Blizzard: Anonymity suspends reality

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 21 October, 2010

Real ID furore "kind of a side thing".

World of Warcraft and StarCraft II creator Blizzard's recent kafuffle with its fans over the use of Real ID in its forums has taught it a valuable lesson: gamers like anonymity because it ties into their desire to suspend reality.

"That's been a very interesting thing for us to wrap our heads around at Blizzard," Battle.net project director Greg Canessa told Gamasutra.

Weeks before StarCraft II was released Blizzard about-turned on its plan to force gamers to use their real names when posting in its forum.

Real ID, as it's called, stores real first names and surnames so that other people can befriend gamers across multiple titles and recognise their real-life friends.

Canessa said Blizzard was "surprised" by the controversy Real ID sparked, and highlighted the disparity between gamers' desire for anonymity and what people are willing to divulge on social networking sites like Facebook.

Being "someone else" is actually part of the gameplay, and just because people are okay with being open about their identities on Facebook, that openness doesn't necessarily translate to games.

"I think it's an interesting sociological phenomenon that you have, in which people are completely comfortable putting their name, face, kids, wife and personal information out there for the world to see in Facebook, yet they're not willing to do, in some cases, similar things in the game space," he said.

"We were a little surprised by the controversy [about requiring real names on forums], mostly because it was kind of wag the dog. It was not where our focus was [for Real ID]."

The focus, rather, is on Blizzard's branding for community features that use real names as a basis for an in-game social suite that includes cross-game chat and Real ID friend discovery.

"That part was really, really positive, and that's where the Battle.net team has been focused," Canessa said.

"The forum stuff was kind of a side thing. The forums aren't that big of a deal relative to Blizzard's overall business. And so we were a little surprised. ... [But] we listen to our community. They didn't like it, and we quickly moved off of it."

StarCraft II was aces. Oli gave it 9/10 in his review.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • TedMoseby #1 2 years ago

    Really don't understand why they were shocked to discover this. Not everyone is divulging everything on Facebook or bleating on about what sandwich they're currently eating on Twitter!

  • arcam #2 2 years ago

    I don't understand how they could be so surprised. Millions of us would see that kind of reaction as obvious.

    Battle.net is not Facebook, did they think it was? Their argument is like saying you are surprised that people object to a bag search when entering a restaurant because they are used to it in airports.

  • levitate #3 2 years ago

    They should have seen that miles ahead; it's not like anyone in the community wanted to have their real name displayed on their forum. You have a choice if you want to join Facebook. Once you do, you still have choices on how much other people could see.

  • Freek #4 2 years ago

    It's not surprising at all. Social Networks exist to maintain friendships and/or meet new people. And you choose how and who you meet and interact with.

    Gaming is something entirely different, you don't want to share personal info with some random guy you encountered playing 1v1. You just want to play a game.

  • butler` #5 2 years ago

    I think this is just the standard Blizzard arrogance in the form of a nonchalant, "am i bovvered?" kinda way.

    Either that or their bnet team are incredibly short sighted, and so obsessed with copying the success off FB in the gaming space that they're blind to nuances of their community.

  • subedii #6 2 years ago

    Like everyone else here says, it's pretty freaking obvious. And it doesn't even tie into the "maintaining the fantasy aspect" that they're pinning it on now.

    Aside from the immediate privacy concerns, most gamers you ever encounter online are pretty much going to be complete jerks. Heck, something like XBL is a freaking sanctum of slurs of varying shades, styles and spellings.

    If you want to game, the last thing you want is to get racist or other tirades directed at, you just want to play. But that's going to happen because if Blizzard tells everyone your name, then they've already got most or all of the following criteria:

    - Gender
    - Nationality
    - Race
    - Religion

    And THEN you end up with crap like this:

    <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJOCRZTshlw
    ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJOCRZTshlw
    </a>

    Some people would rather just avoid having to put up with that kind of crap all the time.
    Edited by subedii at 21/10/10 @ 11:00

  • butler` #7 2 years ago

    most gamers you ever encounter online are pretty much going to be complete jerks

    fuck subedii, you have a pretty jaded view of things :p

    i know it's easy to say "it's just a vocal minority", but it's also true as far as I'm concerned from 12+ years of online gaming.

  • paketep #8 2 years ago

    Fuck you, Canessa, and fuck B.Net. The hell you were surprised, you thought you maby had the muscle to force this and you tried.

    StarCraft 2 without LAN and with forced B.Net and Facebook shit is no starcraft, 9/10 from Eurogamer or not. BTW, if it didn't have Blizzard in it, you'd have gotten a 6/10 from EG. It's a pretty but mediocre, me too, RTS.

  • Snixtor #9 2 years ago

    Did they also stop to consider that maybe the Facebook demographic does not overlap so much with the Starcraft demographic?

    Sure some people love to publish 20 updates a day about their progress in some Facebook game, but are they the same people that want to play Starcraft?

  • Dynamize #10 2 years ago

    Yes, it's entirely surprising and a learning experience for you Blizzard, realising that it ties into the suspension of reality and all sorts of interesting and insightful sociological and psychological things.

    It's not that Legal pointed out that the moment something goes wrong like an assault, harassment or someone losing their job, you'll be knee-deep in litigation; nor is it anything to do with potential breaching of Data Protection Acts.
    It's also nothing to do with one of your staff having private contact details posted on your forums within hours of saying "it's perfectly safe, look, here's my real name".

  • Stratix #11 2 years ago

    +10 for the use of the word "kafuffle".

    My privicy settings are quite high on Facebook, and I generally keep it quite seperate from my gaming habit. I'd rather not have people from WoW being able to message me on it.

  • el_vicio #12 2 years ago

    Imagine a crazy tard on Bnet who can't take it that he lost, looks up your name, comes to your house and kills you, yelling 'for the swarm' or some bullshit.
    No no, don't want that.

  • IronCladChicken #13 2 years ago

    standard Blizzard arrogance?
    I havn't noticed Blizzard being particuarly arrogant?

    They had an idea - people didn't like it - so they stopped.
    Seems fair to me?

  • butler` #14 2 years ago

    Saying you're surprised when you've blatently made a mistake, rather than just apologising is, in one way or another, arrogant.
    Edited by butler` at 21/10/10 @ 19:00

  • Rack #15 2 years ago

    I really hope this guy is lying, because the implications of him not realising that different people react differently to different situations are pretty much a death sentence to Blizzard.

  • Trikk #16 2 years ago

    Really don't understand why they were shocked to discover this.

    Because games are literally their lives. They might as well use their real names in games and on forums because everyone knows that information anyway. They have huge networks of people to play with that all know who they are and where they work.

    For most gamers, it's the complete opposite. Nobody on the server you play on knows who you are in real life.

  • Felwyn #17 2 years ago

    when will people stop being ashamed of playing games and accept who they are instead of hiding it?