19 thoughts on “From the Bad Moves Dept.”

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  3. Well since 1) it is inevitable and 2) I don’t play WoW (and SC2 is unlikely since SC1 still exists if I feel like it) I, for one, eagerly await the magnificent online culture-shaping fallout that will be very very fascinating from a scientific point of view.

    1. Yes, this will be very interesting to see take shape. I’m thinking “train wreck” fascinating rather than “new life and new civilizations” fascinating, but hey, forensics are interesting, too.

      1. I’m going to assume this was in the works for quite a while, and there were a lot of voices inside Blizzard that told management this was a Terrible Move(tm), but they were summarily ignored anyway.

        I for one would love to hear confirmation of this from any Blizzard peeps. Shoot me an e-mail, I won’t post anything up here. Just personal curiosity.

  5. And here’s why.
    http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?100505

    We expected that.

    Blizzard Entertainment’s next-generation
    online gaming platform will integrate with Facebook to enhance social
    gaming experience

    IRVINE, Calif. – May 5, 2010 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
    announced today that its Battle.net® gaming service will
    integrate with
    Facebook®, linking the
    world’s premier online gaming platform with the world’s most popular
    social platform. The first step in the integration will enable StarCraft® II: Wings of
    Libertyâ„¢ players to quickly add Blizzard gamers who are
    friends on Facebook to their Battle.net friend lists, facilitating their
    social gaming experience on the service.

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  7. While it’s certainly a blow to privacy, I’m not seeing the huge world-shattering issue here that a lot of MMO sites and blogs seem to see.

    The idea of personal accountability online has been a long time coming, and the largest MMO in existence is a great place to start. I predict trolling will drop dramatically when people have be responsible for their posts instead of cowering behind anonymity. Further, I predict the community being much more civil to each other – you’re far less likely to be a jackass if you have to own up to it.

    1. I don’t doubt that trolling and general noise will decrease (by how much, I have no idea). The problem is this being one of the worst ways to try and achieve that.

      For pure purposes of in-forum accountability, a screen name or a nick is exactly the same as a real name; objectionable posts under a screen name can be monitored and/or removed, screen names/accounts can be banned. There is no functionality gain in moving from nicks to real names. There’s nothing you can do as a forum admin or moderator to a real name that you couldn’t do to a screen name.

      This is not ‘a tool’ to curb asshattery. They’ve always had all the tools they needed from day one, had they not been lax in their usage, not been understaffed, however you wanna call it. This is not necessary.

      This is Blizzard essentially saying “We can’t be arsed to hire the amount of community moderators needed for a community this big. We can afford it, we just can’t be arsed. There’s a difference. So, since for 5+ years we basically let you roam mostly unchecked and this behavior is ingrained, we’re just going to require you to toss your privacy away and trust that social pressure does its job in keeping you in check. Oh, and we’re also adding that Facebook integration that nobody really asked for. Monetize, bitch.”

      1. Incidentally, I get a kick out of this quote from the hastily-made protest site http://realidiots.net/:

        “Pseudonyms are as synonymous with the Internet as forum trolls and rick rolls.”

        Let’s see, the latter examples are annoying and diminish the value of the Internet. Is that what pseudonyms have in common with them?

    2. Yep, no-one has ever harassed or stalked anyone (or worse) in real life, because they had to use their real name to do it…

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