The publisher of World Of Warcraft and Starcraft, Blizzard, announced earlier this week that battle.net members must use their real names to post on their forums. There official reason for the rule was so players can find each other easily and hang out with each other in real life.
I’m assuming they tried to have the new rule so there’ll be less flaming and more thought out posts on their forum. They probably thought it would create a better gaming environment. Whatever the reason maybe, battle.net members cried foul with the new rule, they didnt’ want to post their personal info on a game forum.
Today, CEO Mike Morhaime retracted the rule stating:
“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. ”
He also discussed the real name situation.
“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.”
Well the above statement would be true if WOW players didn’t get married because of anonymity. I’m sure most of the people that met through WOW were strangers beforehand and didn’t know each other’s real names.
At the end of the statement Morhaime added that it’s the community that matters the most:
“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, and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games.”
So there you have it folks, gamers got pissed and a publisher retracted its new rule. Blizzard, I commend you for listening to your fans!
Loading ...