Blizzard Suspending Use Of Real Names In Their Forums

by Brian Goodman [ Monday, 12th of July 2010 - 04:21 PM ]

Instead of enacting an instant update Blizzard will still be phasing in its use of the RealID system, just not until Starcraft II and subsequently World of Warcraft: Cataclysm crawl out of our dreams and into our local game retailer's shelves. You can read their official forum statement regarding the implementation of RealID here.

Blizzard have always been on the forefront of not only online gaming with their introduction of Battle.net way back in the good ol' Diablo and Starcraft days, but they have always been leading the pack in terms of online community. It really seems to me they are trying to incorporate Facebook elements into their community with the use of real names and making our profiles more unique to us as people rather than gamers. Is this a good or a bad thing? Will it prevent the 12 year old kids spewing racial epithets or will it lead to brutal gamer murders over newbs getting pwned and hacked? Probably both but I'm really interested to see how it pans out in the next six months.