A belated kudos to Blizzard for once again showing that they care about their customers and canning the mandatory real ID system. For those not familiar with Blizzard or this system...
Blizzard has a long track record of successful games. Typically the games stand up on their own as single player games however Blizzards's long term success has grown from their integration of online play through their Battlenet network. Players sign onto the network and group together or play against each other in games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo and their various iterations, and of course the MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft. With the release of Starcraft 2, Blizzard announced that they would revamp the battlenet system. Amongst other things they proposed to mandate a real ID system wherein everyone who played used their real name associated with their account for forums and in-game chat and friend lists.
There are some good reasons for this system. Forums in particular have long been plagued by what has come to be known as 'trolling.' Where due to their anonymity players could say whatever they like regardless of how belligerent and offensive it might be. The theory is that players would be more accountable as their reputation would follow them regardless of what alias they use because it would all be linked to their account. Additionally it would increase the social networking aspects of the game as players would only need to add friend's accounts, and they could see them regardless of which Blizzard game they are playing or which character. Presumably this would also make proposed facebook integration easier, allowing for players to search for facebook friends that also have accounts.
Blizzard received an outcry from users about the Real ID system and they ended up axing the mandatory system, although keeping the option so you can chose on a case by case basis who you want to have access to your real ID. Surprisingly I stumbled on an article recently which suggests that there aren't any compelling reasons to not mandate Real ID which you can reference here: http://www.bitmob.com/articles/making-virtual-communities-real
There were two important things that Mr. Scimeca glossed over. The first he mentions briefly at the beginning of his article is that role-playing (getting into character and acting and speaking as if you were that character.) is non-existent, and that as a result we don't have to worry about Real ID interfering with the illusion. He is quite wrong. While role-players are certainly a minority in World of Warcraft they are still present and a significant population. This can be attributed to the fact that Blizzard itself supports role-playing (here on out RP.) Blizzard has several servers identified for players that want to RP. I currently play on one of those servers, they add many items and events that have no in-game benefit but are instead better used for pretending, dressing-up or story-telling, things that are done in RP. Real ID would injure that aspect of the game. Players sometimes play multiple characters and wish to leave behind the friends and interactions of one character in favor of another, they can't take pride in the distinction of two characters if all the players know that the two characters are in fact played by the same person. RP adds an important flavor to the game and while a small population many RPers are dedicated players who should be considered when making development decisions (the RP guild I am a part of celebrated their 5 year anniversary this year.)
On a similar note but one that is more generally relevant, some players don't want people to know when they are online. If they want a quiet night of play they may log on to a different server. They may have strained relations with an in game friend they want to escape from on a different character. That becomes impossible if your friends always know when you are online.
While eliminating the harassment of forum trollers and chat spammers, it would be done at the cost of some players comfort and potentially their security. Blizzard has made Real ID available providing a system that can add convenience and networking... For those that want it.
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