

Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums - gossnj
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1851

======
gte910h
I don't think gaming company employees get that gaming is stigmatized by non-
gamers, especially time consuming forms like MMOs. It isn't stigmatized by
them.

Friends of mine who play one of the Blizzard games (World of Warcraft) and
work at a (non-MMO, console based) game company don't understand that everyone
else views gaming, especially PC gaming, as a non-legitimate hobby and a
questionable mark against you on a job search, funding search, or anything of
the sort really.

It's not like religion, race, political affiliation. It's a very legitimate
concern, as there is a tendency for people who play these games to stay up
much of the night instead of getting a proper nights rest. They don't
understand how much they're giving up people's privacy; lots of users will
stop playing these games for professional reasons. The bank vice president:
Gone. The guy running a business: Gone. The advertising exec: Gone. None of
them can afford to have this come out professionally.

~~~
rortian
I think this is crazy over the top. They are not releasing game time played
for every person. They are getting rid of anonymous commenting on their
forums. I think it is a change for the better. If someone is a troll and/or
exhibits anti-social behavior online should it effect their profession
careers? I'm cool with it. If people have to think twice about being
obnoxious, life just might be better.

Don't forget that your prism account is not anonymous.

~~~
gte910h
I know it's not. My name is unfortunately common enough it's hard for me get
it on every website. My prism account is never taken.

Additionally, I think you'll find I'm acutely aware of how non-anonymous my
posts are, and have always been relatively tame in my posting history on all
sights.

It's not the acting out that will effect the professional careers of the
people. It's the fact they have the hobby at all which is an issue
professionally, especially in this job market.

Which is going to be hired most places: 29 yr old who has a reasonably good
background and hobbies include gaming, reading and music, or a 29 yr old who
has a reasonably good background and hobbies include reading and music? For
many fields, the second is a more attractive candidate, and not for completely
irrational reasons.

~~~
catch23
Yeah, but after leaving Georgia Tech, who would still want to remember such an
awkward email handle? I wonder if they are still using the lame randomly
generated prism account handles for email these days, I don't think the
average student actually needs terminal access in acme anymore.

~~~
gte910h
They still get them yes, and if you ever go back, you get the same one.

------
aphistic
This change is completely crazy. I don't understand the people who think that
this is a good idea and I couldn't care less about the "gamer stigma" others
are mentioning. People in my real life know I'm an avid gamer and so do
(obviously) the people I play with. I'm typically a Blizzard apologist but in
this case I just can't see the logic in this.

You can find anything about someone with their name and a little bit of time,
especially when that name can be associated with a character name that could
be that person's online handle on other sites.

Take this response in the official thread
([http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=257123...](http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=1))
for example:

"Lol. This doesn't really effect me, as I know you simply can't track someone
down by name alone.

Enjoy your tin foil hats everyone.

\- <REAL NAME HERE>"

Just as an exercise I spent 10 minutes searching knowing just this guy's
online handle that he posted as and his real name that he willfully posted in
his response. Within that time I now have his real full name, age, home
address and i know his dad's high school and graduation year. Pretty scary.

I don't mind this RealID change in-game where I can give out my details to
friends I trust but requiring that I post on my real name for any random
person browsing the forums to see? Nuh uh.

There have also been responses saying "Oh, just don't post on the forums any
more". This is not a good solution because A) I pay for forum access as part
of my subscription fee (otherwise you wouldn't have to be a subscriber to
post) and B) I'm an officer in a guild and doing recruitment would require me
to post on the forums to recruit people, thus putting my real name out there.

If they want to cut down on forum trolls they should allow people to set a
Battle.net account nickname and use that instead. It would still be a semi-
anonymous name but would cut down on the trolling because people wouldn't be
able to create a random character on any random server and use that to post
on. Everything they say would be associated with that handle and through that
with their online reputation in the community. This may not cut down on ALL
the forum trolls (really, using real names won't cut down on 100% of it
either) but at least it won't kill the community that's there.

