DRM News

(Update) It looks as though Blizzard has backed down from its RealID plans for the moment. After a lot of people expressed concern over the move, Blizzard has decided to listen to the fans. This is what makes Blizzard stand out from other game companies, and why Blizzard fans love the company. Mike Morhaime, CEO and Co-Founder of Blizzard had this to say:

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. (see the above link for more)

They are going to continue with the RealID they have been using, and bring that into Starcraft II, but keeping it optional. Which is good, there are benefits to the system so scrapping completely it would have been a bad idea. I do have to point out that Blizzard was just trying to make their forums a better place, I can’t fault them for that.

(/Update)

If you are looking to participate on the Starcraft II or the changing WOW forums you’re going to have to use your own name. In Blizzard’s own words and from what other Blizzard forum members have stated the current forums run wild and its a mess of trolling and flaming. Blizzard seems to think that adding real names will end all of this.

For a few months Battle.net has already been using an opt-in RealID, which meant those on your friends list could see your real name and other info, and it does have its benefits. Probably the best one is the cross-game chat, so if you are in one game you can ask your friends in another game if they want to join you. A nice feature, but I don’t really think a real name is needed.

The Center for Democracy & Technology has an interesting write up on this with some issues they are concerned with.

• Real-name use brings real-world consequences: At the end of 2009, there were over 11 million active WoW players, many of whom play over 30 hours a week. In-game competitions can get heated, and relationships between players sometimes go sour – does Blizzard really want players’ in-game names to be associated with their users’ real names in a public and searchable fashion and make it that much easier to take in-game drama into the real world?
• Forum posts with real names attached will also make players’ gaming habits readily accessible to the non-gaming public. These names can be searched by current and potential employers and other people with whom users’ may not want to share their gaming habits. Allowing players to use pseudonyms with Real ID accounts could solve this problem easily.
• While the Starcraft II forums will be new, and all users will have to opt-in to use Real ID to participate, what about the older and more popular World of Warcraft forum? The WoW “General Discussion” forum (only one of many sections) already has over 1,100 pages of threads, with the most popular items having been viewed over 1.4 million times. Will users’ real names be applied to posts retroactively? Will there be an option for current users to post under their old pseudonyms? Currently, users are required to log in using their WoW accounts, which are linked to their billing information – from a moderator’s perspective, why will Real ID promote accountability better than this current system?

One other concern that they mention was brought up in a forum post, was the issue that female gamers are worried about stalkers, which is a very valid concern. When you have millions of people playing the game, you can probably count on some of them being mentally unstable. Making information public could have some very bad consequences.

Personally I don’t see how attaching realIDs is going to stop the flaming or trolling or any other bit of unpleasantness. Its the job of the moderators and forum admins to take care of that and to stop it. It seems to me to be an over-reaction to something they allowed to happen in the first place.

Plus, I know what many of you are asking. WWKSD? (what would Kevin Smith do? NSFW language)