[...]The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.
[...]
I strongly suggest that anyone who isn't down with the syndrome voice their objection to this change. I'm totally cool with being Facebook friends with guildmates and teammates I've known for a while, but I, me, I, me, would like the power to control who has access to my personal information. There are hard to predict repercussions from giving away information like this -- (If I can find your name and addy on spokeo, and I see you went offline or stopped posting, can I infer your current location to rob/rape you? Can I blackmail you if I know your employer and see you're playing games instead of working? Can I engage you in various confidence scams through WoW?)
This move does almost nothing to stop "malicious" posting whatever that means. It's not too terribly hard to have a John Doe account. (Which seems like a decent option going forward)
Honestly, I'm one of the least affected players by this -- outside of alpha/beta, I never post on the Blizzard forums and I arena with the same dozen or so players always, so I'm not terribly exposed to the change. I will certainly never post on the official forums or ever use RealID in game. (Despite the fact that I'm IRL friends with many of the people I arena with...because why do I need to, they're on skype/axon/vent with me) I fail to see any upside in this nonsense -- I have no idea what Blizzard's intentions are, and I'm really not a privacy nut, but is it so much to ask to just PLAY A GAME and not engage in some pointless and potentially dangerous social network clusterfuck?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)