.
So... the storm has come and gone, and the most vocal set was apparently those opposed to the change. I'm honestly not sure whether it was the number of unique accounts who posted, or a silent exodus of people who simply canceled their accounts without posting anything on the forums.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I was appalled at the idea. I'm also not ashamed to admit that I posted such on the forums - one in the official thread, and one in a related thread. I am also not under the delusion that my posts made much of a difference. My posts were generally directed in Blizzard's direction, but they were also directed at other players who couldn't understand my concerns with the whole idea.
There seem to have been some people who had no freaking idea what the actual issue at hand was; I've read that some people apparently thought that you would be posting under your real name, and when you did so all of your characters would be made visible to anyone who looked. I read that people were confusing the in game version of RealID and the forum version. I have no idea how anyone who was able to pass reading comprehension tests (say, middle school level) could have confused the issue, but I suppose we all forget certain skills the moment we graduate from one school year to the next (and then into the adult world).
The people who didn't understand what was actually going on shouldn't detract from the thousands who thoroughly understood the situation and remained unhappy.
Theories on why Blizzard changed their minds vary. Player response is one possibility, another offered was due to legal concerns. Money is the most accepted reason being tossed around, as far as I know. But it causes me to wonder what monetary benefit they expected to gain from the change. Perhaps less of a server load due to the possibility of fewer trolls? Fewer forum mods to have to employ to keep said trolls and their threads neatly organized? Was someone going to give them a fat wad of cash if they went for this wild idea, just to see if the fan base would let the company get away with it? It just doesn't make sense to me.
I don't think the forums are causing Blizzard to hemorrhage money due to trolls and Community Managers, however, and I think the purchase rate for StarCraft II should more than make up for both development costs as well as forum support for several years to come, since they'll be releasing the game in three parts (which sound more like expansions, since you'll need to purchase them all at full price, separately and over time). I don't think SC2 will have a subscription model to continue with income, but because it's not an ever changing environment like WoW (it's not an MMORPG), it also won't need the constant staff to monitor and fix nearly as massive a world. It'll be a smaller universe needing less upkeep (I think... I could be wrong, and that's fine too).
Why they didn't propose going with the normal version of forums (where you have a nickname associated with your account, and whenever you post, it's under that nickname) to replace their current version (where you can post under the utterly anonymous, easily deletable "name" of any character you've created) baffles me. It would have caused significantly less uproar while accomplishing much the same thing, without causing thousands (though I wouldn't be surprised if it were a million or two) of fans to lose faith in their company.
That's what it came down to for me, and I was surprised both at my reaction, and at my own surprise. I've been down the path of losing faith in a gaming company (Sony, I'm looking at you) and eventually simply having no faith left in me for them. I was taking a look at the entertainment I've been getting out of WoW recently and realizing that, should they have stuck to their plan, I would probably have canceled my account because I would no longer be comfortable with the path that Blizzard appeared to be starting down.
Buying vanity pets and mounts was a small concern for me. It was a clearly defined, anonymous sort of addition to the game, and I find them entertaining and fun. They're cheaper than a date, each. I'm a collector. Had they shifted the options toward items that provided actual benefits within the game besides my personal warm fuzzy glow, I would have canceled my account, because I don't want to support a company where money will give anyone an advantage over others within their game.
Likewise, I don't want to play a game where the company starts spouting out personal information to people I haven't personally chosen to share it with.
I enjoy World of Warcraft. It's given me a number of fond memories. They've never, ever matched up to the awe and wonder of EverQuest, but they're also a lot less bittersweet. Where EverQuest was a rollercoaster of wonder and despair, World of Warcraft has been a pleasant, comfortable stroll through a beautiful park. WoW has been the stable, long term relationship, while EverQuest was the first relationship that taught me the greatness MMOs could provide, while also showing me the more painful dangers and disappointments to be wary of.
Part of why I play WoW is because I have nothing else that grabs my attention in quite the same way. Which isn't to say that I NEED to be playing an MMO at all times. I don't enjoy doing things alone. I enjoy doing things with at least one partner. Cooking, cleaning, working out, exploring, learning, playing card or board games, playing computer games - I want to do them with someone else. Currently, WoW is what I'm doing with someone else - several someone else's. If two specific people were not playing WoW, then I would no longer be playing WoW either. If either of those two people start doing something else that I enjoy more than WoW, I will drop WoW like a hot potato.
So that whole schpiel there is to explain why I frankly wouldn't have a big problem with just not playing WoW anymore, should they have stuck to their original plan. The game is not quite that riveting for me at this point in my life.
I'm glad they've changed their minds. And I'll view this change in plans with significant skepticism, because I still cannot fathom WHY they thought this change might be a good idea, and I will always wonder about the primary cause behind the reversal of the plan.
I'm also interested in what lessons the rest of the industry took from the whole event. Blizzard's a pretty damn big name, I think. Obviously within the MMO clique, but also within the isometric strategy and adventure game publishers. While not part of the console gangsta clique, I think they're pretty aware of Blizzard's potential.
Activision Blizzard looks slightly foolish (from my perspective) if they were serious with their original plans. It feels more like an Activision idea than a Blizzard idea. I appreciate that Blizzard gave us a heads up so far in advance of implementation (though for StarCraft II it's really only a few weeks prior to having gone live, and I feel for the people who are having to change whatever code was involved in this system). I also appreciate that they were willing to change the plan for the time being.
That they took a step back and changed their minds makes it look like a vocal minority "won." It makes it look like the idea was not only an idea that their players didn't like, it also seems like Blizzard realized it was a bad idea. Which seems like it would make similar plans from other companies harder to gain player approval for.
Finally, some people are celebrating as though the change is a
victory of some sort. I don't feel it was a war or a fight, it was too quickly begun, and too quickly ended to merit that sort of term. Perhaps it was more like a PR skirmish. It was odd, awkward, and an unexpected surprise.
I wonder in an offhand sort of way whether the people who insisted that using real names on the forums would count as "Blizzard Fanboys." Some of the people are so vocally ambivalent about the whole thing that the way they make a point to post how much they really don't care just smacks of hypocrisy to me. Probably because they all involve some sentence or paragraph aimed at the people who disliked the change and basically insulted them as paranoid or stupid ninnies, rather than simply sticking to saying, "I'd be alright with this, and this is why." Adding, "And you're stupid for these reasons," makes a neutral sort of opinion post a distinctly biased flavor. (This here is my bit, at the end of a clearly biased post, about the people biased against me - I don't feel hypocritical at all about it because I was honest about my bias from the beginning - so there).
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