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→Real ID and the Battle.net Forums
==Real ID and the Battle.net Forums==
While the real name aspect of things in World of arcraft Warcraft had stirred up some controversy, the public outcry really began on July 7, 2010, when Blizzard announced plans to require Real ID for anyone who wished to post on the Battle.net forums for WoW, SC2, tech support, and other games going forward.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/real-id-comes-to-the-b.net-forums/]
This was perhaps the single most unpopular announcement ever made by Blizzard Entertainment, and precipitated a deluge of nearly unanimous criticism for a wide variety of reasons. The biggest single outpouring was in the official announcement thread on the US WoW forums[http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700], where more than 10,000 fans posted in less than a day, the vast majority of them strongly against the proposed forum change. (The thread ultimately grew to more than 2500 pages, at ten posts a page.)
Leading Diablo community site Diii.net made two posts collecting editorials from around the Internet, almost all of which were strongly opposed to Real ID, as were the commenters on the site.
* [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/b.net-forums-real-id-reactions/ Nearly everyone hates] Real ID.
* [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/real-id-on-b.net-follow-ups/ Lots more gamers argue] against Real ID.
An anonymous vote in the Diablo community also revealed strong opposition to Real ID, showing that it wasn't just a vocal minority who opposed the system.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/vote-real-id-on-the-b.net-forums/]
==Blizzard Pushes Back==
Blizzard was unwilling to give in without a fight, and had all of their community managers out on the front lines of their forums, falling on their swords left and right. One of the best explanations given was by Wryxian, one of their WoW CMs from Europe.[http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=13816838128&sid=1&pageNo=203#4053]
::We have been planning this change for a very long time. During this time, we have thought ahead about the scope and impact of this change and predicted that many people would no longer wish to post in the forums after this change goes live. We are fine with that, because we want to change these forums dramatically in a positive and more constructive direction.
::It’s been very obvious over the last few years that the forums are an exceptionally valuable source of information both for players and for us to gather feedback. There are many threads on this forum now, and over the last few years, that people have been constructively discussing many aspects of the game. They’ve received new wisdom and have then been able to go back to the game and enjoy it further with the new knowledge acquired through the forums.
::These threads, however, can often be lost amongst a great deal of other threads that are basically filled with trolling, name calling, flaming, off-topic conversations and that’s just a small amount of some of the content that has been found in these forums over the years. We don’t want that anymore, and we believe the Real ID change will bring about a lot of the improvement that we are hoping for.
::There’s a lot of scare-mongering going on about the change, but there seems a need to make something very clear. The forums have always been an optional extra—something you can choose to participate in if you wish to. With our Real ID changes for the forums, this is still the case. The only difference will be, if you do choose to participate in the forums, then you will do so by using your real name. But only after you’ve been warned and accepted this in advance.
Belying Blizzard's publicly unified front, (unsourced) rumors began to swirl that Real ID was very unpopular internally. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/rumour-blizzard-realid-unpopular-internally/]
==''Et tu, Brute?''==
All this was just in the day after the Real ID forum announcement. When all of Blizzard's arguments failed to make a dent, and the Electronic Freedom Federation joined in[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/eff-criticise-blizzards-real-id/] the condemnation, things looked grim for Real ID. When the most influential gaming site, Penny Arcade joined in, fans hoped that the end was near.
[[File:Realid-penny-arcade1.jpg|thumb|400px|[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/7/9/ Penny Arcade] weighs in on Real ID.]]
Below is a quote from the Penny Arcade news post, with their comic on the subject to the right:[http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/7/9/]
::The RealID thing is a bad idea that won’t work. If it were merely a bad idea, or merely wouldn’t work, maybe there’d be something in it. Accountability is crucial -- [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/ you might recall our theory on the subject] -- and a fixed persona makes the laws of a microculture enforceable. But the idea that this persona must bear your actual name to lend it value (for you, or for others) is ludicrous.
::The worst part about the official messaging is how it conflates expanded Battle.Net functionality with RealID, so that it seems as though these things are inseparable, as though your mystically-infused “truename” is a bundle of syllables congealed with a cosmic power. They chose to commingle these things in order to realize Battle.Net as a Social Network, and to develop true cultural currency (also: regular currency) thereby.
==Blizzard Capitulates==
On the morning of July 9, 2010, two days after issuing the original announcement, Blizzard
# And Blizzard quickly buckles under the combined weight of the criticism and [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/blizzard-buckles-on-real-id/ rescinds the real names on the forums] requirement.
