Blizzard Backs Down On Real Names For Forums 432
Ashe Tyrael writes "Earlier this week, Blizzard announced that they were going to be implementing changes in their official forums (for StarCraft II when it launched, and for WoW prior to Cataclysm) that would require users to post under their real names, as part of the Real
ID system. After perusing nearly 14,000 European and 50,000 US forum posts, the majority of which decried this move with various levels of vehemence, it looks like Blizzard has given in to the pressure. From the official statement: '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.' Not that this doesn't leave room for them to re-implement this at a later date, but that's a pretty definite 'no.' It was clear they were going to take criticism, but the size of the backlash was impressive. It seems likely Blizzard simply wasn't expecting that level of antipathy toward their new policy.
Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
So Blizzard probably estimated that 90% of those jerks would stop being jerks if their name appeared by their asshole posts. So what if 1% of the population complains about RealID? But in doing so, Blizzard totally ignored the other 98% of the populations enjoyment of privacy. And in doing so once they decided this would be mandatory for the betterment of the community, the rest of the community interjected and seemed to prefer the assholes and their privacy to the converse where the assholes now know who you are [penny-arcade.com]. To many of us, this isn't really a surprise.
Not that this doesn't leave room for them to re-implement this at a later date, but that's a pretty definite 'no.'
I disagree. I see Blizzard still chasing this dream of moderation through identity and drastically reducing their moderation. I would bet we shortly see a scheme where RealID is opt in with the catch being that if you aren't using RealID then each of your posts has to be read by a moderator before it is approved as viewable by anyone else. Community regulation can be a difficult and touchy subject with gamers and I suspect this is only the beginning of a very long trial run where Blizzard tries to find the happy medium between anonymity and self regulation.
It all comes down to $ (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think that this had anything to do with privacy, or "feedback", it was simply that when the accounting department saw just how many hits they were going to lose and the kneecapping their advertising income was about to take, the called the higer ups and put a dollar figure to this kind of bone-head move and it was called off.
Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't played WoW in a LONG time, but for a while I was a devout player (closed beta, open beta, from launch until two years later), and if there is one thing I saw during my time, it was Blizzard listening to the masses.
Popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is why? (Score:3, Insightful)
anyone awake? (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't seen the issue addressed, but I can't see that this measure wouldn't violate EU privacy regulations in some way
Re:Popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They learned why it's a bard idea the hard way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's part of the problem. What if someone who is completely unconnected to WoW but happens to have the same name as someone who does play? And THEY are the one who gets griefed IRL by some maniac who takes a game too damn seriously?
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
The real answer is to track down the trolls, and permanently ban them from the game as well as the forum, block their IP and and their e-mail address. Well, only a 10 or 35 day ban in the IP since it's probable assigned via DHCP and will get re-assigned to someone else.
They need to (if they don't already) specify that if people get banned for this reason they don't get a refund on their subscription.
People will still troll, and and trolls will find a way back in, but if you make it difficult and expensive enough most trolls will just go troll /. for free.
Of course there are a lot of basement dwellers with a lot of time on their hands and their mom's Visa card...
This might piss a number of people off, but I know that if Xbox Live had this policy a few years ago I'd still be a member. Instead I purchased my xbox 360 and only play standalone games on it - I'm not paying to listen to the blathering rantings of 30 year old basement dwellers that behave like 12 year olds...
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
It's well known that a pseudonym enables people to be complete assholes. Complete. And I'd bet that the moderators of these forums were sick and tired of seeing cases where this happened. Either someone said something really inflammatory or got under the skin of a beginner -- turning them off to the game. Some people are sensitive and even Mr. Rogers won't undo what a bully can do.
So Blizzard probably estimated that 90% of those jerks would stop being jerks if their name appeared by their asshole posts.
I agree that anonymity allows people to be the kind of jerks that you wouldn't want to be if your reputation was at stake. But I don't believe that you necessarily have to reveal somebody's real name to counteract that.
In-game, you develop a reputation. If you're enough of an asshole (lootwhore, n00b, whatever) in-game, folks won't want to play with you. They'll put you on their ignore list. You'll be ostracized.
Right now, you can roll up a new character easily enough and shrug off the reputation of your old character. Or create a character specifically for the purpose of being an asshole. You can log in as "Joe the Night Elf" and be a nice guy and go on all the raids... And then you can log in as "Ed the Dwarf" and be a complete asshole... And nobody knows it's the same person. Ed's bad reputation does not affect Joe at all.
All you have to do is make it clear that those two characters are owned by the same account. Then if everybody hates Ed because he's an asshole, they know that Joe is also that same asshole, and they can hate him too.
