Is Blizzard going crazy?
That’s the question on many minds tonight, if gaming discussions on Reddit and N4G are any indication. Yesterday they announced that soon all forum posts in the Starcraft II and World of Warcraft forums would be attached to the posters’ RealIDs: that is to say, their real names.
Blizzard’s stated reasons for this enormous announcement are simple—they feel that having people’s real names attached to their posts will increase accountability and decrease spam, flames, and trolling.
Anybody familiar with forums is no stranger to these problems. Since the beginning of the internet as we know it, the sense of anonymity afforded by screen names has caused certain types of people to unleash their dark side and vomit it onto our computer screens. Conversely, skilled community managers and forum staff have learned how to deal with these things, and well-managed communities don’t really experience these problems.
Of course, it scales up, and incredibly busy sites such as the official World of Warcraft forums have a proportionately larger number of issues, but it begs the question: is this the right way to deal with it?
In this community manager’s humble opinion, the answer is “no.”
There are a gigantic number of privacy concerns that come up with their solution. For example, the skewed male/female ratio is one major issue, and online stalking is a valid and dire concern. Harassment can be taken to whole new levels as well—all it takes is one chink in the armor of online privacy to make someone’s life a living hell. Imagine killing a player in PvP, them raging about it, them tracking you down via an innocent forum post you made on the WoW forums, and then taking your name to Facebook and putting two and two together to track you and your friends down. Now that player may have to deal with online and possibly even offline harassment. There is even more online rage with competitive games like StarCraft II. Another complication is possible racial harassment: Let’s face it—many people’s names will give away their race. Online racism is horrible and terrible to behold.
A major part of the draw for games like World of Warcraft is to provide an escape from reality. Players don’t want to be Brian Ambrozy, the Feral Druid on Tortheldrin. They want to disappear for a bit, play a game with people named Volav and Aprx and Leriamas, and kill dragons. They want to feel safe and anonymous and free. There are times and places for accountability, but the nights one spends on Azeroth are not one of them.
In the end, the simple solution will be not to post on their forums, of course. Many, many people with valid concerns about their own privacy will indeed cease posting on the forums, and of course, there will definitely be a much lower occurrence of the problems they’re trying to quash. It will look like a success from the outside (and for shareholders).
But what they’re really doing is eroding their community. They’re saying to their members: You’re not necessarily safe here. This is for business only, and if you want to participate, step up and name yourself.
Blizzard is sitting on the world’s most lucrative video game. They are making absolute piles of money, hand over fist. If they have a problem with forum trolls, spammers, and general rowdiness, they need to step up and hire more community managers and forum staff to deal with the problem. The community management sets the tone. If they don’t tolerate a certain behavior on the forums, and they enforce it, the problem will go away. They can definitely afford the help, but instead they’re choosing to deal with the problem with a heavy-handed technological (read: cheap) approach.
Blizzard has had enormous problems with hacked accounts lately. Complaints are rampant, and even the anecdotal evidence of our own 100+ member WoW guild having several hacked accounts tells quite a sordid tale. Blizzard is already bleeding players because of frustrations and concerns about these issues. They have bigger fish to fry than forum trolls right now.
Blizzard is starting to look a bit like a house of cards that is growing beyond all bounds of reason. This is yet another breeze in the room and we are all left to stare, open mouthed, as the tower continues to grow. It’s bound to topple soon—and there are plenty of competitors eager to rush into the vacuum left behind. And hey—they’ll probably let you escape for a bit to become FuzzMonster the Wicked.
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