Blizzard’s Battle.net Real ID
By Rob Jones | June 24, 2010
The US realms received patch 3.3.5 yesterday. One of the new features introduced with this patch is “Real ID” that is tied to Battle.net. What this means is that I would be able to add new friends by using their Battle.net user name. Because it is tied to Battle.net I would always be able to talk to my friend, regardless if he’s playing on a different character, faction, realm or even playing another Blizzard game that supports Real ID.
I was really looking forward to using this feature as it would allow me to keep in touch with my old Alliance friends. Another benefit I could see was meeting that particularly nice player in a random dungeon and keeping track of him through Real ID, as it would allow cross-realm chats!
Not even a day after the US release however, I’m starting to doubt whether I really want to use this feature. Read on!
My biggest gripe with what I’ve read about Real ID so far is that it would show my real name and that friends of my friends would be able to see that. What if my friend adds some shady characters to his friends list. They would be able to see my name as well. They might be people I have never met before. Why would I be okay with them knowing my name? For all I know they might get some funny ideas and decide to look up my personal information. Admittedly it is up for debate whether anyone who leaves personal details on the internet would have any right to be worried about this, but it’s still a valid concern. Already there’s a case of harassment due to this feature!
I suppose I should be thankful they aren’t able to see my Battle.net user name, which incidentally, is also my primary e-mail address.
Why is this tied to my real name? Why not an alias? I’m not worried about my XBOX Live profile containing all my personal information, as I know that strangers will only see my nickname.
Which brings me to the question: why is this friends of friends feature here in the first place? What’s the hype with these social networks? I’ve always had a healthy distrust of social network sites, such as Facebook, due to all the privacy issues. There’s no need to introduce this kind of environment in my gaming experience! Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy playing with my online buddies. I just don’t see the need for them to know more about me than my character’s name and class.
No, this is not antisocial behaviour. It’s a perfectly valid privacy concern. Anyone who has been active in online communities should be very well aware of how extremely immature people can be. I’ve met plenty of people with completely unacceptable behaviour, simply because they enjoy the relative anonymity of sitting behind their computer screens. I’m sure those kind of people wouldn’t even dare to look someone in the eye in a face-to-face encounter.
Where are the privacy options for Real ID? Friends of friends feature? Fine! At least allow me to use an alias instead of my personal information. Or better yet, give me an alias AND give me an option to disable friends of friends. Didn’t Facebook have a lot of legal issues due to these exact same privacy concerns only recently? Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before Real ID will face the same.
Shame really, it promised to be such a cool feature. Now I’ll have to wait and see what’s done about these concerns before I jump on the bandwagon!
