Real ID and the worldwide impact of gaming
(Photo courtesy of FoxSpain; Flickr CC attribution license)
Starcraft II will be a worldwide phenomenon. The RealID requirement, since retracted, is causing some ripples across US gaming blogs, and some other places. I’m going to explain why the U.S. is, perhaps, not as important as we like to think…. right after the jump….
Let me give some background. It’s gathered from a couple of very good, well-researched articles by people who are much, much more tuned into the worldwide gaming scene than myself. (Announcement of Starcraft II at an Olympic Stadium in Seoul.) (From MyMim an estimate of first-day sales of 1 million in U.S…. huge… and 3-4 million in Korea.. astounding.) The long story short is that Starcraft II is going to have much more of an impact in Korea and other parts of Southeast Asia than in the U.S. That’s the pure numbers speaking, not my own insignificant opinion.
And if you’re talking “worst-case scenario”, remember, if gamers in the U.S. don’t like the way a game’s forums work, they can refuse to purchase a game. If a government such as China, or some other government with that power, wishes to strictly regulate or prohibit a game, they can (and will). Just look at China and the difficulties of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in keeping servers open and available there. (See my related post).
Nicholas DeLeon on Crunchgear talks about Blizzard and hypocrisy. (It details the move as more of a “trial balloon”, like a politician would use to gauge public-opinion impact of a policy move.
One last link, from an English-language Korean site, that explains the anti-anonymity movement in Korea.
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[Note: This inspiration brought on from Entertainment on Saturday's post about point of view.] Second, largely ignored issue about RealID and bloggers. You cannot, as a public blogger, make a realistic argument that total privacy is your utmost goal. You’ve already made yourself known, publicized, and you have no synchronicity of thought with the TRUE anonymous individual. The individual that shuns RealID, doesn’t link their Google page to their Youtube, doesn’t automate their comment-posting ID, and is otherwise paranoid to have any trace of their actual identity linked to their UserID. In this regard a blogger, though myself and others may “argue” a viewpoint about anonymity, do not share a common ground. We are speculating about reasons, as myself (and other attorneys and/or gamers who blog) have decided that being heard is more important than keeping a total anonymous persona. Of course many great gaming bloggers use personas, but as an attorney-blogger (who also collaterally solicits business in the areas of my expertise) we must fully disclose all email and point-of-contact information if requested by any potential client or contact.
Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.
Tags: anti-anonymity movement, Blizzard, China, Korea, Starcraft II
While I agree with you for the most part, there are some subtleties to consider.
The long story short is that Starcraft II is going to have much more of an impact in Korea and other parts of Southeast Asia than in the U.S. That’s the pure numbers speaking, not my own insignificant opinion.
Sure, but the U.S. market is still going to be 20-25% of the sales of Starcraft 2, not something a game developer can take lightly. The real question here: how many more sales would Activision have had in the U.S. if they hadn’t tried to require RealID? Anecdotally, I know a handful of people who aren’t buying SC2 because of the issue.
The other issue is that Blizzard is a brand, and their actions can have long term effects on other games. Sure, they could tell the U.S. players to get bent because the Koreans will buy so many more copies. But, then what happens when Blizzard’s next MMO launches? According to figures I saw a while ago, the North American market was larger than the Korean market for WoW. While gamers in general tend to have short memories, some parts do carry grudges for a while. Taking a “take it or leave it” attitude could have a very big impact on future games.
You cannot, as a public blogger, make a realistic argument that total privacy is your utmost goal.
A few points. First, is the issue of choice. I choose to post on my blog. I choose to use my real name when posting. Ironically enough, tne major reason I started using my pseudonym is because my given name is so dreadfully common. But, the main reason I do it is similar to you: because I want people to recognize me; it helps my business. But, ultimately, this is a choice.
One prominent blogger, Tobold, has made no bones about keeping his blogging life and his personal life separate. He’s never used his real name. Now, of course, someone persistent could likely track him down from the bits and pieces of personal information he has mentioned. But, I think he’s done a reasonable job of keeping his professional life and blogging life separate.
The other issue is the results. As I pointed out, we have a professional interest in putting our names out there. What’s the benefit of associating one’s name with their WoW or SC2 account? Not much, really. As a lot of people have pointed out, it can be detrimental because gaming still has a negative reputation in a lot of circles. Your boss finding out you have 5 max level characters in WoW might make him think you have time to work on more projects…. (The reward for Blizzard, of course, was great: data to mine, and potential information to share with Facebook for profit. Nice for them.)
