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RealID on forums - a serious threat to minors
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Here's the thing
Anyone between the ages of 13 and 17 can create an account and name themselves as the account holder WITH PARENTAL CONSENT. Parental consent basically amounts to checking a box that says "yes my parents are cool with this." Why can Blizzard allow this? Because minors can legally sign contracts at the age of 13, provided they have parental consent.
But why is this important? Because WoW is aimed at minors. No, it's not designed for "little kids" as many seem to think, but the target demographic is certainly in the 13-21+ range. Now Blizzard is going to require said minors to make their personal, private information publicly available IF they want to communicate via the official forums.
This
Is
Not
Legal
You can debate whether or not minors can or cant "handle" the internet until your face turns blue for all I care. Blizzard is posting private information about minors in a public area of the internet. Now you might think that Blizzard is protected by the EULA, but you'd be wrong. The EULA will not hold up in court because a contract is not an absolution of responsibility. This is an issue of sheer legality and it's putting children in potentially serious danger.
Heh, yeah, it's a bit of a double edged sword if you think it through, eh? And there are a lot of people showing already on these forumthreads alone that they're not thinking it through.
Because Blizzard basically is saying:
if you want to post on our forums you'll have to release some of your personal information that from this time onwards will get linked to your posts.
And you can't have one without the other: if Blizzard and other people admit that this measure will have consequences for trolls, then that means that it will also have consequences for others.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'm more concerned about id theft and it gives the account hackers one more clue to answering questions over the phone correctly to reset password, remove authenticators, etc. Social engineering is the new hacker black.
This is only partially true. Even if this measure would spread throughout the internet - which can be a bad thing, ever heard of 'Big Brother is watching you'? - but even then, there would be a form of anonymity. Someone with malicious intent doesn't have to announce his identity when he's gathering all the personal information you spread around about yourself on the internet: he can do it, and find it out up to your home address and phone number. And he can do find everything he wants to know about your children or your little sister without in the slightest sense having to compromise his anonymity.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Big brother doesn't scare me personally, only the idea that regulating internet communications in this way leads to eventual censorship and having to run through loads of red tape to do anything. Just a pain in the ass in exchange for a little more safety. Same arguments were brought up when the FDA started putting their hands into what you can and can't sell as food to other people. Only in this case, communication and information gathering.
If there was a way for criminals to have thier information hang around their neck through dropping the dynamically changing IP address crap, then they way they do steal info leaves traces right back to them for prosecution. A lot of internet scams exist because there IS NO prosecuting it... but there would be if a bureau was involved. I'm not much for bureaucracy, but in some cases it's extremely useful.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
doesn't take much more then a name for a psycho to hunt someone down
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7771505/Video-game-fanatic-hunts-down-and-stabs-rival-player-who-killed-character-online.html
This one has to go down as one of the worst ideas ever in the MMO industry, right next to SWG NGE. There must be some real, full on idiot making the desicions at Blizzard at the moment. This is such a rediculusly bad idea there are no words to describe it.
After all the people getting "hacked" (and even a few real-life murders over gaming) etc and after years of being tought never to give people your details on the internet Blizzard go and do something like this.
It's even easier to track down an old teacher, co-worker or classmate and do the same thing. All it takes is a couple phone calls, and you don't see them shutting off that line of information because of the inherant risks - do you?
They might as well stop selling dust-off cleaner because of the minority that likes to inhale it.
Lol, above linked is about Counterstrike too... what could you possibly lose in a match that's worth stabbing someone over? That guy would have done the same thing over his morning coffee. I say ban coffee justi n case.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
What about the age ol' 'Disgruntled Worker'? Perhaps we should ban work.. Oh wait, I kinda like that idea.. OK let's ban firing, and layoffs in general.
It's the classic neighborhood nazi syndrome. Just because one quack might use something like this to harm another person, lets make sure we have enough rules in place to protect the innocent people who are obviously too stupid to protect themselves.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
This.
The real criminals or persons with malicious intent will find their ways to circumvent this measure - heck, they don't even need to post - , it's the honest people that are being made more vulnerable because of this measure.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Pretty much sums up my thoughts. But ive always been a little suspicious of just how good security is in this game Oh well, I dont play the game anyway.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Right. I bet you send your kids to public school, right? Guess what? How much safer are they there then playing a game on the internet?
Kids are registered with the government via social security. Number and everything at like infancy. So, using a real name is dangerous how?
In real life you also warn your kids to be wary with strangers, and you're watchful when adult strangers hang out with your kids or show an interest in them. Why would that suddenly be different with strangers on the internet, especially since you often know far less about these ones?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I just cancelled my Wow account over the realid stuff about the forums.
RELAX!@!! BREATHE!!!
Parental controls can be set to not allow posting also the name on the account SHOULD be the name of the account holder (parent) not "little timmy". A parent needs to take responsibilty for teir children, blizzard provide tools to help them if they do not use them then so be it.
