RealID pt.4; Real Names On Forums Rescinded; Victory For The Vocal!
Well holy shit – looks like sometimes, when you stand up for what you believe in, it actually WORKS.
Originally Posted by Nethaera (Source)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 conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, 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://us.blizzard.com/en-us/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
*blink, blink*
Wow. I, for one, am impressed, awed, and proud.
Proud of the work the community did in getting their feelings regarding this change across, proud that so many put their money where their mouths were and canceled as a statement, proud that so many linked and forwarded my story and those of others (thanks for the publicity, too!), but not just that.
I’m also proud that Blizzard has, in this move, underlined and reinforced the support I’ve given them for the past decade of my life in the continued enjoyment and reverence of their games. Thank you for demonstrating that I was right to have believed in you, and thank you for truly doing what you can to support the safety and security of your userbase. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Partially a victory, yes… but for what reasons? Could it be… http://www.garysgripes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=95:world-of-farmville&catid=39:frontpage
Evil?
That site is weird.
Seriously though I gotta hand it to you in a big way. Your work was no small part of this effort. It took a mass of people but everyone played a part. Here’s hoping the momentum continues.
That post is hilarious.
Thank you for your kind words; I just did what I felt was right (well, first I did what I felt was awesome, and called Sikketh at his work; once it got some movement, that’s when I got particularly ethical about it). I’m still shocked that it made it so far (a lot of German sites, as well as a full article on kotaku.com.au, all over metafilter and reddit and a ton of mentions on the freakin wall street journal? wow), but I’m just happy that people took it as a positive and not an asshole stunt. I’m just glad it might have helped motivate people in some small way to take a stand for what they felt what right.
Oh and I wanted to add for what it’s worth: I’m still going to keep my account canceled for now. I don’t think they’ve ever fixed the in-game bug where anyone with a certain mod can still view your RealID name from your character, even if you’ve opted out of the service. Just because the forum announcement was reversed doesn’t put our personal data out of the public eye just yet.
Honestly, I’m not now (nor have I ever been) too terribly worried about my own security/real name; as another commenter pointed out in a different post on this site, it’s very easy to find out who I am, where I live, etc. and I’ve done that intentionally. The RealID service in-game IS still opt-in, and a new feature to boot. The forum change, however, would have been removing privileges that we already enjoyed since the game’s creation, not to mention would have created a sort of forced-silence to anyone who wished to keep their name or gender a secret, and that was unacceptable to me, even if it didn’t affect me personally. That’s why I canceled in the first place.
*We might have won this battle, but war has just started.*
–Gandalf, to Theodén, King of Rohan, after the battle for Helms Deep.
(Or something like that, was like 2 years ago the last time I watched LotR.)