Blizzard Will NOT Use Real Names On Forums

There has been an overwhelming amount of negative response from fans of Blizzard games concerning plans to use the Real ID system on future Blizzard forums. Blizzard did tell us they were listening to feedback and now it seems they are acting on that feedback in a drastic way. Blizzard Poster Vaneras posted a letter from CEO Mike Morhaime that states the following  – “we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.” check out the full post after the jump.

Mike Morhaime:

Hello everyone,

I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

Blizzard have taken a huge U-turn, its a shame in one sense, real names gave hope for a better forum atmosphere with posters taking responsibility for their actions but it seems the negatives outweighed the positives this time. The Real ID system is still very much in place across Blizzard games allowing friends to cross communicate.