I am saddened after everything I posted about myself, a -REAL- crazy person talking about other real crazy people in the world, that everyone chooses to ignore it
And sadly, this is why RealID will go through, cause people will choose to ignore it
Until its a problem anyways
What are you going on about?
Nobody here is ignoring realID. Or...the thread wouldn't exist.
He made a long post about his schizophrenia on the last page and no one replied to it, which can only mean that the people who complain about RealID are being ignored, and thus RealID will go forward as planned.
Additional details: the "friends with e-mail" thing isn't gone, you can still add friends that way if you want, the code system is provided as an additional way to add a someone as a RealID friend.
It doesn't add them as a "RealID" friend if you use their FC, it adds them as a "Character" friend...just like adding the old "Name.name" syntax, or adding a character to your friends list in WoW.
That is excellent to hear!
And thanks ShamisOMally for sharing your story. I'm afraid that some folks, even with your story and all the other examples shared in this thread, will not take it seriously until something really bad happens.
How much money could they possibly make off of this deal? It's gotta be a drop in the bucket to what they make now, why the fuck risk what they have for a very shaky potential revenue stream?
Edit: I mean, you're right and they will, but it's stupid
Just to simplify, say they have 10 million subscribers at 10 dollars each for 100 million dollars of revenue a month. If they lose 100 thousand subscribers, that revenue goes to 99 million a month. To make up that difference they'd need to get an extra $1 million / 9.9 million subscribers = TEN CENTS out of each subscriber that is left. Just in marketing mailers, you're personal information is worth more than that. If they get a dollar out of each customer that's left, they just increased revenue by 9%. In a down economy, no less.
There's a lot of "screw the customer" room left before they are anywhere close to making less money than they are now, certainly in the short term, and it seems that Activision-Blizzard's strategy is looking to take the money and run.
Edit: I added override's quote back in since this took me longer to post than I thought .
Edit: And to clarify , that extra dollar of revenue isn't coming out of the customer's pocket directly, but it's the third party value of customers willingly exposing themselves to marketing.
This is a very simplistic understanding of how their revenue works. I don't think a marketing mailer is worth even ten cents for someone who lives in rural south korea and plays only in gaming cafes, nor does that person pay $15 a month, for example.
Furthermore, there are costs associated with these things beyond customer numbers, lawyer costs, implementation costs, Q&A and customer service costs (seriously, just imagine what this is doing to their Q&A department, and the majority of players aren't aware of it yet!)
override367 on
0
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
Lum brought this to my attention. Someone has made a blog entirely for the purpose of showing high ranking Blizzard and Activision people in detail why they should rethink this move with the RealID.
Also, FYI, since posting this, I have had people from the Dopefish lives Livestream room where I stream at already start googling, looking up Tim Kapitan (There is like 20 of us in the world, no joke) and calling them to see if its me
This is why I have gone out on a limb, this is why me, as a person who is a complete and total schizophrenic who is scared of people out there in the world getting your information and does have completely violent and chaotic thoughts, is afraid of -OTHER- such people getting said information
But I didn't feel the message about RealID's was coming across until a -REAL- crazy person spoke up against how dangerous it is to give out ones real name online
This was my point. Many use the same alias across everything, so ultimately there is no difference. Because all it takes is one slip up and the connection is made.
I'm in the process of cancelling my subscription, but I can't work out how to indicate (in the "reason" section) that realID is the motivation for my cancellation. Any clues?
How much money could they possibly make off of this deal? It's gotta be a drop in the bucket to what they make now, why the fuck risk what they have for a very shaky potential revenue stream?
Edit: I mean, you're right and they will, but it's stupid
Just to simplify, say they have 10 million subscribers at 10 dollars each for 100 million dollars of revenue a month. If they lose 100 thousand subscribers, that revenue goes to 99 million a month. To make up that difference they'd need to get an extra $1 million / 9.9 million subscribers = TEN CENTS out of each subscriber that is left. Just in marketing mailers, you're personal information is worth more than that. If they get a dollar out of each customer that's left, they just increased revenue by 9%. In a down economy, no less.
There's a lot of "screw the customer" room left before they are anywhere close to making less money than they are now, certainly in the short term, and it seems that Activision-Blizzard's strategy is looking to take the money and run.