Ultimately, I don’t think that privacy is an all-or-nothing game. You know my name, you know my email address, you know my website, but what more do you really know? Could you find my address? Probably. My SSN? Probably not. There are still pieces of information that I keep private, even from people I know in the offline world. It’s all about choice, I think, and Blizzard was taking that choice from people, particularly from introverts who don’t necessarily want to share that info as I posted on my blog.
jaymoffitt Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 9:53 am
Mr. Green, I agree with you that it’s a worldwide market Blizzard has to consider. And the U.S. seems to be “still the best” at mobilizing large number of blog-readers and game-forum participants to cause a large “wave” across the internet that is so huge in numbers that even if not effective in its aim, is at least effective in producing recognition of its cause (example… Activision and the “private server” argument for the latest COD title). I was just pointing out that it’s NEWS because its a rare case where the US is in a huge minority as far as a game. But you make a great point in that as far as research and development, game publicity, and the whole U.S. infrastructure in producing and supporting a game, the States hold a much larger stake than merely market share.
I like your point about the “grudges” gamers have. The gaming market is full of choices, and even just a single “that’s what you’ve got and you’ll like it” sort of attitude by a game will be remembered for a long, long time.
As far as benefit, yes, it’s true that it’s just an “extra cost” associated with the game. For years gamers playing DOS gamers waited breathlessly for a world where they could simply click an icon and be going into a game. Some pirates come along, and what happens…. now, you click the icon, and you enter a product ID manually, then must register with the game-server to get it going…. progress or going back to the stone ages?? Now, you must provide ALL THIS INFORMATION, and (for most online games)a constantly EVOLVING terms of service….. when I was in law school it was considered a contract when there was a “meeting of the minds”, now it’s simply expected for the consumer to “click to agree”.
The privacy… as I’ve noted, I don’t have a parallel purpose with most gamers. As a blogger I consider it an undefined form of mental illness to put your private ramblings into a public forum, and the great numbers of people who do it does not change my opinion. The people who “get worried” at having their info out there are in my opinion the sane ones. I would greatly welcome a uniform front from a game company (ANY GAME COMPANY) to make it a public crusade to protect/value their customers’ options.
The world is a little larger than just America + Korea.
In Asia people seem to be generally ok with being public. Starcraft is a televised e-sport. People aspire to be Starcraft stars. Wanting to be an anonymous Starcraft player would be almost like wanting to be an anonymous reality TV star.
In Europe we’re very private. It’s no accident that Tobold is European. Privacy is often a result of physical proximity, in much of Western Europe population density is very high. What’s more the balance between the rights of corporations to make money and individual freedoms are more slanted to the individual than in either America or Korea.
RealID breaches the European Convention on Human Rights. It breaches the practices expected of companies that operate in the UK by the Information Commissioner. Optional RealID is fine from a legal perspective (although possibly there’s a danger of liability if Blizzard makes reluctant teenage girl put address on Facebook, teenage girl gets stalked and murdered as a result).
But there’s absolutely no way that Blizzard could make RealID mandatory and still be operating within the law in the European Union. In fact even the current privacy policy breaches EU law as interpreted by the Information Commissioner.
jaymoffitt Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:05 am
Very true. It made news in this regard solely because of its uniqueness. But you make a good point that its difficult to find good immediate worldwide sales figures.
Less than a decade ago I worked for a Fortune 500 company that did business in Europe as well as the States. The privacy laws were only just being implemented at that time (Jan 1, 2001?) and even though I was involved in negotiating software contracts… I couldn’t even begin to understand the European laws. Microsoft and other large companies who have the worlds’ leading legal staffs… they were caught and fined for perceived privacy violations. So I’ll leave that subject alone.
I do fear and forsee a day, though, when privacy laws of one country and anti-anonymity laws of another would make it not just difficult, but IMPOSSIBLE for some MMOs to be played on a worldwide basis.
The points you bring up do put a spotlight on the fact that it’s becoming more and more difficult to define privacy in an online world. The merging of the medias is making it more dangerous to be visible out there, but the game companies are now invested in using the game-players as part of their marketing effort for new games, add-ons, and other products. Most of the things you mention I don’t have an answer for, but I don’t think anyone does.
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