http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1
“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.”
Recanting this failure was a good move.
Next time do what most polite, centered and sensical people all over the world would do: ask.
Interesting escape clause: “at this time”
yes. They did not change their minds on RealID at all, will probably impose it upon their userbase when they are too busy fawning about some silly new items.
Well, yeah. I think they haven’t gone out and said “We’re killing Real ID permanently” or “We’ve decided not to go with Facebook integration” because they can’t.
They’ve committed to it already. You don’t announce something like this and then start to work on it. Work’s probably been going on for a few months. Contracts already signed. Kinks ironed out (except the biggest, most obvious one, I guess; that people wouldn’t like it).
Real ID (even forum Real ID) is not dead. Just temporarily on hold until they can retool it enough to make it palatable.
Just sayin’…
Your post title is prescient and accurate. This isn’t repentance, it’s guilty backpedaling. Don’t think it’s over.
It’s so hard to implement a RealID that can handle an unique pseudonim?
Anyway my fear is that in a way or the other all will be introduced anyway. May be in a gentle way…
With some psicology to make you prone to get into it. May be with something new that seems innocent and then adding this and adding that… you’ll end up with the same that we rejected now.
I don’t want be like Cassandra in mythology.. envisioning a tragedy in the future… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra)
But the road ahead is full of perils.
People who claimed Bobby Kotick couldn’t wreck Blizzard take note: this was just the beginning.