------
mbateman
Some priceless comments from the comment thread in the story:

"It will be pretty intresting to see the profiles on facebook/myspace of some
of the 'top raiders.' Maybe pull up some DMV records and see what kind of
mount they have IRL."

"Finally I can stalk that pretty Draenei even more so."

"Solution... (I hope) I'll be changing my name in my contact details. Sure,
the mailman might be smirking as I have to sign under 'Zortan the Mighty' for
any Blizz purchases but at least some psycho won't be able to google me"

~~~
eru
> "Finally I can stalk that pretty Draenei even more so."

She's probably a guy.

~~~
silencio
Or, you do find out that that pretty Draenei is actually female. Guess where
it goes from there.

I get enough shit for joining vent and talking as a woman that plays WoW in
anything non-guild related (oh, please, I still got shit there until I became
an "established" player in the guild), I can only wait with joy!!!!! to see
what happens on the forums.

~~~
eru
Yes, that's the other thing that can happen.

I was quite happy that during my university years the gender ratio was around
50/50 in most of my courses. (I studied math.) That made for a better
atmosphere than those computer science or physics courses.

------
pdxmarcos
This is probably the most ridiculous change ever made by a gaming company. The
negative stigma associated with being a gamer and even more so being a wow
player is a terrible thing to have when looking for a professional job.

~~~
robryan
I wouldn't want to work for any company that would discriminate against me for
my gaming habits in my own time.

~~~
gte910h
You say that now. Wait till you're out of work for 6 months.

This company is hurting their user base in an effort to not have to do what
every other forum on the internet does: Police the trolls.

I'd thought about buying one of their games this Summer (Starcraft II) to play
with some friends, but I'd be hesitant to get the "brand" myself after this
change

~~~
prodigal_erik
This. A company with that attitude wouldn't be my first choice, but I'd have
to prefer starving on the street before I'd give up the option of ever being
able to work there.

------
gte910h
I think this is a great policy to make women get stalked like crazy.

Obviously thought up by a bunch of lifelong, male, game developers.

------
Gormo
Perhaps Blizzard will successfully improve the quality of their message boards
by suppressing anonymity. Or perhaps participants will start considering the
impact to their reputation in every _other_ aspect of life each time they
post, and undermine the vitality and uniqueness of this particular community.

The latter would be especially ironic considering that the forums in question
pertain to an escapist fantasy game in which people role-play as fictional
characters.

Anonymous online forums can be found across the full spectrum of discussion
quality - HN and 4chan are at polar extremes - so the real root cause of poor-
quality discourse is something other than anonymity.

Instead of raising the stakes of participating in their forums, perhaps
Blizzard should identify the internal cultural factors of the community that
encourage disruptive and inane posts, and work to remedy them more even-
handedly.

~~~
jasonlotito
Except HN is far from Anonymous, and excels not because of anonymity, but
because of real people. Quality posts here generally come from people that can
be traced. HN would suffer if everything was anonymous.

------
zach
This would basically close the WoW forums, which actually serve an important
gameplay purpose. Hilariously bad idea. Blizzard doesn't always figure things
out the first time, but you can probably trust that this will be worked out.

Sure, anonymity plus audience, I know. There are a lot of forums where
anonymity is pointless, but when we're talking about a ROLE PLAYING game,
things are a lot different.

~~~
jasonlotito
Have you ever seen the WoW forums? The amount of flaming, trolling, and hate
spewed filth that gets dragged across there is not worth it.

Too many people avoid the forums for good reasons.

~~~
zach
Yeah, and Barrens chat or the trade channel on a weekend night are pretty
awful as well. But are they going to get RealID'd too?

If they were only doing this on the general-discussion areas with no gameplay
implications, it would be a lot more reasonable. To think you couldn't post on
the forum for your character's own server under the character's name is silly.

~~~
jasonlotito
> If they were only doing this on the general-discussion areas with no
> gameplay implications, it would be a lot more reasonable.

That's exactly what they are doing. The forums aren't part of the game.

~~~
silencio
Forum access is included in my WoW subscription. I've been told by a GM to go
post in the forums once. Official tech support forums are...on the forums.
Yeah, not part of the game. Right.

