Okay, I know that a lot of people on this site could care less about what a video game company does. I know there are a lot of things going on in the world that, in any real sense, matter more than any gaming industry topic possibly could. But I know there is a following for World of Warcraft here. And, even more importantly, I know that many, many more posters at Daily Kos are passionate about the Internet and privacy rights. The standard caveats apply: please don't flame, harass, or belittle anyone for their hobbies.
On July 6, a representative of Blizzard announced that on July 27, beginning with the Starcraft II forums, posting in the forums for any of their games will reveal the real first and last name of the poster, as determined by their billing information. Blizzard has declared war on Internet anonymity.
The announcement, found here, blames the change on the need to combat trolling and hostile behavior on the forums -- a problem handled elsewhere by moderation and forum bans, powers that Blizzard's support team already possess. Immediately, suspicions were raised that the company might have an ulterior motive. Back in May, USA Today had run a story that passed under pretty much everyone's radar, announcing a partnership between Blizzard and Facebook. Meanwhile, the Zeroday blog suggested that a South Korean law may have factored in to the company's calculus.
Regardless of the motivations, Blizzard seems intent on going forward with its plan. At the moment I type this, their designated US World of Warcraft feedback thread is 1872 pages, and has seen over 37,000 posts (although some number of those have been deleted due to moderation). There are similar threads in the European forums as well as other forums affected by these plans.
What problems does this raise?
First, it flies in the face of the concept of anonymous contribution to the Internet. Many of you reading this diary probably don't play any Blizzard games. But you'll note that you've been able to read the linked forum threads just the same as anyone else. Blizzard's forums require a poster to log in with an active account associated with one or more of their games, but there is no login requirement to read. Posts displaying a user's real name will be exposed to the entire Internet, creating an instantaneous and largely indelible (since it's the Internet...) trail connecting their personal life, professional life, and their video gaming hobby.
Second, it comes as a whiplash moment for users of their games. This initiative is part of a system they call RealID. RealID was first introduced a few weeks ago as a method by which players of their games could voluntarily connect with each other cross-game if they were willing to share their email address and real life name with each other. Blizzard repeatedly urged players to online engage in this system with people they trust. Evidently, that policy stance has changed.
But even before this announcement, the in-game version RealID has had its share of problems. Authors of support tools for the game discovered a method that would allow a malicious script to reveal real life information to third parties. Blizzard claimed this was not a matter of concern; don't run those scripts (I ... guess no one ever gets Trojans, either). And the system itself leaks data, allowing anyone with "RealID friends" to see the real life names not only of their friends, but of any "RealID friends" of those friends. There's no means to restrict that data. The net result is to raise privacy and data-control concerns about expanding its use. As a definitive example of how this presents a privacy leak, many World of Warcraft players use an authenticator, a physical device that generates time-limited second passwords that are then required for login or access to account management, preventing at least the easiest forms of account hacking. But the authenticator's values are not required to log into the forums. Any malicious entity who acquires a user's email address and password may immediately post, revealing that user's real name, if they did not already know it. And all Blizzard's talk about building a social gaming network suggests they aren't done with the surprise privacy policy changes.
Finally, there's no way to change your real life contact information. You cannot opt to employ an alias. Now, some players who pay with game cards (essentially cash) created their account with false credentials. Because there is no third-party identity confirmation, those people will continue to have anonymity. Players who were honest, or who use a credit card for their subscription, were required to use their legal name to register. That cannot be changed.
There's been no shortage of reasons why this is a bad idea. Women are concerned about the potential for stalking. Minorities, members of easily-identified ethnic groups, or transgender players whose legal names do not sync up with their gender identity are concerned about harassment and abuse. A wide array of people are concerned about the effects on employers' Google searches. These concerns are not unjustified. A Blizzard staffer posted his name to the discussion thread to display solidarity and demonstrate the safety of the system. Within minutes, people had located his likely home and family (and possibly also an innocent victim who shares his name). Rumors exist of substantial harassment. The post was pulled and references to it continue to be purged, but the damage is done.
In fairness to Blizzard, forum posting isn't technically required to play their games. And that's what they're arguing when they say this system is optional. You can always just shut up. But the developers use the forums to solicit feedback on changes, their technical support and customer service lines (which are famously slow to respond) frequently refer users to the forums for assistance, and many people use the forums to help organize group activities in the game world. In the words of one poster, this system is "so optional, it's mandatory."
This has been picked up all over the Internet, all the way to MSNBC and the BBC. Still, the willingness of a company with 13 million active worldwide customers to embark on this course of action probably isn't well known outside its fans, yet. And even many people who play and enjoy Blizzard games may not know about this unless they have visited the forums in the last 3 days.
Despite what project director Greg Canessa said in that USA Today interview in May, not all of us are "now at something five years ago I don't think any of us would maybe necessarily be comfortable with." Not all of us have "our real names and pictures of ourselves on there and so forth." At least, not yet. And not by choice.