wow

I have spent the last two days spending entirely too much time reading about the Blizzard RealID fiasco. The fiasco is this: in a few weeks, Blizzard will be changing all of their online forums to a new forum system that will require you to display your real name in order to post -- instead of your character name. Blizzard cites their desire to reduce trolling and inflammatory posting as their reason for this change.

Their reason for this change is a fallacy. If their sole reason was to reduce trolling, they have at least two different options.

The first option is to create a "Gamer Tag" for all forum users that they must post under. Each forum poster would be able to choose their Gamer Tag -- it would not have to be their real name.

The second option, which could also be incorporated into the first, would be to display all characters on a person's account every time they post. That way, when a user posts on the forums, every single one of their character's identities is held accountable for the words that they are posting.

If trolling is not the real reason that Blizzard is switching to this new forum system, what is the real reason? Two main theories have been floating around.

The first is because of South Korean and Chinese law that states that online forums that are larger than a certain size must require their users to post using their legal name. I personally do not believe this to be the true reason behind Blizzard's intent, because if Blizzard really wanted to, they could create a forum system solely for use in those countries, and allow all other countries' forums to continue using character names.

The second theory -- and this is the one that is the most plausible -- is that Blizzard is merging its games with Facebook. There is already proof that Blizzard has a partnership with Facebook as of May 5, 2010. Blizzard wants a piece of the social networking pie. They even allude to it in their own forum post about RealID, referring to World of Warcraft as a "social-gaming service." But I, and most of the other WoW players that have expressed their opinion on this topic, don't want a social-gaming service. We just want our Role Playing Game back.

Blizzard's response to those upset about the forum change is that we, the players, have two choices: post on the forums with our real names, or do not post at all. To quote Blizzard Community Manager Wryxian (whose real life name we still don't know): "Posting on the forums with your real name will be optional -- yes, in the sense that the options are simply post and show your real name, or do not post and you keep it confidential. If people are happy to post and do not feel intimidated by this, then great."

A choice between posting on the forums with your real name or not posting at all is not a real choice at all, for a lot of people. By not being able to post on the forums, you lose the following:

1. You cannot submit bug reports. Bug reports can only be done through the forums.
2. You cannot submit suggestions to the people who have the power to implement them. Suggestions can only be submitted through the forums.
3. You cannot seek customer support or technical support via the forums. These are available via other means (email and phone), but oftentimes, the queue times of the email and phone support is so large, that posting on the forums is a much faster way to get your issue resolved. The phone queues even instruct you to post on the forums when the phone queues are full.
4. You cannot recruit for your guild via the forums.
5. Roleplayers (of which I am not one) lose their ability to roleplay on official Blizzard forums.

So what is the big deal, anyway? Why are so many people up in arms about revealing their real life name on the World of Warcraft forums?

1. Knowing only your name, anyone who sees it can Google search your name and find things like your phone number and address. Less than scrupulous people could then use this information to threaten and stalk you.
2. Many employers Google search potential job candidates -- and many employers discriminate against World of Warcraft players because online gaming has a bad stigma for addiction and playing too much.
3. People who have obviously ethnic names could be harassed on the forums (or outside of them) solely based on what their name is.

As of writing this post, there have been 41,000 replies to this forum topic on the North American World of Warcraft forums alone. Most of those replies have been against the change. Despite this enormous outcry, Blizzard has not backpedaled and announced a reversal of their decision.

Well, money talks. I'm trying to speak Blizzard's language -- I canceled my account last night. Maybe if enough players cancel their accounts, Blizzard will listen. However, even if Blizzard backpedals, I'm not entirely sure that I will re-activate my account. Blizzard has lost a lot of my trust because of this move.