~~~
jasonlotito
No, it's not. You need a WoW subscription to have access to the WoW forums,
but you don't need to have access to the WoW forums to have access to WoW the
game.

> Official tech support forums are...on the forums.

Currently, yes. Which has no bearing on the future setup.

> Yeah, not part of the game. Right.

I was unaware that after landing in a city, you logged onto the forums in
game.

~~~
silencio
Oh, no, they're not part of your in-game experience. They're part of your
overall package you get for subscribing...but that's still part of the game.
You don't HAVE to use it, but then again, you don't _have_ to advertise your
ICC craftables or do any guild recruitment on forums or talk in general realm
discussion or submit bug reports either. Right? (But yes, I have hope that
they'll at least make this separate from the forums in the future if they
insist on this stupidity.) It's optional in the sense that you can probably go
forever without ever posting once, but it's pretty unlikely for all kinds of
reasons.

~~~
jasonlotito
> They're part of your overall package you get for subscribing...but that's
> still part of the game.

I just reference the ToU[1] and EULA[2]. The EULA doesn't reference the forums
at all. The ToS mentions forums, but only under chat rules.

In the ToU, it references the Service and the Game Client:

"The Game includes two components: (a) the software program along with any
accompanying materials or documentation (collectively, the "Game Client"), and
(b) Blizzard’s proprietary World of Warcraft online service (the "Service")."

Reading between the two documents, in case the Service includes the forums, it
appears it does not.

"you may use the Service solely for your own non-commercial entertainment
purposes by accessing it with an authorized, unmodified Game Client."

So, the Service may only be access with the Game Client, which I assume the
forums are not. So, it appears, officially at least, that the forums are not a
part of the subscription fee.

Simply put, they are under no obligation to keep the forums up or provide you
with forums to use.

Now, having said all that, I understand that part of why YOU pay is for access
to the forums in addition to the game.

I think a smart thing to do would be to move essential support functions
outside the forums, which it appears they are working hard to do with the
Blizzard Support section. In fact, Technical Support might have forums, but
their is also an official Technical Support channel here:

[http://us.blizzard.com/support/index.xml?locale=en_US&ga...](http://us.blizzard.com/support/index.xml?locale=en_US&gameId=11&rootCategoryId=2316)

It wasn't at all difficult to find.

1\. <http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html> 2\.
<http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html>

------
isamuel
It's a mistake to think that pseudonymity inevitably leads to rudeness on
forums. Plenty of pseudonymous forums are civil: HN, for one. Reddit also gets
a really high quality of user discussion. If Blizzard wants respectful
discussions on their forums, they need a culture of respectful discussion.
Real ID can't do that.

------
illumin8
To prove that this new policy was harmless, one of the Blizzard customer
service employees posted his real name. Within minutes, people had tracked
down numerous private details about him, including his home address, mother
and father's name, the fact that he still lives with his mother, Facebook
profile, pictures of him out drinking with friends, a Google street view
picture of the front of his house, his home phone number, and tons more
information. The thread is over 5 pages long and continuing to grow.

[http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-
games...](http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Americans-are-bad-at-games/Real-
Names-on-the-Official-Forums-New-REAL-ID-function?gr_i_ni)

What boggles the mind is that the employees are going to be using their real
names to post. I have seen the hate and rage that can be spewed on the forums
when a class gets nerfed in a patch, and let me tell you, some crazed teenager
is going to go postal on a Blizzard employee because of this. After spending
thousands of hours "ganking noobs" in Stranglethorn Vale, when little Jimmy
gets nerfed, he might decide to take out his rage in the real world.

This move proved to me that Activision/Blizzard cares more about profit
motives than the safety and privacy of their customers. This is really all
about becoming the next Facebook for gamers. They want to create a social
graph across all of their servers, and all of their gaming franchises so that
they can map people to their contacts and data mine it for advertising.
They've already announced that targeted ads will be displayed in loading
screens on Starcraft II and World of Warcraft's expansion. This is the next
step.

Unfortunately, Bobby Kotick and Activision have begun to destroy Blizzard. It
is a sad day indeed.

