Alternate title:
What Value, Identity?
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In simpler terms, we pay for our entertainment in one way or another. So-called “Free to Play” games (F2P) tend to either ask for money in bite-sized chunks (microtransactions) or ask you to earn your goodies by playing for a longer time than other players (paying with time), or maybe even “offer wall” points from a third party or some such gibberish. Some games ask for both money and time. A rarer game might try to be advertisement-based, running with a network TV/Google approach to monetization; get the eyeballs in and inundate them with advertising spam.
Perhaps now we get to see another way to pay for our MMO crack, er, service: with your identity.
Apparently, identity theft is a pretty big industry, er, crime. There is even a counterindustry built around protection rackets, er, protecting your identity, like the Lifelocks of the world and their competitors. Your identity has value. It’s really no surprise that there would be those out there in the unsavory world of business, er, crime, that might be trying to find ways to unlock some of that value.
Welcome to a Brave New World of cataclysmic proportions, where paying for a product, er, service, isn’t merely a business transaction, it’s personal.
Next up? DNA authenticators and paying with a pound of flesh. (With discounts tied to the Big Brother international registry of BMI, of course.)
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Acerbic slippery slope aside, I do officially register a complaint about this Bad Idea. Hatch, Larisa, Dwism, Ixobelle (x2!), Ratshag, Klepsacovic and Spinks cover it pretty well, though.
Oh, and if we’re honestly going to talk about cleaning up the forums, might I suggest the following?
Combine that with a /complain function and no nonsense moderation, and you’ll clean things up without all those nasty, tricksy unintended consequences and Facebook diseases on the way down the slippery slope.
***
More from Ysharros, Spinks, BBB, Copra (as cited by Longasc, he’s right that this is about building a brand and a business… the concerns of the little people aren’t relevant), KIASA, Lum, Chastity, Gnomeaggedon, Melfina (yay for a rational feminist perspective), br3ntbr0 (with a video, no less), Jason and Tobold. This even teased Ryan Shwayder out of his slumber.
Bonus points to Stabs for finding this little gem. Oh, and this really shouldn’t surprise anyone, either. This is somewhat… alarming, too.
Ooh, shiny! Channel Massive (hi, Jason!) has a nice roundup of a spectrum of responses. As usual, I disagree with about everything Darren says (the man has no common sense), and TAGN has a good post up.
…oh, and Syp totally called it; whenever he’s away from the shop, something big happens. It’s eerie, I tell you!
You’re exactly right and the slippery slope angle is interesting.
One thing that may be heading for us further down that slope is criminalisation of people who lie about their name online. If you’re supposed to be paying for a service with identity then the thousands of Brad Pitts and Megan Foxes are scamming companies into getting the service for free.
So it would be logical for these companies to lobby to get mis-identifying yourself to them made illegal.
And that would fit in with Zuckerberg’s idea that everyone should be honest and open and if you’re not willing to do this you’re a lying liar.
http://brokentoys.org/2010/07/06/realid-for-your-fakeorc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrokenToys+%28Broken+Toys%29
Heh, where F2P stands for Fail To Play? 😀
As Copra said on his blog: “However, I can see that Blizzard will try spread the use of RealID even further, making it more a brand to do business with rather than a convenience to us players.”
Moderating forums or maintaining social networks does not need RealID, nor its disrespect for player privacy and choice and being blind for the potential abuse.
[…] and well spoken bloggers usually weigh in. I usually refrain from joining in because those people say it so much better than I could and usually have it covered. This is different, and I think it […]
Oh and — Lying Liar and proud of it! Down with The Man! Up with Internet Personae!
I said it on Spinks’ blog and I’ll say it wherever I remember to repeat it…
I cannot stress enough, “Vote with your wallet.” If you disagree with what they are doing, cancel your WoW account, cancel your Starcraft II pre-order. Outrage is fine, but businesses listen more to accountants and spreadsheets. You have to affect the bottom line to really get their ear.
[…] Blizzard’s RealID isn’t the end of the world, but neither is it wise. It is a step away from my dream of a meritocratic community and an interesting game world. It is yet another piece of the puzzle of the bizarre corporatocracy in our fraying country, and a look at the arrogant mindset of those who make the rules and who have the money. The strangest part of all this isn’t that Blizzard is doing this, it’s that they honestly don’t seem to understand the implications. […]
Agreed, Jason.
Then again, I’ve been rather set against the whole “games as a service” bit for a while now. This isn’t quite the endgame I imagined, but it is a logical extension of the unholy merger of products and services.
Nice list of the posts out there . . . seems this has really set the blogging community on fire!
I definitely agree with the post: there are much better ways to clean up the forums.
Which makes me think there is an ulterior motive.
Money; that’s always the motive. The deal with Facebook is likely the driver, IMO.
This isn’t about cleaning up the forums; if anything it will get the trolls even more attention – which is exactly what they crave.
“the concerns of the little people aren’t relevant), … Gnomeaggedon…”
Mmmm little people… see proof positive of discrimination based on a name.
I’ll have you know I am very tall for a Gnome 😉
[…] Tesh…. […]
[…] https://tishtoshtesh.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/i-had-a-dream/ https://tishtoshtesh.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/blizzards-f2p-plans-realid/ http://churchofpangoria.blogspot.com/2010/07/small-voice.html […]
“There is even a counterindustry built around protection rackets, er, protecting your identity,”
Don’t anti virus product makers work the same way?
[…] Had a Dream Blizzard’s RealID isn’t the end of the world, but neither is it wise. It is a step away from my dream of a […]
[…] yes, I just used Star Trek and a fan film as a springboard to obliquely refer to a game company’s statist behavior and warn against fascism clothed in feel-good stated intentions. Yes, I think that Blizzard using […]
[…] Tesh ponders the value of identity. […]
[…] 13, 2010 by Tesh One of the tangential thoughts I’ve seen a few times about this RealID thing is that people with unique names will be easier to stalk. Even though it’s not all that […]
[…] say it’s about revenue, and “integrity” is just a pretty facade to hide behind. It’s harder to monetize a handle (yes, I wrote about this before, just in a different […]
[…] on a topic that is relevant outside of the blogging circles. (Case study: Blizzard’s RealID kerfluffle, where the voices in MMO blogging circles tended to be almost uniformly… concerned. For […]