Edit: I added override's quote back in since this took me longer to post than I thought .
Edit: And to clarify , that extra dollar of revenue isn't coming out of the customer's pocket directly, but it's the third party value of customers willingly exposing themselves to marketing.
This is a very simplistic understanding of how their revenue works. I don't think a marketing mailer is worth even ten cents for someone who lives in rural south korea and plays only in gaming cafes, nor does that person pay $15 a month, for example.
Furthermore, there are costs associated with these things beyond customer numbers, lawyer costs, implementation costs, Q&A and customer service costs (seriously, just imagine what this is doing to their Q&A department, and the majority of players aren't aware of it yet!)
Absolutely, which is why I prefaced my post that way. I was just using those numbers because it makes the math easy. Scale it by pounds to the hectacre per yen, and add in associated costs (and other sources of revenue that we aren't considering), but I still think that it's a rough idea of what Blizzard's gameplan is. My main point here is that they are fully aware of what they are doing and what the backlash would be, and financially, they couldn't be happier.
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
0
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I'm in the process of cancelling my subscription, but I can't work out how to indicate (in the "reason" section) that realID is the motivation for my cancellation. Any clues?
Pick whatever reason you want and then write in the text box that appears "Also, RealID."
I'm in the process of cancelling my subscription, but I can't work out how to indicate (in the "reason" section) that realID is the motivation for my cancellation. Any clues?
Mark "Will of the Forsaken nerf".
Kidding. there should be an 'other' or something that lets you leave a comment. Find that.
They shoot horses, don't they? Well, this is fish in a barrel. Of course the Pinto goes on the Worst list, but not because it was a particularly bad car — not particularly — but because it had a rather volatile nature. The car tended to erupt in flame in rear-end collisions. The Pinto is at the end of one of autodom's most notorious paper trails, the Ford Pinto memo , which ruthlessly calculates the cost of reinforcing the rear end ($121 million) versus the potential payout to victims ($50 million). Conclusion? Let 'em burn.
I'm in the process of cancelling my subscription, but I can't work out how to indicate (in the "reason" section) that realID is the motivation for my cancellation. Any clues?
From what I've heard, there is one that is something like "Security Concerns" or something like that, and so people are picking that one and then railing them about RealID in the text box.
I'm in the process of cancelling my subscription, but I can't work out how to indicate (in the "reason" section) that realID is the motivation for my cancellation. Any clues?
I couldn't find one that was bang on but I chose disagree with TOS and explained in the comments box. Seemed appropriate atleast.
Also, FYI, since posting this, I have had people from the Dopefish lives Livestream room where I stream at already start googling, looking up Tim Kapitan (There is like 20 of us in the world, no joke) and calling them to see if its me
This is why I have gone out on a limb, this is why me, as a person who is a complete and total schizophrenic who is scared of people out there in the world getting your information and does have completely violent and chaotic thoughts, is afraid of -OTHER- such people getting said information
But I didn't feel the message about RealID's was coming across until a -REAL- crazy person spoke up against how dangerous it is to give out ones real name online
This was my point. Many use the same alias across everything, so ultimately there is no difference. Because all it takes is one slip up and the connection is made.
I hear all the cool kids are using six different random numbers everywhere.
This was my point. Many use the same alias across everything, so ultimately there is no difference. Because all it takes is one slip up and the connection is made.
I hear all the cool kids are using six different random numbers everywhere.
I heard that rumor too, but so far I haven't seen anyone cool do that.
I just went back and read over the thread, and I don't see anything saying the forums are going to require you to log in to read them. Where did you get this from?
Yeah, there's no way they're going to change them to require login to read them. If they did that, they wouldn't be indexed by Google, and they'd lose all sorts of opportunities to entice people into participating. And people are going to quote the official forums all over the place anyway. In practice, the info is going to be completely open to the unauthenticated public, I have no doubt.
Then again there's the possibility that they thought people would actually respond well to this, Activision has proven itself totally incapable of reading what gamers want
This was my point. Many use the same alias across everything, so ultimately there is no difference. Because all it takes is one slip up and the connection is made.
I hear all the cool kids are using six different random numbers everywhere.
I heard that rumor too, but so far I haven't seen anyone cool do that.
