Blizzard rocked the on-line gaming world with the announcement that their forums will no longer allow users to “Hide” behind gamer-ids or pseudonyms but their posts will be tagged with their REAL NAMES! This idea was subsequently withdrawn but the initial announcement was pretty widely reported, and had even made the BBC news web site, but I’ve got to be honest my initial reaction was a bit… Meh.
You see I don’t have a problem with being known as a gamer, I also don’t have a problem with having my opinions known – you may have gathered this! So the idea that John Brown; technologist, director and hosting industry expert is also a gamer simply adds some ‘flavour’ to me in my opinion.
You may also be aware of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Dickwad Theory:
John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory
The notion that normal, sane people turn into total A-holes when given a forum to vent themselves anonymously seems very strange, but we see it over and over and over again in forums all across the web.
It’s not just games either, take a look at any discussion where Apple / Microsoft / Google are proposed in a certain way. There’ll be an immediate flame war with “fanboys”, “victims”, “F-tard” and many, many other epithets will be thrown around with little or no regard for the individuals at the other end. I’m happy to put forward an opinion backed up with evidence and let it stand or fall, but some forum posters are simply… well lets just say less well rounded!
Who are you?
HOWEVER! I also know that protecting one’s out-of-work activities from scrutiny is also important. Reputations still matter in some business circles and there are those – shocking I know – who believe that gaming is trivial, superficial and undertaken by those with some kind of social deficiency. While I choose not to pander to those narrow minded folks, I do understand those who have a need to do so. I do work for an individual who is a CEO of a US business. His business does work for the US Federal government across various agencies and he is PARANOID about his public reputation, so much so that he tore down a Facebook account because people were making associations with his out-of-work activities (all perfectly decent) which he wasn’t comfortable that his contacts would be comfortable with.
Blizzard were seeking to make a point which is that if you use your “Real ID” then you are less likely to behave like an arse and if you do then it’s because you’re happy with that tag. They want to dowse down the flame wars, the slagging matches and the profanity which runs rife throughout forums and I’m sure that they’d also like to spend a little less time moderating through the layers of crap too. I saw an in-game comment, in WoW, which said “Real names?? Then I’m out of the forums for good.” I couldn’t understand this, but as the conversations went on I did get that people like to keep work and private lives totally separate, I’m not so discriminatory in that I tend to be ‘working’ all of the time anyway – I have two phones but that’s purely for financial reasons.
Are Blizzard ultimately – albeit temporarily set back – right? Are the “I need a pseudonym” crowd right? My gut is telling me the answer is simply yes. They both are.
People generally need to take responsibility for what they say and do – either IRL or online – and making them use their real name helps to promote that. But people also have the right to pursue their leisure activities without those being brought to account in assessments of professional ability or worth.
It’ll be interesting to see what ultimately happens in this area and how many other official forums will now attempt to follow Blizzard’s suit.
As a final note, a quote following a Blizzard employee’s revealing of his name, remember if you put information out there, people WILL find it:
“Within five minutes, users had got hold of his telephone number, home address, photographs of him and a ton of other information”
Gaming News 24/7
July 17th, 2010 at 11:04 am
To be fair to them, they have now said that they won’t be using real names on the forums.
July 19th, 2010 at 4:32 am
Just force people to post with their highest level character and it will have the same effect.