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Just days after Blizzard Entertainment announced a controversial decision that message board users would need to list their real names to continue participating in the boards, the studio has backed off. Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime revealed why Real ID integration is no longer happening to fans in a statement posted directly to the message boards this morning.
"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," said Morhaime, before revealing a reversal on the hotly debated proposed policy change. "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."
Morhaime reiterated Blizzard's commitment to improving the forum experience for discussing Blizzard's games, including "the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more." You will not, however, have to reveal yourself.
This shouldn't be seen as a sign that Blizzard is abandoning Real ID, though.
"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," he said. "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."
Forcing such a rabid community to identify themselves would have been a bold social experiment and having a company like Blizzard give it a shot would have been supremely interesting. That won't be happening with StarCraft II, World of Warcraft or Diablo III. Maybe someone else will try it out.
Are you happy with Blizzard's decision?
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Comments
Displaying 1–15 of 15
sarid
"I honestly believe this was all activisions idea from the start, Blizzard has never been this clueless when it comes to what their player base wants."
someone doesn't remember when The Burning Crusade came out....or when they made the Arena...
Diremike
2400 pages and 44000 replies of angry players tends to get a message across. Especially since players did take matters into their own hands by revealing personal information about many blizzard employees as well as info on Bobby Kotick.
I honestly believe this was all activisions idea from the start, Blizzard has never been this clueless when it comes to what their player base wants.
And this was never about the trolls from the start, it was all part of some fail plan to turn WoW into facebook, more proof Activision came up with horrible idea.
P.S nice to see someone on G4 finally woke up to this news
Unconquerab1e
Thank the gods of the internetz.
Knight_of_Zer0
way to stick to your ideals, Blizzard.
punks...
dolphers
This is great news! I was against this idea, but I am FOR Real Id as a whole. I love being able to chat to friends playing Starcraft 2 while I'm questing in WoW, not to mention chat between my horde and alliance guilds. As long as you're being careful who you give your ID to when setting up your friends list (and all the security holes are fixed :) ) it can be a lot of fun.
Cheers to the community. Our voice was heard :)
spicypooptastic
Are Trolls really that bad? Why would they want to potentially make themselves get gaurenteed lawsuits due to privacy and safety issues over a few trolls.
Trolls keep forums alive.
Also I hate when forums get locked not for flaming or trolling but going off topic! Its like jeez people! Conversations flow between subjects.
crocodilius
Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
ps: Activision doesnt own Blizzard you stupidstupidstupidstupidnewb.
CH1CK3NCH4S3R
God Bless you Michael Morhaime, you are a gentleman and a scholar!
IWSTUTNISB
Now if only their parent company would realize when they're doing something stupid that nobody wants.
blindsideofthesun
Ok, my only argument for their decision is that the use of real names would force people to think a bit more before posting some of the bullcrap that makes it onto message boards, and throw some form of accountability for ones actions into the ring. Imagine a place where you have to really come up with intelligent arguments, and wouldn't be able to simply change your forum name every time you get booted for inappropriate behavior/flaming. I personally think it would be nice to put a check on some of the retards out there in forum land.
...oh, and to not make myself a hypocrite here, the name is Ryan Ghoslin. Nice to meet you all.
Atavax
I don't think i can say I'm happy about the decision. Is it good that they are not forcing people to use their real names? yes. but it was a horrible, horrible idea to force people to use their real names in the first place, they should of never had to change their mind, because they should of never thought it was a good idea to force people to use their real names.
ZyloWolfBane
It doesnt effect me either way, but it would be nice if they at least understand how much worse things would be if they actually went through with this.
They need to just start IP banning people who violate the TOS like they used to in the SC/Diablo days and stop letting people get away with stuff because they want money so bad.
Mutak
Can't really say i'm happy or unhappy about this decision - i don't care a lot either way. After the histrionics that the players went through over the policy this move was expected. Like you say, it would have been interesting to see what effect the policy had.
I think people in general should be more conscious of civility and of privacy and security issues online and this would have forced a lot of them to reconsider those things. I think a lot of people will go back to a false sense of security and forums full of hostility and pettiness now.
Atavax
pretty impressive how quickly blizzard was able to change their minds on the subject. negative feedback would often take weeks if not months, if not never, to change a lot of developer's minds; but with blizzard it took days... pretty impressive.
EKG
I am glad they finally listened. Although I don't play WoW and never have I am completely against forcing people to give their real names and share it with other people onver the internet. It should the the person choice, and it SHOULD NOT be forced upon them. On some websites, like Bitmob, we give our real names on our posts and articles, but we were not forced to do so, and that is the key.
Displaying 1–15 of 15