Leveling Down

How many times do we have to tell you Blizzard – Battle.net isn’t Facebook!

These last couple of days, Blizzard and Starcraft 2 have been in the gaming news in a big way. With Starcraft 2 less than a month away, Blizzard has seen fit to provide fans with good news and terrible news. The good news is, Blizzard has released “Phase 2″ of the beta test for Starcraft 2, so those of you that have been undergoing withdrawal from the Starcraft 2 Beta can get back in and play (add me – account name: espionage, character code: 315). I’ve played a couple games myself and it looks like the beta is certainly back with a lot more stuff going on such as new Achievements and the ability to play AI on all difficulty levels. The terrible news, however, is their announcement that any forum participation in the official Starcraft 2 (and soon to be World of Warcraft) forums will be posting with your RealID – your real first and last name. Terrible terrible news.

Why Would Blizzard Do This?
The overt reason why Blizzard has decided to force our real names to be present when posting on their official forums is to get rid of all the negative posts, flames, trolls, spam, etc. – all the junk that is on the official forums now. They claim that by forcing posters to have their real names displayed next to what they post, they will be more careful about what they say. I can see that as a legitimate reason, but did they really think about all the negative aspects that come with it?

Then there’s another, more sinister underlying reason that several people suspect: Blizzard wants a piece of the goldmine that is social networking. Can they somehow turn their fans into more revenue? Well, here’s the problem….

Battle.net Is Not Facebook
Facebook users do go by their real names and anything they want to share about themselves, but we have to keep in mind one thing: Facebook is not a forum. It’s not a place where people just post and chat all day. While Facebook users can chat with each other, it’s all through a certain level of privacy controls. Users can decide how much they want the public and even their friends to see.

Unlike Facebook, our real names cannot be “turned off” and hidden from the public if we wish to participate in Blizzard’s forums. The moment you make a post, it’s there for the entire world to find if they decide to search for your name. It’s crazy, but even Facebook has more privacy than this new direction that Blizzard’s RealID thing is going. To be honest, I wouldn’t be complaining as hard if the Blizzard official forums forced us to use real names but the forums were only accessible by those that log into the forum with their accounts. This would at least cut out all the searchbots and at least keep the “real named” community behind Blizzard’s closed doors.

What’s the Big Deal?
The big deal with our names being associated with the forums against our will is basically if Facebook did not have privacy settings, and anyone could access our page: stalkers, pedophiles, enemies, harassers, etc. While just our name may not be as telling as what someone can find on a Facebook profile, if your name is unique, female, ethnic, etc., you have just opened yourself up to being harassed by sexists, racists, etc., if the perpetrator were so inclined.

Think if your name was Samantha, Laura, etc. How much do gamers go crazy now when they hear a female voice in their game? Horny adolescent teens can go through great lengths to become quite troublesome to women, and I can’t imagine any female gamer wanting the world to know the gaming world to know that they are female. This post here sums it up pretty nicely from a female gamer.

Then there’s the whole negative stigma behind being a gamer anyway. While this is our passion, potential employers and potential girlfriends we are dating are not going to be thrilled if they do a search for us online and see us writing paragraphs about some video game. That incriminating evidence you have right there could cost you a job or a girlfriend!

The main point behind all of this is that many people like to have their real life and gaming life separate. One is a fantasy world that we are meant to engage in just to have fun, while the other one is obviously far more important and consequential. Why Blizzard thinks it is necessary to merge the two worlds together against our own desire is deplorable.

One Example of How the Fans Have Been Fighting Back
To show its support behind this new ridiculous change, a Blizzard Community Manager decided to share his first and last name – since all Blizzard staff will also no longer be behind nicknames. It backfired in the guy’s face as someone was able to find his address, phone, age, family members, and his facebook info. His family has since stopped answering the phone and he’s deleted his Facebook account.

I think the dude just took one for the team that is Blizzard, as he became the primary target for all of the Blizzard fans that wanted to show their disdain for this decision. But honestly, maybe once all of Blizzard staff decide to share their info…the hatemail will be distributed equally among them or something. In any case, this brings me to my final point…

Is Blizzard Truly Behind This Terrible Decision?
Blizzard has worked so hard to become a development studio that is adored by its fans – after all, how many game development studios do we know have their own annual expos or games played as practically a national sport in Korea? With Activision’s acquisition of Blizzard and Bobby Kotick’s desire to monetize everything he can, could he be behind this?

One forum post, caught by Team Liquid, mentions:

“the Blizzard leads have been told in no uncertain terms that the non-gameplay-related direction of the game is working to a different blueprint now. GC and company are free to play with shiny new talent trees all they like, for example, but for the first time the decisions regarding Battle.net implementation, Real ID, and plans for the general acquisition of new players for the business are no longer in Blizzard’s own hands, and that’s not going down too well.“

If this is true, then at least I can feel a little better at ease knowing that even the Blizzard folks are not supporting this idea – but rather, it’s being pushed from corporate (i.e. Activision) – who doesn’t necessarily care for the gamers, just the money. Unfortunately, Blizzard does have to answer to Activision now, and as we saw how Activision treated Infinity Ward, we may see if there ends up being some sort of exodus from Blizzard as well at some point if Activision continues to tighten its firm chokehold on its star development studios.

Now What?
The “good news” is that at this point in time, our names would only be displayed if we were to post on Blizzard’s official gaming forums in either Starcraft 2 or World of Warcraft. Our real names won’t be displayed in-game (although the issue of friends of friends on our buddy list seeing our names is a slippery slope), so we can play Starcraft 2 without worrying about giving up our personal identity. We just can’t talk about it on the forums unless we want our names to be found online. While not a heavy poster, I did post once in a while on Blizzard’s forums (especially on my realm’s forum, when I played World of Warcraft) – but I guess this announcement simply means no more posting. It could be worse, and that’s what I’m afraid of. The last thing I want to see is our real names being used during matchmaking so someone can harass me in real life after a match.

Be Sociable, Share!

•