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games

How to Piss Off a Community

July 10, 2010 11:11:58.730

Blizzard learned what it's like to take a set of loyal customers and turn them into an angry mob, after they decided to require real names (instead of aliases) in their online game system:

Blizzard became the target of its own flame war after deeming that its forums would soon require the use of real life names. The Battle.net community backlash forced Blizzard to backpedal, removing the Real ID requirement in forums for World of Warcraft and Starcraft II.

They had to back off, and it's not a huge surprise. Not every user of anonymity is a troll, and some people just feel safer being anonymous. The same dynamic works all over, from political commentary to games. PC World had a good suggestion though - like Amazon, offer some sort of reward system for people willing to use their real names. In fact, it's worth reading the entire post.

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posted by James Robertson

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