Blizzard had a brilliant idea to prevent bad behavior on the internet. The idea lasted exactly 3 days – then they quickly backtracked.
On the internet, many behave not quite as nicely as one would like. In the digital world, tempers can flare up quickly, leading to insults and seemingly trivial matters resulting in conflicts filled with name-calling.
Blizzard did not want that in the forums of Diablo, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft 14 years ago – and had a “great” idea: All players should only post under their real names.
How did Blizzard intend to combat toxicity? Blizzard’s solution back then was quite simple. To curb negative voices in the official forums, only players posting under their “Real ID”, meaning their actual names, would be allowed to participate in forum discussions. This meant that next to each post would no longer be “Bettevere” or “Shádówkiller” but “Hans-Dieter Müller” or “Miriam Postmeier”.
In short: Every post in the forum would have been labeled with the real name of the person.
This was the community’s reaction: The outcry at the time was – oh what a surprise – huge. Most people had no desire for their real names to be used in a gaming forum.
Additionally, gaming was seen differently in many countries back then. No one wanted their boss to simply Google their name and find out they were a passionate WoW player. This was particularly easy to understand in Germany – considering how long all computer games were regarded as “killer games” here.
Particularly tragic was the case of a Blizzard employee who wanted to calm the situation. In hindsight, a little naively, he wrote a long post and signed it with his real name to prove that the situation wasn’t that bad.
The reaction was swift. To prove how bad it could actually be, the community quickly not only found out where the employee worked but also where his family and children typically spent their time.
After just three days, Mike Morhaime, then the head of Blizzard, quickly backtracked. He apologized and stated that in the future they would refrain from enforcing Real ID among players.
Since then, there hasn’t been such a discussion. It is difficult to say in hindsight whether it would have helped the official forums maintain a more peaceful atmosphere. What is clear, however, is that many doxxing cases fortunately never happened. Just imagine if the slightly miffed opponent in Alterac found out your real name and knocked on your door because you had repeatedly thrown him off a cliff with mind control. That would have been very, very frightening.
Ideas from a YouTuber who delighted the community as Christmas Garrosh are considerably more positive.