Hey, a use for my Authenticator if I ever cancel WoW!
This was my point. Many use the same alias across everything, so ultimately there is no difference. Because all it takes is one slip up and the connection is made.
I hear all the cool kids are using six different random numbers everywhere.
I heard that rumor too, but so far I haven't seen anyone cool do that.
I heard that all the cool kids are trying their best.
Repeating in case people missed it, this is a must read.
Assuming all that information is correct, wow. That's pretty scary.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
Then again there's the possibility that they thought people would actually respond well to this, Activision has proven itself totally incapable of reading what gamers want
I think you're right, especially with their "this will fix the forums and make them a happy place" rhetoric.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
Bizazedo on
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
Plus it doesn't have to be you who has your site unlocked, it can be your parents or siblings or friends.
Then again there's the possibility that they thought people would actually respond well to this, Activision has proven itself totally incapable of reading what gamers want
I think you're right, especially with their "this will fix the forums and make them a happy place" rhetoric.
I mean Kotick has gone out of his way to point out he's trying to remove anyone who plays games from the business of making games. These people have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
What I don't get is if they want to convince people to censor themselves from saying things that could have real world consequences, why are they half-assing it? There is still an unnecessary degree of anonymity in only posting your real names, they should also include your home address on every post as well as your phone number. This will prevent sociopaths from stalking and murdering innocent people, and only those people who really deserve it, like rogues.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
Right. Are you saying then, that it is not an individuals responsability to make sure they are protected? At some point there has to be a responsability by the individual to look out for his or her own interests. It's certainly not Blizzard or Activisions responsability to make sure my facebook is locked down so no one can poke around my life without my permission.
At some point something like this was going to happen. If it wasn't Blizzard it would have been another company doing something similar and just as silly. It's sad that it takes an event (for lack of a better term) like this to open people's eyes.
Repeating in case people missed it, this is a must read.
Assuming all that information is correct, wow. That's pretty scary.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
The guy posting the blog seemed to generally post where he was getting the info from. He wasn't able to find anything on Kotick himself, but Kotick's wife's information was quite available.
Then there was the other Blizzard employees where he managed to find all sorts of information like when the wedding was and directions to the rehearsal dinner.
I'm in the process of cancelling my subscription, but I can't work out how to indicate (in the "reason" section) that realID is the motivation for my cancellation. Any clues?
I couldn't find one that was bang on but I chose disagree with TOS and explained in the comments box. Seemed appropriate atleast.
Yeah, this is what I ended up doing. I guess I was just hoping it would get a category all of its own.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
Plus it doesn't have to be you who has your site unlocked, it can be your parents or siblings or friends.
I see a lot of information that's available to the public. Like being suspended from practicing law because of a late payment. You can get most of that stuff without a social network. Just by the mere fact of knowing their name and location.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
Right. Are you saying then, that it is not an individuals responsability to make sure they are protected? At some point there has to be a responsability by the individual to look out for his or her own interests. It's certainly not Blizzard or Activisions responsability to make sure my facebook is locked down so no one can poke around my life without my permission.
At some point something like this was going to happen. If it wasn't Blizzard it would have been another company doing something similar and just as silly. It's sad that it takes an event (for lack of a better term) like this to open people's eyes.
You do understand most people have friends and family?
Repeating in case people missed it, this is a must read.
Assuming all that information is correct, wow. That's pretty scary.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
The guy posting the blog seemed to generally post where he was getting the info from. He wasn't able to find anything on Kotick himself, but Kotick's wife's information was quite available.
Then there was the other Blizzard employees where he managed to find all sorts of information like when the wedding was and directions to the rehearsal dinner.
Friend of Friends might as well be "anyone". Give me someone's friends list and I could probably friend at least one person on that list.
Here's the other thing. The more information you have, the more information you have to get even more information.
Look at the example above. Kotick? Not much. Oh, but you have his wife's name. Hey, look at all the nifty information I can find now!
And if you are willing to pay you can get all sorts of info. I wonder if Kotick has a criminal record...
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
Right. Are you saying then, that it is not an individuals responsability to make sure they are protected? At some point there has to be a responsability by the individual to look out for his or her own interests. It's certainly not Blizzard or Activisions responsability to make sure my facebook is locked down so no one can poke around my life without my permission.
