Loss of Privacy

The huge community backlash towards Blizzard’s RealID program for their forums has caused such an uproar that they are backing down, for now.

The announcement was made in their forums.

Hello everyone,

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.

It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

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. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters (http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/about/mission.html), and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard’s success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

Read more about it here.

Blizzard recently announced their RealID scheme for their forums. If you wish to comment on the forums, you must provide your real information. You cannot use fake names or give false information. Some believe that Blizzard is attempting to create a social network for the gamer. In exchange for having the ability to chat with anyone across the battle.net network, no matter which game you or your friends were playing at the time, you have to reveal who you really are.

Several players have balked at the idea because Blizzard has warned people many times that sharing their email, account information and login information is dangerous and should never be done. That is, until now as it is the requirement if you wish to continue using their servers. After you have done this and “friended” your friends, anyone that is their friend can see your real information as well. Naturally, there are serious privacy concerns with this. Blizzard had told users that RealID is option and they don’t need use it if they fear for their privacy. The problem is, Blizzard has now announced that all forum posts must be made with your RealID. While, for the moment, your RealID on the forums won’t be connected to your in-game character, you can do this as an option.

Blizzard is standing by its statement that RealID is optional, however, technical support and some customer service is handled through the forums. While there is an email, web form and phone number option for tech support your best chances of getting help are actually in the forums. Their customer service forums are quite good. While some players can have their problems solved with an in-game ticket, most others are referred to the forums. Blizzard is also actively encouraging players to “first utilize the forums and the website to pursue information about their respective issues at www.worldofwarcraft.com.”

One solution is to create individual forums as several groups have done, but that poses problems as well. Communities are split into realms, making communication through anything but the official forums extremely difficult. Without the official forums, the community is likely to fall apart. If the forums are further split into more individual forums, it will be impossible to disseminate important information.

Several players have suggested that they can use fake names as their RealID. If they are serious about keeping their accounts, they won’t do this. Blizzard has announced that they will have moderators in the forums whose sole job is to root out fake account names and force them to list their real information. This may include providing proof of identity as well.

Privacy concerns over RealID are valid. Players are worried about stalking, creepy people, and harassment. Women typically play as male characters to avoid all three. This will no longer be possible.

Employers run background checks on potential employees. Your online gaming can, potentially, be linked to your professional life. Some view online gaming as a weakness and that gamers won’t fit into a company because they are lazy. Some believe that all gamers are creepy stalker type people. All it takes is one HR person to find out you post on Blizzard’s forums for you to lose a chance at that great job. Good luck proving it though.

Many players are also minors who don’t fully understand the implications of giving up your real information and how it could affect them later in life when looking for work. These minors have also set up accounts with their parents’ permission. These accounts are now tied to their parents’ identities. Account security and privacy matters do not appear to be major considerations for Blizzard. These features began, as usual, as opt-in, but the rules keep changes and more and more parts of Blizzard’s servers and forums have become mandatory.

Eventually, online play, forums, and battle.net will seamlessly blend together. Then, there will be no choice but to have your real information spread across their networks. Blizzard, over time, has shifted from thinking of their fans as an online community and more towards consumers who spend money. Blizzard knows there are more consumers than gamers and have moved towards that business model.

I can honestly say that, if RealID is placed into Diablo III, I won’t even consider purchasing the game. I suspect many others will wait for a pirated version that has all of this stripped out, making Diablo III a standalone game. Blizzard may not care. They may have enough players that pay for a service such as RealID. I just won’t be one of them.

If you still don’t understand the privacy issues at stake, ask Blizzard employee, Micah Whipple (aka Bashiok), who posted his real name to assure everyone it was safe how that worked out for him.