Basement-dwelling geeks rejoiced on Friday.
Why? Because Blizzard, the games developer behind massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) such as Starcraft and World of Warcraft, shelved its plans to name and shame all of the sad and desperate loners who shun real life in order to frequent its fantasy worlds.
Blizzard’s latest stroke of genius in the war on human interaction has received literally billions of complaints from people who don’t know that it’s summer.
The audacious plans were originally announced on Tuesday 6 July and the decision not to roll out the so-called Real ID system follows numerous complaints that included the obligatory forum posts, details of Blizzard employees being made available on websites and a bizarre exercise in hyperbole that compared gamers to the inmates at Auschwitz.
Blizzard stated that their initial intention was to “help foster a more meaningful gaming community where long-lasting friendships can be formed.” Whilst this description is a nice enough PR blurb, it does appear to demonstrate that no one from Blizzard has ever actually spent any time on the internet. Maybe they all have lives.
The whole ‘let’s reveal our customers’ names’ tactic further showcases how out of touch Blizzard are with their target market. Basic psychology tells us that people hide behind avatars in order to escape who they are for a brief period of time, admittedly with MMORPGs this brief period of time is more like 98% of the time, with the other 2% dedicated to toilet breaks and popping down the shops to stock up on Red Bull.
The internet community tends to respond badly to attempts to delve into the public personas of its user base. Take Facebook’s stunningly idiotic and constantly changing privacy policy as an example.
After a full three days of tireless campaigning, the internet managed to show Blizzard how much of a PR nightmare it’d created for itself and now the basement dwellers can now go back to sitting in their darkened rooms, content in the knowledge that no one will ever know who they are… although why anyone would care is beyond me.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Whoever wrote this is a complete and utter moron – I’m frankly offended…
John, grow up maybe?
I find your lack of humour disturbing and offensive. I enjoyed reading this article. God bless
The writer depicts gamers as lonely basement dwellers with no lives, and is clearly mocking the gamer community. Is it any wonder gamers value anonymity as much as they do? I realise the writer doesn’t really believe that about the majority of gamers, but if enough people repeat the same joke about gamers, then people will start to believe it. Just like spreading rumours about someone can hurt someone’s reputation, even when the rumour is false. T.v. sitcoms, radio and t.v. talk shows, commercials, news articles, news commentary, etc, all repeat the same joke. So, I’m sure that people are starting to believe the joke about gamers. It would be a problem to many people if they’re anonymity were revoked.
Most gamers are not loners you know, they do have a social life, maybe it’s not as dramatic as yours but they do have one.
Your right that most gamers are not loners, but that stigma has already been applied. Games are considered something for children. Adults who play games are thought of as socially awkward geeks living in their parents basement. If this was the case than the gaming industry would not be the multi-billion dollar industry that it is.
Gamers are normal people who simply enjoy games. They are children, teens, mothers and fathers. They contribute to society, have stable jobs and interact with those in both their real life and virtual communities. That is the stigma that should be presented.
Once the negative connotation of being identified as a ‘Gamer’ has been removed ideas and concepts like RealID would work. Yes there needs to be strict privacy control, and possibly even an expansion to the discrimination laws. People shouldn’t be turned down for admittance to college or a job simply because the recruiter or hiring manager did a google search on your name and found out they went to frat parties at college or plays games.