------
csallen
This is one of those changes that people rebel against simply because it's a
change. If the forums had started out like this, and were now changing to
become anonymous, I'm sure at least as many people would be complaining as are
now. So let's go over some of these complaints:

 _> > Gaming is stigmatized by non-gamers_

How do you figure? This sounds like it's simply conjecture or personal
experience at best... in which case I'll mention that I know plenty of non-
gamer professionals who respect gamers. Even if it is stigmatized, it's
becoming decreasingly so as older gamer generations age. And the widespread
immaturity made possible by total anonymity is a big reason people don't
respect the gaming community in the first place. I welcome changes like this,
which only serve to accelerate the de-stigmatization of gaming.

 _> > lots of users will stop playing these games for professional reasons_

Why would someone who wishes to remain anonymous stop playing a game, when
they can instead simply stop posting on the forums?

 _> > They don't understand how much they're giving up people's privacy_

The "invasion of privacy" flag is waved nauseatingly often. It is _not_ an
invasion of privacy for a site to _allow_ you to intentionally make posts
under your real name. Blizzard is not tricking you, nor are they exposing your
personal life without your permission. They are simply changing the dynamic on
their forums to one that places a higher value on personal accountability. If
you don't like it then fine, but don't accuse the company of being unethical.
I'm sorry, but you don't have a _right_ to be anonymous in everything you do.

People really need to get with the times. For the past 10 years we've lived in
a world where people can Google your name and find anything about you. And for
the past 5 years, we've lived in a world where more and more online services
aren't supporting anonymity. That's the future, and yes * gasp * it's
different than the past. Instead of complaining about change, why not adapt
and take steps to control your own online reputation?

~~~
silencio
Posting in the forums is not completely optional. I mean sure, you can go your
entire game-playing life without doing so, but if you ever get a hankering for
posting bug reports or wanting more help than GMs can provide in-game, the
tech support and bug report forums are now unavailable to you should you wish
to never post with your real name.

Also, if I ever stop playing WoW because of the Real ID changes (so far,
they're optional, works for me), it's because I hate getting harassed for
being female (and my real name is very definitely feminine). Not because I
fear what I say in forums or in-game will have a negative impact on my life
otherwise. I just don't play a game to be annoyed like that.

I normally don't care about my name being plastered everywhere, as I'm fully
aware of how not anonymous the Internet is, but let's just say I don't exactly
want Blizzard to go and tell the whole world my real name if I want to post
cause those idiot 15 year olds in that retarded guild on my realm would
probably go far enough to post IRL details of people they don't like for
whatever reason in trade chat and more. I also don't see why that has to be
the case, especially when they plan on introducing a big load of new features
to help CMs moderate the forums.

There's a difference between keeping that information thinly shielded behind a
pseudonym from in-game vs. screaming the name on your billing address for the
world to hear.

But.....yeah, I ultimately have a choice. I have the choice to stop playing
the game. Works for me.

~~~
csallen
Yes, WoW is full of immature people who may use your real name to harass you
(so is middle school). Getting harassed sucks. Maybe you're fearful enough of
that possibility that you'll never post on the forums again. And maybe the
forums are so important to you that you'll quit WoW without them. Those are
perfectly legitimate ways to act, and I'm not arguing otherwise. As you said,
it's your choice.

