Blizzard plans to reveal poster's real names on forums. Rage ensues.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Funka Genocide

what the hell do you do when you go buy shoes are buy an airline ticket? Tons of people know your real name and nobody has stalked you yet.

weirdos man.

You're really underestimating just how big the difference is between internet people and real life people.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Guys, just because people can get access to worse data doesn't mean we should make it easier for everyone else. Basically you're giving a helping hand to the less-internet savvy stalkers.
Also it's going to help out spambots- I guarantee you someoen will set up something to email variations of usersnames and major email providers with false blizzard emails and things.

[Azisien]

This feels oddly relevant right now.

I feel like I'm forcing myself to care about the issue though. I mean I agree with Meister that it would be better to hire a ton of moderators and crack down on the forums, instead of doing this. On the other hand, interesting social experiment!

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Also it's going to help out spambots- I guarantee you someoen will set up something to email variations of usersnames and major email providers with false blizzard emails and things.

Honestly, this is already happening, it's not really going to change much. I don't even play WoW and I get like 15 World of Warcraft Emergency Password Change Notifications a day.

[shiney]

(I can kind of see the reasoning there, moderating those forums properly would be a full time job and honestly, who wants to pay people to press buttons on a forum interface?

I would imagine the actual people who pay money to play the games might want to pay people to press buttons on a forum interface. If you pay money for a service you should have a reasonable expectation of access to all portions of the provided service without harassment.

YOU might not be bothered by this, but there are plenty of people who want to actually safeguard certain aspects of personal data. One of the account location techniques and occasional security questions asked by Blizz if you ever have to call them is your name. Now that's one piece of the puzzle solved by a hacker or whatever. Maybe they can get your address next, or telephone number if you're listed and they know your location. Okay, two, maybe three security questions now answered. Not too terribly difficult from that point to gain access to your account.

It's not a conspiracy or cockamamie theory either. This is not a good idea from Blizzard and it is invasive of privacy on what should otherwise be an anonymous interface. If you don't care, it doesn't mean it doesn't bother you -- it means you're careless.

This is just yet another moronic move by Blizzard / Activision that furthers my belief that I made the right choice in cancelling my account last year. If all they care about is the bottom line, the profit margin, then I want no part in padding it. As it stands you can basically buy anything you want in the game now (directly or indirectly) and actual talent and competitive advantage has been thrown to the wayside in exchange for "let's get everyone to high levels as fast as possible so they buy more expansions". Heaping on invasion of privacy and a lack of commitment to actually solving a real problem just disgusts me, personally.

[bluestarultor]

I think people underestimate how much information people can get based on next to nothing. I have a friend who plays EVE who related a story of a guy whose telephone line was cut to prevent him making some sort of buy for his corporation.

Think about that once. Someone found out not only what he was doing via corporate espionage, but his name and address, and then went there. Sure, they just cut his phone line. It's not like they killed him. But they still found the guy and performed an illegal act over a game.

People do crazy things. As a guy developing my own online game, this makes me double-take. Putting real names up is not going to stop trolling and I have no idea what made Blizzard think it would, and their decision strikes me as an incredibly poor one if for no other reason than privacy rights.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by shiney

It's not a conspiracy or cockamamie theory either. This is not a good idea from Blizzard and it is invasive of privacy on what should otherwise be an anonymous interface. If you don't care, it doesn't mean it doesn't bother you -- it means you're careless.

This is a fair point, though we could all just not have forum accounts. And with enough outrage, maybe, they will change their mind.

Originally Posted by blustarultor

Think about that once. Someone found out not only what he was doing via corporate espionage, but his name and address, and then went there. Sure, they just cut his phone line. It's not like they killed him. But they still found the guy and performed an illegal act over a game.

People do crazy things. As a guy developing my own online game, this makes me double-take. Putting real names up is not going to stop trolling and I have no idea what made Blizzard think it would, and their decision strikes me as an incredibly poor one if for no other reason than privacy rights.

I know this is a crazy story but honestly this is just fear-mongering.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Azisien

I know this is a crazy story but honestly this is just fear-mongering.

I'm not saying it's likely, just that making it easier is a very, very stupid idea. I put forth an extreme case, yes, but think about this. People get wrapped up in these things. Even if it's not people going for "visits," there's the possibility of hate mail, harassment, and general creepiness. It's bad enough people are trolling on the forums. Do we really want them to have an easier time harassing people in real life?

Privacy is in place for a reason. Removing privacy means removing protections.



As I said, this is not going to stop trolling. There's no good reason to do this, and it's going to cause much more harm than help.

[Ravashak]

It's not going to stop trolling either, if people want tot roll, they'll just get a new WoW account (quick glance, €15, think it's comparable to character transfers), and attach it to another email adress and a false name. Added benefit of allowing you to impersonate someone else who might not even know it's happening.

Wonder what they'll do with multiple people with the same name, though, add hometown as well? >_>

[Viridis]

If anyone didn't hear, they backed down on this decision really quickly.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/07/...180-real-names