Real Names on Official Forums cancelled

[Fano7]

Blizzard - 0
QQers - 1

More like:

Activison - 0
Blizzard - 1

[NathSB]

Thank you, Blizzard! Now let's hope they find a moderater or two that's banhammer-happy, or atleast that downrated posts get deleted if they reach a certain amount of minus score.

[Bonc]

Ty blizzard.. we appreciate that you hear our concerns

[ejfimp]

l2p etc.

[Vasz]

Very good news. Good decision by the guys in blue.

[Battlegrounds]

It worked! Not only did they banned the Trolls from the official forums

You mean, Blizzard just now got the idea to ban forum trolls?

[daburton]

They are considered homeless

Actually no. There are plenty of people who own homes and/or who live in apartments who dont own a vehicle. Myself included. I walk and/or take the bus where I need to go. Its a wonderful alternative and helps to keep you fit and in shape.

[Buzzinjoe]

You see, i'd agree with you if they were in concern format instead of whine format

Of course some of them were in whine format. But that's how forums work. However, there were A LOT of very well constructed posts bringing forth valid concerns too.

[Cluck]

I see a lot of misunderstandings here. A lot of you are quite correct, the chance of any harm coming to you upon your real name being revealed on Blizzard's forums is small. It is definitely present however. Also the fact of the matter is that revealing your real name would only have stopped trolls if they themselves were worried about any harm coming to them due to their real name being revealed. Note that when I mean harm I don't even mean physical harm; look at cases where people got fired due to pictures on their Facebook or similar things.

The problem with posting on the forums under your RealID was that it would remove all posters who were worried about negative effects on their life due to their real name being revealed. It would certainly have gotten rid of a number of trolls, equally certainly it would have gotten rid of a lot of constructive members of the community: Note that most of Blizzard's own MVPs (Green text posters) protested the change and said they would stop posting if it went through. At the same time, it would not have gotten rid of trolls who were unafraid of repercussions based on them now posting under their real name.

Revealing real names as they were planning would simply have reduced their total amount of posters. They could achieve the same effect by simply banning half their users at random, it'd have reduced the amount of trolls, but it'd also have reduced the amount of constructive posters.

[tusker]

If the players "won," that means Blizzard listened, which in turn means Blizzard "wins" too.

[Deepone]

At least it shows blizz listens when the numbers are large enough

They deserve some props for doing the right thing, but let's keep in mind... there were over 2,000 pages of posts, and I couldn't find one that didn't have someone announcing the cancellation of their account. Many pages had multiple such posts. Just 1,000 cancellations is $15,000/month or $180,000/year and that's just what they got from announcing the INTENT. Any press release that immediately costs you $180k/yr recurring revenue is a failed press release. Even if the Facebook relationship was netting them, say, $1m/yr in additional ad-sharing revenue (a plan that can still go through, mind you), this immediately sucked down 10% of the value of that relationship, and that's if there are only 1,000 people who canceled.

Long story short: they had no choice. The accounting dept. dictated this one.

[Mesovr]

Congrats to all the crying teenagers out there..

I wish there was a way to punish you all for being extremly stupid at times.. Honestly.. Ive never been more ashamed and dissapointed in my fellow gamers than now..

This is a sad day for people out there with other things to do, instead of crying and whining over whatever Blizzard post as a new update.. Time to whine over the new Talent system!

Punish like using their names to find their address and stabbing them to death? Also dont bend over every time blizzard makes a new feature some of them are good some of them are bound to be bad expressing a opinion is not always a form of QQ although a log of people did wine there were also people trying to point out the flaws of the RealID forums.

[Quincey]

Vast success for players. And to those who seem to think this is a success for the trolls... Consider that comic posted yesterday (The CAD one). It's pretty much spot on.

People troll FACEBOOK. That gives a lot more information than just a name, but they still do it. All this did was to alienate the part of the community that cares about a degree of privacy. Given that a number of celebrities, politicians, civil servants, and all manner of other people from all walks of life use the forums, a little anonymity is nice.

Equally nice is the concept they seem to be toting in that post of having an alias that all your posts are under. This gives a degree of control over the trolls, and appeases both the tinfoil hat crowd, and the people who legitimately care about using the forums without giving out their name to the seething masses.

Picking, at random, William Shatner: He probably doesn't play, of course, and only did the advert for money, but imagine if he really DID have a shaman, and had an issue. It would go like this:

William Shatner: So... I'm having a problem with my shaman's DPS. My numbers are lower than I think they should be. Can anyone help?

Joe Smith: OMG, THE William Shatner? No way!

Seymour Butts: LOL NEWB. Nice GS.

Hugh Jass: Be more bad, baddie.

Fred Nurk: KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!

Etc, etc, etc.

I think what you just said was..

William shatner

Captain James T Kirk - got rid of Real ID forums.

What a legend.

[Alraml]

Of course some of them were in whine format. But that's how forums work. However, there were A LOT of very well constructed posts bringing forth valid concerns too.

Well I had no problem with it. If I did i'd express my concerns to Blizzard instead of making a thread about it every 5 minutes. What do I care, I have a facebook account so my name is online. Can you stalk me? no because I can only be contacted by people on my friends list

[Notmagnik]

So I got myself perma banned for nothing. Yay

[Duster505]

Blizzard was forced to take it back cause if not - they would have had to change the age restrictions for playing ALL Blizzard games to 16-20 years.

The REAL ID system is not a system that guaranties ppl using their real life name. Based on that simple fact that Blizzard can in no way verify the real name of the user - they can NOT force ppl to use the so called "real name".

Secondly - by law kids of the age of 12 are not accountable for their actions. This includes revealing their own name on the internet. No "I agree" button on Blizzard forums would ever change this fact. The legal age for kids in many countries is 16 and in others even up to 20. The minimal age restriction on all Blizzard game would have to be 16 in most countries - 18 in some and 20 in few.

But... we all know that Blizzard would NOT change the age restriction on their games. They would loose 80% of their custimors and by law -they would have been totally unable to maintain the real ID forums system that the first reports were claiming.

Lastly - you really have to wonder what the heads of Blizzard/Activizion are thinking. They seem to have totally lost it. Even now when they are taking this Idea back to the drawing board... they will have lost faith of many of their gamers... cause the idea was so stupid and unpractical in the first place.

[Zerekthul]

Thank you.

[xnickybx]

Want me to link several cases where people been killed over a game? That is not paranoia, that is being realistic.

Better stop driving. Id stay out of the sun too. Actually, you're better off just staying in your house completely, work from home if you can. Also, you probably should stay away from open flames or any electronics. Guess you'll have to quit wow... but you were probably already prepared to do that, out of fear of death.

[KCguy]

The whining was insane. I really didn't see the big deal, but I guess it proves just how many people use the forums. I personally never have and neither do the people that I know that play. Mainly because anytime I go to the forum it's actually about the game itself and people have made threads that answer my question. All this whining even made it to the front page of Yahoo.com for an hour or so.

[MortalWombat]

Picking, at random, William Shatner: He probably doesn't play, of course, and only did the advert for money, but imagine if he really DID have a shaman, and had an issue. It would go like this:

William Shatner: So... I'm having a problem with my shaman's DPS. My numbers are lower than I think they should be. Can anyone help?

Joe Smith: OMG, THE William Shatner? No way!

Seymour Butts: LOL NEWB. Nice GS.

Hugh Jass: Be more bad, baddie.

Fred Nurk: KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!

Etc, etc, etc.

Do you honestly think Blizzard who wouldn't tell you the names of celeb's toons if you tortured them would have them post on their real name?