Official Blizzard Quote:
Hello everyone,
I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.c...ut/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.
While real names will once more be divulged to the public only by the choice of players, Morhaime noted that Blizzard is still committed to finding new ways of improving the Internet experience of their users, so keep your eyes peeled for new developments as Battle.net "2.0" and the Battle.net forums continue to evolve.
I was fully expecting them to go through with Real ID, despite the outcry, but fuck, they proved me wrong :D.
unlike what all of us heroes do with Deckard Cain... Blizzard usually listens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evKzqGf2BFk
While I love how RealID works, I am glad that they decided against using actual names.
I look forward to the day when you can have a three way chat, one person fighting Diablo, one person fighting the Sarah Kerrigan, and one person fighting Deathwing. <3
He's...not serious, is he? If so, that's the most pathetic and disgusting thing I've ever seen, next to that video where that kid cancels his brother's WoW account or whatever.
He did get a youtube award for most viewed comedian this week, so I take it he isn't serious.
that or something else..
i came across a theory that seems quite interesting (even if its not too realistic).
in most cases, the companies (see Ubisoft) dont listen to their fans and proceed to controversial steps to "protect themselves" (?!) and their fans making the fans furious in the process.
anyway, that mentioned, let's look at what happened here:
1. Blizzard announced they're implementing a very (very) controversial way to control the forum and to make battle.net more social.
2. the fans went nuts about it, complained alot, petitioned and whatever else.
3. Blizzard very quickly (maybe "too" quickly? :P) decided to take their decision back and use the usernames + unique identifiers for the forum instead.
result? in the eyes of the majority of the people (those that are and those that arent yet customers) they look like the company that pays closest attention to the demands of the community -and takes steps in the right direction, making them look better in the eyes of the majority of the players. because unlike Ubisoft (with their incredibly stupid launcher) and EA (with their incredibly stupid sequel policies) they did what the fans demanded.
not saying it is like that, but marketing wise it would work, wouldnt it?
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You know thats called getting played, right?
Even the topic in the main D3 forum here was closed. Wow, talk about working as intended. They just throw a stupid idea about forum names, one so ridiculously stupid that everyone whined about it, and obviously remind us of RealID in the process. Oh, and then after all the outrage, "hey, we're not doing the forum name part after all".
Nothing changed. Some people even disliked RealID before and liked it after, I'm sure. Maybe thats not really what happened, but it bloody looks like it to me. At least, I've never seen something that makes me doubt them so much.
But hey, apparently I'm some paranoiac guy who thinks every fishy move is some sort of attempt at controversy. But big company with power fool people. And big company don't pull off that kind of stuff for nothing.
--
So now, suddenly, people thanks, praise, and forget. Sorry if I don't get on my knees saying thank you like the rest.
anyway, about that "conspiracy theory" its probably just something the blizzard "haters" thought of. but it would be possible. publicity is publicity, positive or not. and since they changed the "bad thing they were gonna do" into the thing most accepted, it looks good for them. for listening and all, you know.
good to see you again, Siaynoq btw! reminding me of the diablo3.com days
lol he is serious, its preety funny and pathetic, it makes me laugh because he reminds me of newman xD
yes it does work, but we also must aggree that blizzard is probably the best company when it comes to taking opinions into consideration
Example: In Sweden (I don't know about the rest of the world, but this is our situation) there are a lot of news sites where you can comment on articles online. Now EVERY TIME there's a murder, rape, shooting, assault or anything like, there's hundreds of comments about how this was done by some muslim who hates swedes and should be sent back to wherever he came from. And then another hundred commenters come in and start to flame the racists, and the entire conversation degrades into a war. Every time this happens.
To solve this, newspapers have considered the option of having people display their real names when posting. Not all, but some. This has caused some notice, but no one's really taken it that seriously. It hasn't caused an uproar.
Obviously then there's some form of precedence here. Whether Blizzard knows of it or not I can't tell, but they're not the first to think of it. Why then did this cause such a huge outrage for Blizzard?
The key I believe lies in the relationship that most Blizzard gamers, particularly the customer segment that uses the forums, have to their Blizzard games. B.net isn't a news site where you occasionally post anonymously to bash immigrants, and just stop once you're no longer anonymous. The B.net forums is an integral part of the gaming lives of many people, something they just can't trade for another service if they no longer like it. Thus the only option was to resist this change once it was made public, which a lot of people evidently did. This is one of the miscalculations I believe Blizzard did here.
And it's always easier to be smart in hindsight.