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Blizzard Withdrawing RealID Plan for Official Forums

posted 2010/07/09 at 12:19 PM by Noxychu

originally stated

Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. 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.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. 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. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. 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.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

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Comment by pezz I guess all that incessant whining paid off.

How long did that thread on the official forums end up being, anyway? Comment by Koper =/ I actually liked that idea. Comment by Cryziz Thank you Blizzard... for not trying to be FAILBOOK (facebook) Comment by Mindtraveller How long did that thread on the official forums end up being, anyway?Comment by Octavix In regards to:

we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.Comment by FoShizzle8 I guess all that incessant whining paid off.

How long did that thread on the official forums end up being, anyway?Comment by Gnub =/ I actually liked that idea.Comment by Porcell He used his real name in that post! You mean Mike Morhaime that graduated from Granada High School in 1985, who went to UCLA, is in a metal band, and plays poker?

OMG, I found information on him!

Anyway, no real reason for me to comment here. IB4 20 pages of "I'm glad they made this decision." Comment by Anubi Oh look, it seems that someone in Blizzard's offices really @#$%ted his pants. Comment by KittyKat77 Wow. And all it took was 50K posts, making international headlines, and a mass exodus by paying customers.

I am glad they saw reason on this monumentally stupid requirement, and glad that the paying customers put their collective foot down and said "No." Comment by GVHB Seems that all the complaining did it work. I was neutral to the idea, mainly because I don't (and won't) use the official forums, but I understand people who don't want their personal name be shown on the net. So I'm glad they made this decision, shows that Blizzard really listen to their costumers. Comment by Mindtraveller I am glad they saw reason on this monumentally stupid requirement, and glad that the paying customers put their collective foot down and said "No."Comment by Strokr Good, a lot of people were upset about it. Things like THIS happen. It's bad all around. Comment by Elementum i would be interesting to see how many subscribers they lost in that time period. Comment by kelpzoidzl The "at this time" caveat is worrisome. We have to realize that this is not an isolated thing. Controlling the internet is a goal of some that will not go away this easy.

Blizzard was probably leery of this all along. They could also appease the playerbase and the people targeting them with legal problems for the time being. We don't know if they where forced to make some kind of other deal. Comment by Varaconn =/ I actually liked that idea.Comment by Koper =/ I actually liked that idea.Unless of course, for some reason, you wanted actual names to show, for which I can think of no justification. It's actually a bit creepy.Comment by Valoras Woohoo! Yay for common Sense! :D

My reasoning is that it would have made a lot of people stop using the official forums, which I consider an extremely good thing. Currently there are too many people posting.
Comment by Varaconn You bring up a good point, but it works both ways. Plenty of annoying trolls would have left, but I'm sure there are plenty of quality posters over there that were planning on leaving as well.

At the other end of the spectrum, just like there are people who are probably proud of their contributions to the community, and thus have no problems with their name being shown, who will continue to post, there would have been plenty of goons who didn't care either way that would continue to do their thing. Maybe not as bad, but by no means perfect. You can be stupid without trolling, as we know.

I'm not saying you're wrong by any means, I just don't think the result would be as cut-and-dried as anyone would have liked to believe. Comment by pezz and a mass exodus by paying customers.

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Blizzard Withdrawing RealID Plan for Official Forums

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