[Air-L] Blizzard Forums will soon display real name

Arun Menon arun.kid86 at gmail.com
Wed Jul 7 10:14:50 PDT 2010


I was particularly concerned about the gameplay possibilities than just the
forum and social interactions. Imagine tracking "friends" on starcraft and
being able to call them back to WoW for help - teamplay will be greatly
affected. With cross-game, cross-avatar, cross-server communication
possibilities the RealID move by Blizzard seems to change how social
interactions are structured, how social formations are affected, on the
other hand, would be really exciting. Ofcourse the request has to be
accepted by the other player, without which tracking alt avatars across
servers/games wont be possible (or so they say!).

Have not seen much studies on real name usage on WoW, but i am pretty sure
personal and private data would be available with blizzard particularly on
credit card usages. Most games have data retention policies exceeding 6
months (am not certain about blizzard).

If you do find studies, or any other material, please do forward them.

Best,

Arun Menon

@arunuik <http://twitter.com/arunuik>


On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 9:37 PM, Alex Leavitt <alexleavitt at gmail.com> wrote:

> >From what I understand, users have a username and a "real name" linked to
> their accounts. The real name, though, does not have to be the same name
> linked to the credit card used (eg., a parent uses a card for their child,
> who inputs their own "real name"). But couldn't the real name just be a
> faked name? Are there statistics to how many people actually put their real
> name?
>
> Alex
>
> ---
>
> Alexander Leavitt
> Researcher
> Convergence Culture Consortium (Comparative Media Studies, MIT)
> Microsoft New England Research & Development
> http://doalchemy.org
> Twitter: @alexleavitt
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:59 AM, live <human.factor.one at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > For those who are researching interactions within gaming environment, or
> > even just internet social anonymity or gender anonymity, this is a big
> deal.
> >
> http://kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-forums-will-soon-display-your-real-name
> >
> > Privacy issues arise, as do gender interaction issues. Would you let in a
> > female player in to your guild in WoW? What if they were a 'female'
> playing
> > with a male avatar?
> > What about a 'male' name playing with a female avatar? These games are
> > built on guilds and social formations - what impact might this new change
> > have?
> >
> > I must curtail my thoughts and come back later to explore this, but I
> > thought I'd share the Kotaku post.
> >
> >
> > -SharonG
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
> >
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>



More information about the Air-L mailing list