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

Jessica L. Beyer jlbeyer at u.washington.edu
Wed Jul 7 09:50:14 PDT 2010


One of the places I study is WoW (currently a chapter in my dissertation). 
I spent hours yesterday watching, and trying to record, the storm over 
this unfold across websites.  I agree, it raises a multitude of questions 
about the privacy of the users/players.

Most fascinating to me is the outrage of the players to the change. 
There is a still ongoing outpouring of fury that has only somewhat slowed 
in which people are articulating their beliefs about their privacy and 
anonymity online, including views about the purpose of video games in 
their lives--many of which include some of the gender interaction 
questions raised here:

"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?"

Also, Alex, in response to your question:

"But couldn't the real name just be a faked name? Are there statistics to 
how many people actually put their real name?"

I don't think anyone knows this--Blizzard is extremely proprietary with 
their data.  But, I can tell you from my own observation that it appears 
that there is a minority who are responding saying that they didn't use 
their legal names when they signed up for their accounts.  However, the 
majority seem to be indicating that they did.  And, Blizzard's policy 
makes it very hard to impossible to change the name on the account 
(something transgendered people are pointing out).  People are also 
expressing concern over accounts that children or spouses play on that 
have one name attached to them--making the account holder responsible for 
any post on the forums.  I'm sure that Blizzard considers them responsible 
anyway as the account holder, but it says something interesting about how 
people see and identify themselves in relation to their toons. Also, it's 
important to note that the forums are used by a tiny minority of total 
players--but the streams of people coming onto websites to express 
displeasure is far greater numbers than I've observed while doing 
research.  This is just a rough estimation based on what I read as I was 
frantically trying to record everything.

Also interesting is the case of the Blizzard Community Manager who, to 
calm people's fears, posted his own legal name on the forums 
yesterday--and who then had a lot of his personal information dug up and 
posted.

And, that the North American realm groups (also includes Oceania and S. 
America) and the Europe realms seem to be responding similarly to the 
change.

Anyway, I agree that this is extremely exciting. And, anyone interested in 
privacy and anonymity online might check it out.  Wow.com (formerly WoW 
Insider) has been covering it if people are looking for an overview.  I'm 
going to be continuing to try to record it for my research as well and 
would be happy to share what I find.

Best,
Jessica


--------------------------------------
Jessica L. Beyer
Doctoral Candidate
University of Washington
Department of Political Science
http://students.washington.edu/jlbeyer
--------------------------------------

On Wed, 7 Jul 2010, Alex Leavitt 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
>>
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