Associating these characters with your real name is not necessary. And, in fact, I think it creates the potential for some real abuse. Folks will happily harass you to the greatest extent they can for some really stupid shit. They'll post random garbage on the forums, spam you in-game, email you, whatever they can. If you give them enough personal information, they'll happily harass you in the real world as well.
Re:We're not retreating.... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true, the WoW forums are really nothing but a cesspit. Throw in the fact that they've banned some of the best posters for trivial reasons like speculating about unreleased content and there's really no reason to read or post on the official forums. It's ridiculous that they think a handful of moderators can handle tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of posters on a daily basis.
The real solution to the WoW forum problem is to hire more moderators, require a unique account id that's not necessarily your real name and not your login id, and to be much more public about when people have sanctions imposed on them and why. That won't clear everything up, but those three steps will go a long ways towards improving the situation. The perception that there is little to no effective moderation on the forums only encourages bad behavior.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
But you know there were some real jerks in WoW.
There are some real jerks on the highway, in line at the grocery store, and at your workplace. These are the same people who post GNAA trolls and goatse links.
So Blizzard probably estimated that 90% of those jerks would stop being jerks if their name appeared by their asshole posts.
Their estimates were 100% wrong. Assholes will be assholes no matter what.
Re:It all comes down to $ (Score:5, Insightful)
because you never make mistakes, right?
There's a difference between making a mistake and doing something that anyone with more than a room temperature IQ should immediatley understand to be an insanely stupid idea.
And I'm talking room temperature in Celcius, not Kelvin.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
A) there are many reasons for people not wanting their real name to appear. None fo them have anythign to do with trolling.
ALL of them might not be about trolling, but you're flat out dreaming if you think you can state that NONE of them are about trolling.
Re:Facebook slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
You can call me naive if you want, but ask yourself: what the hell does Blizzard gain from you posting your real name on their forums? They already know it from your subscription info, it's not like you're giving them new data. It makes no difference to them whatsoever. That's the problem with conspiracy theories: people come up with them before realizing that the conspiracy would not provide any benefit to the alleged conspirators if true
This was just a lousy call by well-meaning individuals, and the fact that they did such a complete turnarond is a positive sign that Blizzard does care about their customers.
Re:It all comes down to $ (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, everyone wants money. That is NOT a bad thing. The fact that they had to do the math and realizing X is bad as opposed to blindly accepting the fact that X is bad with evidence does NOT mean they are evil or bone headed or stupid. Instead it means.
1. The management of a for-profit company is not composed of moral philosophers that care more about their beliefs than about making money.
2. The management of a for-profit company is smart enough to consider solutions to things that annoy their customers.
3. The management was not smart enough to realize their propoosed solution was worse all by themselves.
4. The management WAS smart enough to learn from their mistake before they actually enacted it.
You seem to be surpirsed, nay SHOCKED I say, SHOCKED to learn these first three obvious facts and are totally discounting #4.
Me, maybe I'm cynical, but in my experience, the first three are common and the only surprusing thing is #4, which you seem to think is a horrible thing. I am gladdened to discover that Blizzard appears to be FAR more ethical and intelligent than many other companies, such as Facebook.
I would trust Blizzard far more than I would trust some one that thinks profit is a dirty word.
Re:Popularity (Score:0, Insightful)
LAN support is missing because it was only a handful of people on slashdot that cared. No actual functionality is removed by taking away LAN gaming.
Re:Popularity (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Popularity (Score:3, Insightful)
Blizzard issued official no-CD patches for Starcraft, Diablo II, and Warcraft III a while after they were out. They're quite capable of being reasonable about removing anti-piracy features that annoy their players after some time has passed. Something tells me that the removal of LAN support is mostly just to keep Blizzard's corporate overlords from wringing their hands about teh p1rates too much. Hopefully, they will add LAN support in a patch after the initial rushes of retail sales are over.
Not that it isn't still totally rude. But it's important to separate the Activision business jackasses from the intelligent people who actually make the games. It seems that the latter were in charge of this decision about the forums and they (eventually) made the right one.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
Blizzard doesn't want to pay to have enough moderators to actually moderate. This idea was to gt around having to do that. Too bad it's based on a false premise.
That's not moderation you're advocating.
No authority should be encouraged to be that neck-deep in the business of people. Even if it's just people playing a game. Moderation isn't about having employees read every single stupid thing your customers say (and they do, you just try not to tell them). It's about being responsive to your customers' needs, taking to heart the stuff you need to benefit them (and through them yourself), and taking action when necessary to stop problems.
As to trolls, they're not going to complain; criminals don't stand up for their rights by admitting their crimes. Allowing only for legitimate complaints results in your false premise.
Also, you're just plain wrong as to intention. Blizzard's announcement [battle.net] specifically mentioned trolls and their place in the reason behind the intended change: (emphasis mine)
"The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment".
