to the "unix philosophy", but I like when
things I use do one thing well and one thing only.

If I want to tell people I'm playing starcraft, I'll do it myself, I don't
need it to be automatic.

Offering this as an optional addon would be more to my liking.

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coderdude
This doesn't sound any more obnoxious than Steam's community integration. I'm
sure it will be less so without a chat window popping up every two seconds --
while you're playing (ala Steam). It doesn't even suggest that it will tell
all your friends and that you have no control over it. You're just making that
assumption.

".. will include the ability to tell your Facebook friends when you’re playing
the game and what your doing in it."

Sounds _exactly_ like Steam.

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leif
Ok, well, I don't play Steam games, so I don't know much about this. I imagine
it would annoy me too.

> "what _your_ doing in it"

 _sigh_

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coderdude
Maybe Facebook integration is scary to those who don't have experience with a
community integrated into their games. That is understandable. FYI that was a
quote from the article.

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leif
I know. I winced when I read it there too.

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chaosmachine
Jason could really use some help upgrading their Zerglings in StarCraft 2!

Jason noticed their Zerglings are a bit on the puny side because they haven't
been upgraded yet...

14 hours ago via StarCraft 2 | Comment | Like | Upgrade their Zerglings

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leif
You like this.

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mgrouchy
Last thing I want to do is further advertise to my friends what kind of
gigantic nerd I am.

~~~
xal
Or idol, depending on their frame of reference:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P39gP4QnXxE&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P39gP4QnXxE&feature=player_embedded)

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ladon86
This is quite unexpected. I honestly did not think Facebook would move beyond
casual gaming.

But videogames are often about escapism: for example, would you really want
your real-life profile associated with your MMO account?

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iamdave
Well for some people, MMOing is all ABOUT those real-life friends. I've got
one who games with six or seven people in his living room, all in the same
dungeon in World of Warcraft.

I'm one of them. There's a huge social impact with games like this.

That _doesn't_ mean, however that I want Facebook involved in it.

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dfischer
And here we were talking about how massive Facebook is getting. This is
another pedestal higher than Google, Apple, or Microsoft could never reach.

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chc
I wonder how many people will appreciate this. For me, it's a turnoff and kind
of disconcerting. I'm not one of those rabidly anti-Facebook people, but as a
gamer, I just really don't like the idea of my games being tied into Facebook.
I suspect my feelings might not be that unique.

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jakecole
It's not clear what level of integration we're talking about here. The article
claims "tell your Facebook friends when you’re playing the game and what your
doing in it.", but the actual messages from Blizzard make it sound like the
implementation is limited to linking your FB friends to their battle.net
accounts.

I'm not a fan of publishing Starcraft notifications to my Facebook feed, but
that is opt-in. Being able to find out which of my Facebook friends also have
battle.net accounts seems like an incredible feature. It sounds identical to
the awesome Xbox Live implementation where I ended up having a ton of friends
with Xbox accounts that I would have never discovered otherwise. Really
looking forward to this.

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albertsun
Facebook is like a giant sprawling octopus of identity. This I want to keep
separate.

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wwortiz
As long as it isn't required in any way for any features (other than facebook
things) I am actually okay with blizzard doing this, and if all ends up right
it will be a flop and won't even matter in the long run.

But as I haven't ever had a facebook account I wouldn't be very happy if it
was required for something like online play or in game friends.

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mquander
All that would wind up resulting in is a lot of fake, one-off Facebook
accounts.

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wwortiz
My point was I already have a battle.net account I don't want to need a
facebook account to access useful features, and as long is that is not the
case I am okay with facebook integration.

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mquander
I understand. I was suggesting that it might not actually be in Facebook's
best interest for other unrelated things to require Facebook accounts for
authentication -- I think it might lead to more spam accounts than actual
users or mindshare.

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truebosko
Interesting. This seems to be toying around with a similar idea that services
like Raptr.com offer with this line: "will include the ability to tell your
Facebook friends when you’re playing the game"

Does that mean we'll see more games doing this and Facebook becoming basically
the defacto for everything you're doing online? Frightening :)

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harshpotatoes
In the future facebook will be integrated with everything. Harshpotatoes just
zergling rushed a newb.

Harshpotatoes just refinanced his home.

Harshpotatoes is browsing milfhunter.

What's on your mind?

On a side note. Will voyeurism still be illegal in the future if everything is
public?

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daniel_levine
I think as long as you have an anonymous feature it will be fine. I hope this
means that SC 2 is using javascript in place of lua for its front end
scripting which could mean all sorts of incredible add-ons. Lua is fine, but
javascript just has a broader base.

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heresy
I don't want my friends to know how much I suck at RTS...

