You Don't Know Me And That's How I Like It

Recently, Bitmob put out an article postulating what would have happened if Blizzard had pounded RealID through above the objections of its customers.  I like the fact that they called shenanigans on the weak arguments most people were bandying about against RealID, but I dislike the fact that they didn't commit an equal amount of effort to the weaknesses of Blizzard's arguments for RealID.  Allow me to make the arguments that Bitmob neglected to mention.

First, there is the implied argument that Blizzard is doing a mitzvah to their customer base with RealID by exposing the trolls, ostensibly shaming them into good behavior by revealing their real names.  As the webcomic Ctl-Alt-Delete so eloquently demonstrated in this strip, revealing the identity of a troll is no deterrent against the behavior of a troll.  The flaw in Blizzard's theory is that trolls are capable of feeling shame when it is amply demonstrated, time and again, that they are incapable of that.  There is not a single iota of evidence to suggest even the slightest hint of remorse, regret, or shame in the behavior of a troll.  They're petty, small souled, simple minded, and cretinous, which means that they go for the simple pleasures, the easy hit.  They don't care who gets offended or what they get offended about so long as somebody gets offended and knows that it was what the troll put up that caused it.  They feed off the recognition that they punched somebody's buttons.  They're bullies, and they're a particularly obnoxious form of bully because they can't be smacked down like the Neanderthals that shake down kids for their lunch money.  They're confident because they feel safe in the knowledge that they cannot be touched, and so they cannot properly suffer the consequences of their actions.  Being simple minded, when somebody does manage to somehow verbally slap a troll down, the troll will not just stop.  They're incapable of learning more than one lesson at a time.  They might fade back for a bit, then they'll be back punching buttons again.  Eleven million plus subscribers to World of WarCraft would have had their names exposed, the vast majority needlessly associated with their alter egos, in order to pursue a futile attempt to punish a tiny majority in a way that will completely fail to deter them.  There would have been no happy ending with that course of action, nor will there ever be a happy ending with that course of action.  Until the population of trolls genuinely outnumbers the population of decent folks on the boards, whatever monetary cost savings are made will be lost in terms of customer backlash, cancelled accounts, and future sales losses.  As strange as it may sound, not even Blizzard or WoW is immune to the masses.  All it will take is one issue, one position stated too strongly, one policy adoption that offends the common core of a large enough percentage of the subscriber base, and it will trigger an avalanche of defections that the company might not survive.  Consider the example of Facebook.  They've been pissing off a lot of people over the last year or so.  One too many changes, one extra little line, or one unclear clause buried the boilerplate of the TOS, and Facebook stands to lose not only subscribers but substantial revenue.  The same situation applies to Blizzard.  Making people believe your hype is a perfectly acceptable business move.  Believing your own hype is a recipe for disaster.  Despite what Blizzard and the rabid core of Blizzard's fan base might believe, WoW is not the only game in town, even if it currently is the biggest.

And now we come to my second argument that Bitmob should have thought to make.  While many would argue that even in an MMO, customers have a right to privacy, I will argue that one has a right to anonymity.  The distinction might seem lost on some folks, so allow me to elucidate.  As I've said before, MMOs are very much like amusement parks.  There are a lot of activities that you can do within the park, but you as a player are coming into an environment where you have no direct control over anything except your avatar.  You influence nothing within the game.  You can make changes to yourself which ultimately have no practical effect outside of how you look and what kind of rides you can go on.  Yet when you're at the park, other people know you're there because they can see you.  Other players are aware of, or can be made aware of, your presence.  Whether you're grinding mobs in The Barrens, spamming in trade chat in Ironforge, or simulating some Night Elf-on-Gnome action in the tunnels of the Deeprun Tram, awareness of your presence in the game simply cannot be completely hidden.  Proximity to other players, even in the shady corners of the Deeprun Tram, constitutes most players' awareness of each other.  Global chat channels, friend lists, and guild rosters further add to the sign every MMO player wears around their neck saying "Here I am!"  Privacy in MMOs, at best, is a relative sort of thing, and it's fleeting.

Anonymity on the other hand is a little different, and something that should not be in the hands of any company, not even Blizzard.  Anonymity is the choice we make to acknowledge our presence to other people within the MMO.  Consider Mila Kunis or Curt Schilling, very famous people who are avowed WoW players.  If they want to advertise the names of every toon they run, that's perfectly fine.  If they don't want to, also fine.  The critical component is that they choose if and when to connect their toons to their real identities.  Yeah, it's fun talking about Family Guy or the place of free agents in baseball while you're doing a ten man raid on Icecrown Citadel, but it's not why we fork over $15 a month.  The fact that we want that level of remove, that layer of insulation, between our virtual names and our real names isn't a reason for suspicion, nor does it indicate nefarious intent, nor does it even suggest we're trolls in player's clothing.  Of all the choices one can make in an MMO, the only one with any true significance is whether or not we give somebody our real name.  If somebody wants to put their real name in for their toon, whether for vanity or lack of imagination, fine and well.  If somebody wants to come up with a completely different nom de guerre, also fine and well.  Once you make that connection public, however, you're going to have to rely on the imperfect fleshy memory of people to forget that connection.  It for damn sure won't fade away on the Internet.  The ability to control our identities, for good or ill, is perhaps the fundamental right of the 21st Century.  The ability to moderate, granulate, and compartmentalize who we are goes right to the very heart of our concepts of self and identity, whether it's physically or virtually.  And Blizzard has no business trying to usurp that ability, nor do they have any basis to demand their customers surrender that ability just to play games they develop.  To an extent, they can and do refine that identity just a bit, but they do not have any commercial or financial justification for breaching the divisions we make between our real world selves and our virtual alter egos.

Thus ends my arguments.  Good job otherwise, Bitmob.