I was particularly concerned about the gameplay possibilities than just the forum and social interactions. Imagine tracking "friends" on starcraft and being able to call them back to WoW for help - teamplay will be greatly affected. With cross-game, cross-avatar, cross-server communication possibilities the RealID move by Blizzard seems to change how social interactions are structured, how social formations are affected, on the other hand, would be really exciting. Ofcourse the request has to be accepted by the other player, without which tracking alt avatars across servers/games wont be possible (or so they say!). Have not seen much studies on real name usage on WoW, but i am pretty sure personal and private data would be available with blizzard particularly on credit card usages. Most games have data retention policies exceeding 6 months (am not certain about blizzard). If you do find studies, or any other material, please do forward them. Best, Arun Menon @arunuik <http://twitter.com/arunuik> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 9:37 PM, Alex Leavitt <alexleavitt@gmail.com> wrote:
From what I understand, users have a username and a "real name" linked to their accounts. The real name, though, does not have to be the same name linked to the credit card used (eg., a parent uses a card for their child, who inputs their own "real name"). But couldn't the real name just be a faked name? Are there statistics to how many people actually put their real name?
Alex
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Alexander Leavitt Researcher Convergence Culture Consortium (Comparative Media Studies, MIT) Microsoft New England Research & Development http://doalchemy.org Twitter: @alexleavitt
On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:59 AM, live <human.factor.one@gmail.com> wrote:
For those who are researching interactions within gaming environment, or even just internet social anonymity or gender anonymity, this is a big deal.
http://kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-forums-will-soon-display-your-real-name
Privacy issues arise, as do gender interaction issues. Would you let in a female player in to your guild in WoW? What if they were a 'female'
playing
with a male avatar? What about a 'male' name playing with a female avatar? These games are built on guilds and social formations - what impact might this new change have?
I must curtail my thoughts and come back later to explore this, but I thought I'd share the Kotaku post.
-SharonG
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