Granted, parents need to be parents and most of them in the past few generations are abyssmal failures. You won't get many arguments there. Where you will find arguments are people (these companies are made of people, never forget that) choosing to enact morally questionable policies and hoist all of the responsibility on another party. This is not a matter of parents doing their job, they should be doing it anyway: this is a matter of an option existing that should not exist. WoW is already a juicy target for hackers and when RealID goes up it will be an even juicier one.
That said, in respect to minor, expresso could not be more right here. Parents need to actually do their jobs as parents, demonstrate that they have a pair, and take some control. If a given child isn't mature enough to handle the game they shouldn't play and if they don't meet the minimum age to play the game (as given by the ESRB) the parents should not compain and neither should the children. Community is everyone's responsibility: the company, the players and the people who determine whether or not their children should be players. That last group is called parents and if they weren't afraid to take charge of their child's upbringing -and weren't so eager to go overboard with controling them- things would be a lot easier....but RealID would still be a huge problem.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Another problem:
Mom/Dad pays for the account and puts their name on it. You (not you!) post something pretty damn obscene on the forums and their name is attached to it. Mom/Dad works for a company that actually googles their employees. Mom/Dad's name comes up attached to that post, even though you did it. Mom/Dad gets fired and the company doesn't want to hear that it was actually you. You got Mom/Dad fired because (1) they're stupid and (2) you're stupid.
This is something that is rather likely to happen if people go the way of using their information as parents instead of their child's who is actually playing the game. The other solution is to use fake information but, then, if you need to actually interact with support you may face a perma-ban. Ultimately, there is no easy solution and when it comes to minors the issue is even more hairy. SImply put, World of Warcraft has become an environment that parents cannot afford to have their children be a part of, not because of crass language or anything like that but because of legitimate real life implications of RealID. Somehow I think we're only scratching the surface here and Blizzard will still go through with it.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
I haven't read all comments because I'm a slacker but I still have to state that as a mother of 3 gaming nerds i share the opinion and concern of the OP on this one.
I have always played together with my kids and for some reason many of my friends could never understand why, they think it's ok to spend 90% of your free time driving kids to football-practice and swimming lessons but when I tell them I actually share my kids interest in games and keep an eye on my kids online they look at me like I suddenly grew a third arm.
I agree with the statement that it is the parents responsibility _but_ most people my age doesn't understand that you can't let go of that responsibility when the kids land their lasy bums infront of anything related to internet, and there is the problem with real ID.
This could cost Blizzard millions if the Real ID farce causes enough subscription terminations. If it does, some decision makers will soon be collecting their kiss off payments (i.e. boot up the backside).
I had a guild member vanish from game for months. We later find out he was sent to prison for child molesting.
NO I would not want my kids info posted on world wide public forums.
Warcraft doing this is a terrible idea.. Total invasion of privacy.
Luckily I have and never will play WoW
REFUSE this, speak up with your wallets, and they will get rid of it. Send emails, call, tell others to do the same. Be persistent.
Evile, you have a point, people need to speak up and vote with their wallets. Yet you don't take it far enough in view of Blizzard's behaviour: Facebook, RealID optional in freinds lists and now mandatory to post on forums. The fact that Blizzard is considering implementing it is enough to simply stop playing their games, period. It's bad policy created by rather bad people. After all, companies don't create these polices but people and people have to be pretty damn morally ambiguous to think that this is ok.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Seems like there's another side to the coin. The annoying trolls are usually kids and when this gets implemented parents will be vary and will hopefully tell their devil-children not to post any more.
Eleanor Rigby.
I guess I might as well go ahead and tell all you guys I'm Mr T. First name is Mister, last name is T.
RELAX!@!! BREATHE!!!
Guys you fail to see the game at play...
If blizzard wants us to be able to keep a friendlist multiserver and multiprogram thats all good and really interesting!
But using the real name initially gave me suspicions of the reason why.
The comming to think about - since it made absolutelly no sense why i should use my own real name to the world of internet, instead of a standart nickanme, standart practises of advertising came to my mind.
While they cant officially publish our names to 3rd party companies inorder to use em in their own debious ways, they can drop an apple to us and let us do it ourselfs.
Advertising, scamming, social behaviour and endeavours , everything, EVERYTHING your life is will progressivelly unwind to the internet through Blizzard's ID.
Think deep and you will see what am talking.
Also while many of you minors got progressive dads that will sit down and play wow , browse the wow forums and see the feature of the game in deep, most parents will miss this thing out, effectivelly rendering their "guardian" ability ineffective.
http://www.youtube.com/user/chopgr?feature=mhee
"The Heavens burned, the stars
cried out
And under the ashes of infinity,
Hope, scarred and bleeding,
breathed its last."
I just want to play a game not have my name splashed about all over the web, simple as. Screw WoW.