Re:Popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
Not real names, but tied to accounts (Score:5, Insightful)
Blizzard should simply tie forum names to accounts in an opaque manner. You can only create a forum name if you have an account, and you can only create one per account and only if you have a game key activated on that account. The forum name can't be the same as the account username (to prevent disclosure), and once created you can't change it (CS can change it for you, but you have to give them a good reason to). That solves most of the problem without requiring real names anywhere.
Basically for the purposes Blizzard claims to need to address, real identities aren't needed. What's needed is only two things:
Neither of those requires disclosing real identities.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
Moderation isn't about having employees read every single stupid thing your customers say (and they do, you just try not to tell them).
Trust me. Moderating an online forum is EXACTLY reading every single stupid thing your customers post. "Oh someone started a topic about religion? I guess I can cancel my other plans since my 5 hours will be spent in their reading everything that anyone posts to keep the flames down."
Re:Popularity (Score:4, Insightful)
Only a handful? There are 252,781 last I checked who signed the petition [petitiononline.com]. Me and my friends vowed to never purchase a game unless we can play LAN.
I played SC2 beta with a friend in my network, behind the same firewall the performance was dismal!! And that was just two, I can't imagine 8 people! My network is gig, My firewall is a Linux based one with 4ghz, 1GB ram, Dual Gig,
Another thing that pisses me off is these gaming tycoons saying LAN is obsolete. A gig LAN(or even 100mb) is far superior to anything I can get from Comcast. Not to mention having friends in the same room (what do you think made halo on xbox so popular)
Taking away LAN does remove functionality. LAN is the ultimate multi-player gaming experience.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't use the account name because then you are giving out valuable information.
Why would you want to use the account name? Sure, it's a simple way to do it... But nobody out there would recognize the account name anyway.
What you want to do is just list other characters on the same account. You can already inspect a character in WoW to see their equipment and whatnot... Just add a tab/button/whatever that shows you other characters.
Then if Ed is being an asshat, and I want to add him to my ignore list, I can also take a look at the other characters that Ed plays as and add them to my ignore list as well. Hell, you could make it even easier... When you add a character to your ignore/friends lists you can have a prompt that asks you if you want to add all their characters, or just this one.
right to both access and anonymity? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does everyone dismiss the choice of NOT participating in Blizzard's forums as a way to protect your privacy and security. Plenty of people have made that same choice with regards to Facebook.
So many people seem to think that free speech means being free to walk into someone else's living room and call them a cocksucker without having to fear getting punched in the face.
Re:Facebook slippery slope (Score:1, Insightful)
"You can call me naive if you want, but ask yourself: what the hell does Blizzard gain from you posting your real name on their forums? They already know it from your subscription info, it's not like you're giving them new data. It makes no difference to them whatsoever. That's the problem with conspiracy theories: people come up with them before realizing that the conspiracy would not provide any benefit to the alleged conspirators if true"
Naive if you know about the facebook integretion deal and believe that, just uninformed if you don't know about
Activision want to create THE social gaming network. Cannot do that if everyone is publiclly hidden behind alias. That is what the whole Real ID thing is about
Re:right to both access and anonymity? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My question is why? (Score:4, Insightful)
He is stating that there are several people harassed, physically assaulted, and even murdered because some asshat took an internet argument into the real world.
The Real ID change would make doing so much, much easier.
Re:My question is why? (Score:3, Insightful)
He is stating that there are several people harassed, physically assaulted, and even murdered because some asshat took an internet argument into the real world.
The Real ID change would make doing so much, much easier.
While it would make it easier, it would still be orders of magnitude more difficult than REAL LIFE, where it is not a common occurrence.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:2, Insightful)
No. Not "interesting" at all.
They're pulling in roughly $150 million
\
I'm guessing you're doing a simple $15 * 10M subscribers? That's revenue, not profit. Go get some real numbers about how much discretionary spending they have to put towards QA and come back with an honest argument. If nothing else, how about an estimate of what it would cost to placate you, assuming that's even possible.
gotta love waiting 3 days ... only to be given the same ... canned response
Canned responses are there for a reason. Lots of people do need them. You're smarter and almost learned from your mistake. Just run through their checklist and submit a smarter ticket. It'd be great if those didn't solve problems, and if players used the forums as a method of reducing the load on live-help. And again: show us numbers. How many people/shifts/calls per day. What's the backlog, what percent of tickets are solved using the canned response. How about just an to improve the system?
Complaining is easy, it's also childish to do when making lousy arguments. Blizzard may not be able to "just spend more on QA"- did that ever occur to you? Real life is about making hard decisions, can you handle that? How about $20/mo for faster responses? Postpone Starcraft2, Diablo3, the "next-gen MMO" or the next WoW expansion by a year (no, you can't choose one you don't care about, that's childish again)? Blizzard can do all of these too, but they're probably far worse evils than they ones they choose.
