Blizzard (publisher of World of Warcraft) has caused a huge uproar within their community by announcing that users will need to start using the Real ID system for posts on their forums. This means they will have to use their real-life first and last name. The idea behind this move (in Blizzard’s words) is to get rid of flame wars, trolling and other unpleasantness in the forums (see the original announcement here, followed by one of the longest comment threads in history). Some (mostly outside the WoW community) have welcomed the change and at first glance it seems to be in line with a move away from pseudonyms that I posted about earlier. But there is a fundamental difference, that Randy Farmer is quick to point out: World of Warcraft is a game! A game which very much extends to these forums. As Randy puts it: people will get pissed at each other for stolen kills, breaking alliances, and the price of components – and they want to – no, they need to – have a safe place to express this, to play.
This controversy is also shedding some light upon a fundamental difference between WoW and Facebook games like Farmville, as pointed out by Timothy Burke on Terra Nova: the latter are seen as compatible with productive work and with mainstream sociality, so we don’t mind having our real-life identities connected to them.
It will be interesting to see if Blizzard will go through with this, but at least we can thank them for having sparked a fascinating debate.
