In a stunning (and you have to admit, somewhat amusing) turn of events, the ESRB, who received a number of complaints about the invasion of privacy that the Real ID program would result in, accidentally revealed their email adresses of those who complained. Jokes aside, this has been a major headache for Blizzard in what would otherwise have been a fantastic year. And now, Blizzard has posted on their forums the decision that they’ve made concerning the future of Real ID:
So we can all breathe easy. The service is now just that, offering the ability to access your real friends with greater ease, and opt in or out of features that you aren’t quite comfortable with. Hopefully, we can now get back to looking forward to the Cataclysm. Personally, I was in the camp of people who have been used to posting under my own name, and thought that demanding some responsibility from users who wished to post on Blizzard’s forums would only result in a more responsible level of discussion.
“Real ID offers an optional, convenient way for keeping in touch with real-world friends you know and trust, whether they’re playing World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, or one of our future games. The “Friends of Friends” and “Add Facebook Friends” features provide you with even more options to stay connected while you play by making it easier for real-life friends to locate each other on Battle.net. You can easily enable or disable these features through your Battle.net privacy settings by logging in to your Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net/."
But in the end, the most reasonable solution was probably the one arrived at. If you are comfortable with using your real name in Blizzard’s online community, then with that come some advantages. Not bonuses, just a better way of finding and connecting with friends. If you feel that this is too much for Blizzard to ask, and value your anonymity, then you still have it. With any luck, this entire issue has shown people that anonymity can be just as much of a privilege as it is a right, so hopefully we’ll all act accordingly.
And remember: Big Blizzard is watching.
Source: Blizzard