Of course I could just be a complete idiot and Blizzard is an evil corporation. What do I know I'm a fanboi, right?
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
The way to block them would be to freeze their account - which Valve had done a long time ago on their Steam Forums. This got some backlash, I don't know if they still do it, but I wouldn't be surprised. Be an asshat, lose your games.
Thus illustrating the main problem with Steam and all software as a service. Don't get me wrong Valve deciding you cant spam their forums is one thing, deciding they didn't like something you said and removing the ability to play games you purchased is something entirely different.
The internet is forever. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I trust you because you clearly know what you're talking about in that response. Real forum managers can stop flame wars with thread locking and bans, they don't need to waste their life.
I kind of know what I'm talking about. I moderated on ExpertsExchange years and years ago, where there was no point in reading everything. We moderated where we were needed- users questions, user complaints, open questions. I couldn't give a damn about any other posts unless they were personally interesting to me or became my business through the above demands.
Do you really think CNN moderates every comment? Think every YouTube producer or Google itself reads every idiotic comment posted on videos? Think every single change on Wikipedia gets checked? There's just too damn much to bother in these cases, and it's not worth it unless you're definitely going to be slapped with a massive lawsuit.
Want to read everything? That's your call and depends on what kind of forums you want to run. The idiots on Conservapedia tend towards the censorship-loving authoritarian so they may actually care enough.
Re:Popularity (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, sure, keep fooling yourself that Blizzard has power to reverse a decision from Kotick.
*If* we see LAN support, it will be 5 years after the first server emulator is out. But we probably won't. Blizzard want to ram their cheap copy of facebook down our throats one way or another.
Not with my money.
Re:right to both access and anonymity? (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you know that this isn't just the first step?
If we let Blizzard get away with it here, who's to say the next thing won't be the WoW Armory listing the player's full name when you look up characters on it?
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact is that there are many nasty people that troll the internet for kicks. It stands to reason that many of those people also play WoW and hang out on the Blizzard boards.
"reasons" does not inherently imply legitimate. If that is what you meant, you should have said that. In fact it is incredibly ironic that while your posts are riddled with spelling and grammatical garbage, you are implying that this other person is lacking a high school education.
B) Blizzards gas crap for moderators.
What does this even mean? I can't even deduce what you were trying say.
zomg srsly lrn 2 spl?
C) If they had enough moderators, then there wouldn't be a problem on the forums.
Clearly this is false. Slashdot has about 2 million user ID's, most of us moderate on a semi-regular basis. Yet still garbage like this has been up for hours and has not been modded to oblivion. The problem on internet forums isn't moderators, it's human asshats.
Re:They learned why it's a bard idea the hard way. (Score:3, Insightful)
So had he been a stalker, he would have killed the wrong person.
How is that better?
Re:They learned why it's a bard idea the hard way. (Score:1, Insightful)
And people don't publish their real-life names in wide circulation, and still get people figuring out their real-life name and harassing them. I've been a Wikipedia admin for five years, and in that time:
* I've been sued twice.
* I've been the recipient of numerous death threats
* I was the intended target of a real-life harassment campaign. The person leading it figured out my real-life name, and then connected it to the wrong address and telephone number. Some random person in Michigan suffered a few weeks of attacks before the perpetrators figured out they had the wrong target.
Re:right to both access and anonymity? (Score:3, Insightful)
not everyone does.
That said, when you start to ostracize people for wanting privacy and security, it pretty much means everyone is going to loose privacy and security.
Re:We're not retreating.... (Score:3, Insightful)
They just have to turn it into a game. The rating system is a start but can obviously be gamed. Definitely don't want to include tech support forums though.
Level 1 forum user: Can post only once every 15 minutes for a total of 6 per day. Can create topics only once an hour for a total of 2 per day. Cannot rate posts yet.
2-4 lowers post cooldown by 1 minute per level. Levels 3 and 5 grants 1 additional post each. Level 5 grants 1 more topic.
And, you know, go from there. If your posts are reported or downrated enough, a mod will swing by and check them out. If you posted stuff you shouldn't have, you might only be bumped down a level or two (or however much seems fitting). If you're just a complete asshole, forum and game ban.
Re:The internet is forever. (Score:3, Insightful)
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
C. S. Lewis
And I whole-heartedly agree.
Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
This stupid response is barfed all over the WoW forums repeatedly every time someone has any sort of complaint. Ever think that maybe some people enjoy the game, despite objecting to some of Blizzard's decisions?
If a customer service rep from AT&T is rude to you, do you cancel your service and just live without a phone? Oh, you don't like Comcast? Well cancel your cable and live without internet or TV, what a concept!