Blizzard To Require Real First and Last Names For Official Forums

An anonymous reader writes "Recently, Blizzard Entertainment implemented a Real ID feature for some of its current games and all of its future Battle.net-based games. Today, Blizzard announced that it intends to require usage of the real names of Battle.net posters for its StarCraft II forums before release, and for its World of Warcraft forums shortly before the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. From the announcement: 'The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.'"

Re:I actually like this trend...

[II Xion II]

It's a horrible idea. Anyone with some basic Google searching skills can uncover a lot about people based on (presumably) their real name. For people such as myself with a name that is not so unique, it is not a huge issue. But for a lot of people who might have more uncommon names, such information can easily be used to find addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social networking accounts, and other information. This is an identity theft and privacy nightmare. And given the ages and types of people who can play the game, I see it being very successfully exploited.

Re:How does this work for those under 13?

[UDGags]

From the Real ID FAQ Will parents be able to control their child’s access to posting on the forums? Yes. When this change to the forums goes live, parents will be able to decide whether to allow their child to post on official Blizzard forums that use Real ID through Battle.net Parental Controls.

You are not now nor have you ever been anonymous o

[r6_jason]

I've posted this else where today, might as well post it here. People are up in arms over this one, most people seem to think that they are safe and/or anonymous behind their chosen internet handle. However this is not the case. As a TF2 server Admin I have seen many trolls get blown away when their personal info is posted in response to their trolling posts. Just by Googling the Handle some people use, you can start to gather pieces of personal information, email, phone numbers, real names, places, jobs, etc can be found in a matter of minutes, one piece of information leading to another, which leads to another, and so on until you have a complete picture of someone. You are not now nor have you ever been anonymous on the internet. With this change, adults will be expected to act as adults. If you don’t want the public to know what you are up to, don’t post it on the public internet, it seems rather simple to me.

Re:I actually like this trend...

[butterflysrage]

ok, we know John Smith, we can find out their region by looking at their server, a look at their post times and we can guess what time zone they are in, a reference to a specific ISP and you can get mighty close to knowing who a person is.

Re:trying to imagine...

[Godai]

By default it does not associate any post with a particular in-game character. So while they'd know you were female on the forums, there'd be no way to know that any given character belonged to you unless you choose to do so.

Re:Lawsuit Incoming!

[lgw]

Mod me down to 0 since I'm not providing any actual information, please.

If we did that sort of thing, the whole moderation system would collapse. You can, however, check the "No karma bonus" box, the post a 1 instead of 2.

Re:What about WoW Armory

[Godai]

Names on the forum are not connected to a character unless they choose to. So, none of what you're talking about applies unless someone wants to make that possible.

Re:Hmm....

[Bakkster]

Blizzard is forcing them to...

At the risk of making the stale old 'they aren't holding a gun to your head' argument, I find the word "force" to be pure rhetoric. It's not even the game itself, just the official forums for the game, which is both optional and has alternatives. It's rather trivial to avoid giving your name if you don't want to.

Re:Hmm....

[genner]

Blizzard is forcing them to...

At the risk of making the stale old 'they aren't holding a gun to your head' argument, I find the word "force" to be pure rhetoric. It's not even the game itself, just the official forums for the game, which is both optional and has alternatives. It's rather trivial to avoid giving your name if you don't want to.

Real ID is required to use the friends list in game.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet everyone has the option to give out a fake name on Facebook instead of their real one.

Re:I see you, You see me

[spire3661]

EVERYONE that posts on the forums will have their RealID exposed, even employees. At least one of the GM/Devs already revealed her name. Also, most of the employees are named in the game manuals (those things we dont read), including the GM mentioned.

Re:trying to imagine...

[nschubach]

My guess is that they will link it to a name on a Credit Card account.

Re:Hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet everyone gives out their real name on Facebook when they have the choice to give a fake one.

No... no, we don't.

Re:Hmm....

[Flamora]

Incorrect.

Real ID is "required" to use cross-realm, cross-faction communication, and was designed to be used with people you already know and trust.

However, there is nothing preventing you from using the pre-Real ID system of "/friends $CHARACTER_NAME".

Re:How does this work for those under 13?

[cappp]

A Blizzard employee went ahead and put his name out there as detailed on this site [gameriot.com].

In short, a little digging has found the guy's phone number, home address, the names and home address of his parents, his siblings' names, the valuation of his property, the name of his spouse, his facebook account, pictures of his home, pictures of him, his twitter account, his age, and so on.

Re:How does this work for those under 13?

[TheLink]

Requiring a "real" First and Last Name is stupid. Not all countries have that convention.

Requiring a name is not. Most people have at least one name, or they can come up with one.

I think this recent article is relevant:

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/10/06/17/2347257/Falsehoods-Programmers-Believe-About-Names?from=rss [slashdot.org]
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ [kalzumeus.com]

Despite that, that article isn't really that useful in practice (it's useful for perspective). Yes some people don't have names (or names someone can type in repeatably), but they are unlikely to be the sorts posting on web forums (e.g. they are unlikely to be your users in most cases).

Re:What a sham!

[yoshi_mon]

How? You a Blizzard shill?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=25626349382 [worldofwarcraft.com]

There is one of the better posts on Blizzards own forums as to why publishing someones 1st and last name, in association with other details, is a (TM) very bad thing.

Yes they can already sell off what data they have but not without their users going wtf!? But when RealID becomes the norm well then it's no wonder Joe Bob Jones is getting targeted ads for snickerdoodles. His forum posts, linked with Facebook and all the rest that I talked about, said that he might like them!