RealID System - Good Or Bad?

[Myst]

Well for those that don't know, its basically using your real name/identity on blizzards new games like WoW and SC2 (http://us.battle.net/realid/).  And it has created some heated debate on why the fuck they are pushing this so much. 
So as a act of faith, a blizzard employee himself went out and gave his Real ID out as a effort to say, see it's all ok.   But that Obviously backfired lol: Poor Micah-

Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature http://eu.battle.net/realid/, a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we're making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we're adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.

So Blizzard are now making it so instead of showing your character on those forums, it'll instead show your real name with the option of attaching your char name too it (no option of not showing your real name).

Now I think it's fairly safe to say that this is perhaps the dumbest idea that anyone has ever had ever.

To alleviate people's concerns, Blizzard employee Bashiok decided to say his real name on the forums, his real name is Micah Whipple

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374892&sid=1&pageNo=1 Post #16

So say hi to Micah Whipple

Address:
473 Avenue B
Lakeport, CA 95453-6032

Phone Number:
(707) 263-0190

Age:
28

Family:
Kimberly K Whipple, age: 54
Jason Stephen Whipple, age 34

It looks like he's staying in the same house as his mother =[

http://www.whitepages.com/search/FindPerson?firstname=Micah&name=Whipple&where=Lakeport%2C+CAhttp://www.peoplelookup.com/search-summary-out.php?trackit=&ReportType=1&qf=Micah&qmi=&qn=Whipple&qs=CA&searchform=name&focusfirst=1

Oh btw, here is his facebook too:

http://www.facebook.com/micah.whipple

Music
Honeypie, Closed Heart Surgery, The Sound Of Animals Fighting, White Stripes, Tool Band,Radiohead, Disorient Express, The Mars Volta, The Unhandled Exceptions, As Tall As Lions, The Dear Hunter

Movies

*Big Trouble in Little China*, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Disney Pixar[/q]
Television
The Daily Show, Samurai Champloo, Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job!, Freaks and Geeks,30 Rock, Human Giant

I think we can all see what a great idea this is going to be.

As you can see from the above link, all his info was posted across the web, facebook, emails, phone numbers, pictures, addresses. 


Of course others see no problem with this as depicted in this cartoon.

http://www.cad-comic.com/comics/c0a129271278475206.jpg


Obviously that cartoonist doesn't know much about the internet world and how much users can be affected if they were targeted.  And who's to say some1 won't just exploit this RealID system as a means of further criminal activity that can all spawn from the RealID system. 


To me the risks outweigh the benefits, and if Blizzard continues this stupid marketing scheme of social gamer network it will pose more problems in the future.  Blizzard is acting like BP here in where BP was putting costs ahead of safety.  As shown by the Micah example of how out of hand this RealID thing can get, hopefully Blizzard realizes it and makes changes. 
Most likely they'll just add into their ToS or User Agreement that they are not liable for what happens becuase of the RealID, blah blah blah.


Who knows....thoughts?

[Freundschaft]

It seems like trolling is finally going IRL.   

[Freundschaft]

btw,


blizzard took back the "you have to post with your real name" bullshit


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1