What I am saying is that it's not an _invasion of your privacy_ for Blizzard's
forums to be based on RealID; they are not "bad guys" for doing so. In
addition, many people feel it's next to impossible to have reasonable
discussions in the forums as they are right now, where otherwise-reasonable
people create anonymous accounts for the sole purposes of trolling and
spamming.

~~~
silencio
I'm not unaware of that. Neither was I debating that this was an invasion of
my privacy, because Blizzard can do whatever the flying fuck they want with
their own game and their own servers, and it requires ME to do something for
it to become any kind of privacy breach, but at the same time it limits what I
can do with what I'm paying with. (Now, if this was a retroactive change, we
then have a problem....) Therefore, my choice is to stop playing the game if
they force Real ID on people, where originally they claimed they would only
use this for friends to keep in touch with each other. It's not a privacy
thing, it's just a proposed change that doesn't fix the problem and screws
over _other_ people, and I don't really care to participate in this game if
Blizzard continues down this path. For what it is worth, this is not the only
change/addition to the game that would prompt me to quit playing.

Claiming that this will cut down on trolling is fallacious. The other features
that Blizzard intends on introducing to the forums (voting and threading,
etc.) and that they _could_ implement (no posting rights outside of tech
support for toons under level 10, for example) will do far more to cut down on
this kind of behavior than forcing people to use Real ID. Because it's
entirely possible to create accounts with fake details or someone else's
details, and it doesn't even take someone to post on the forums to see details
about people that can enable them to troll elsewhere and in real life (see:
Blizzard employee Bashiok on 4chan today after he posted his real name). This
just reduces the overall usefulness of the official forums.

~~~
csallen
Mmmm, I don't buy it. When I played (I quit years ago), it was nearly
impossible to conduct any kind of civil conversation on my realm's forums. It
was an endlessly frustrating shit show, and the bigger guilds went so far as
to ban their members from posting. A level cap wouldn't have dissuaded ANY of
the prominent trolls. What Blizzard's forums need is an _overwhelming_ change
in tone and atmosphere, not minor improvements on the fringes.

 _> > Because it's entirely possible to create accounts with fake details or
someone else's details, and it doesn't even take someone to post on the forums
to see details about people that can enable them to troll elsewhere and in
real life_

Don't understand, I may be misreading this. Can you clarify?

------
steveklabnik
Pretty interesting. I wonder if this'll cut down on the griefing... Online
gaming has such a plague of profanity-spewing 12 year olds, maybe this will
help curb those tendencies.

That's one of the reasons I use my real name everywhere online: it helps keep
my comments in check. Not that I'm 12, or spew (excessive) profanity. But I've
become much more polite, and make significantly less 'me too' or memetic kinds
of posts.

------
shasta
Why can't they bind your account to your real life identity, for the purposes
of preventing duplicates, but keep it private?

------
marknutter
I think more sites should end anonymity. If you're too afraid own up to what
you say online maybe you shouldn't be saying it in the first place. It'd be
like an entire town full of people wearing ski masks- nobody would be held
accountable for anything.

~~~
hubb
this doesn't make sense. the loss of privacy isn't worth a potential gain in
the quality of discussion. look at any public group or announcement on
facebook: lack of anonymity does not prevent people from being ignorant
jackasses

~~~
marknutter
I just think people would be a lot more thoughtful if they had to own up to
what they said.

~~~
shadowfox
It is also possible that a lot of people would hesitate to say what should be
said for the very same reason

------
abronte
This sort of defeats the purpose of a "Role Playing Game".

------
tibbon
Newsflash- nothing you do online is anonymous. It hasn't been for a long time
now, and it won't be in the future.

~~~
daten
This isn't entirely true. In many cases you can post things anonymously
online, and they will stay so, unless they're illegal enough to warrant a
subpoena forcing a provider to turn over details that can be used to identify
you.

We all understand that if you include personal information or post using a
known alias, a little bit of searching may identify you. If your IP address is
made public in the post or email, it can be used to narrow down who or where
you are. Even simply correlating known data, that is linked to your identity,
with previously anonymous data can sometimes identify you. And the popular
easy to regurgitate advice is that "nothing" you do is anonymous.

The fact is, if you're careful and there isn't enough of a motivation to go to
the level necessary to identify you, you can participate anonymously in many
discussions.

It's also possible to maintain the option of anonymous discussion in the
future if people realize where it has value and make an effort not to give
their privacy away voluntarily.

~~~
tibbon
I think given the time and research, that I could probably identify people
just through the text that they post (if the text is long enough) based on
their recurring syntax, spelling, word choice and grammar fingerprint.
Probably won't work for something like tweets which are highly truncated, but
for something like an 'anonymous blogger' I probably could.

------
Shorel
iRacing does not have anonymity.

I has worked very well so far.