At some point something like this was going to happen. If it wasn't Blizzard it would have been another company doing something similar and just as silly. It's sad that it takes an event (for lack of a better term) like this to open people's eyes.
You do understand most people have friends and family?
Yes. What does that mean? Is there some secret backdoor in all social networking apps where if you hit my brothers facebook page suddenly you can jump to mine scott free? Also how does that somehow alleviate the responsibility of the individual to take precautions to prevent their information from being easy to access?
For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
If they're in IT, the older they are, the more likely it is. Remember the net before Canter and Siegel? (To be specific since we're talking about real names: "Laurence Canter" and "Martha Siegel".) We were all a lot more open and a lot less anonymous back then. Nobody tried to mask their email addresses back in 1987! And if you appear in the credits for video games, or have given interviews in the gaming press...
Posts
He made a long post about his schizophrenia on the last page and no one replied to it, which can only mean that the people who complain about RealID are being ignored, and thus RealID will go forward as planned.
That is excellent to hear!
And thanks ShamisOMally for sharing your story. I'm afraid that some folks, even with your story and all the other examples shared in this thread, will not take it seriously until something really bad happens.
This is a very simplistic understanding of how their revenue works. I don't think a marketing mailer is worth even ten cents for someone who lives in rural south korea and plays only in gaming cafes, nor does that person pay $15 a month, for example.
Furthermore, there are costs associated with these things beyond customer numbers, lawyer costs, implementation costs, Q&A and customer service costs (seriously, just imagine what this is doing to their Q&A department, and the majority of players aren't aware of it yet!)
http://asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/
Lum brought this to my attention. Someone has made a blog entirely for the purpose of showing high ranking Blizzard and Activision people in detail why they should rethink this move with the RealID.
Interesting stuff to say the least.
This was my point. Many use the same alias across everything, so ultimately there is no difference. Because all it takes is one slip up and the connection is made.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Repeating in case people missed it, this is a must read.
Absolutely, which is why I prefaced my post that way. I was just using those numbers because it makes the math easy. Scale it by pounds to the hectacre per yen, and add in associated costs (and other sources of revenue that we aren't considering), but I still think that it's a rough idea of what Blizzard's gameplan is. My main point here is that they are fully aware of what they are doing and what the backlash would be, and financially, they couldn't be happier.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Pick whatever reason you want and then write in the text box that appears "Also, RealID."
Mark "Will of the Forsaken nerf".
Kidding. there should be an 'other' or something that lets you leave a comment. Find that.
And seriously, they should update that thing.
Sound familiar?
From what I've heard, there is one that is something like "Security Concerns" or something like that, and so people are picking that one and then railing them about RealID in the text box.
I couldn't find one that was bang on but I chose disagree with TOS and explained in the comments box. Seemed appropriate atleast.
Assuming all that information is correct, wow. That's pretty scary.
I heard that rumor too, but so far I haven't seen anyone cool do that.
Yeah, there's no way they're going to change them to require login to read them. If they did that, they wouldn't be indexed by Google, and they'd lose all sorts of opportunities to entice people into participating. And people are going to quote the official forums all over the place anyway. In practice, the info is going to be completely open to the unauthenticated public, I have no doubt.
(I miss those two titles...I forget who the other guy was though.)
Then again there's the possibility that they thought people would actually respond well to this, Activision has proven itself totally incapable of reading what gamers want
Hey, a use for my Authenticator if I ever cancel WoW!
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
This reminds me of that Monty Python skit about the gameshow that blackmails people.
How much of that information came as a result of unlocked social networking sites? For people who don't have facebook or myspace or twitter are you going to be able to find anywhere near that much information about them by just casually browsing the net?
It's also not really fair when you are throwing out the information of a CEO from a fairly well to do company. Your CEO's of your big companies are as much a public figure as a politician or even some celebrities.
Again before anyone points fingers that I am defending blizzard or RealID. I am not. I am just making observations that I feel are being missed during the lynching. I honestly have no dog in this fight.
My only problem with your arguments is that you keep forgetting that a normal person guards themselves LESS then, say, us.
You should assume their social networking sites are unlocked.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I mean Kotick has gone out of his way to point out he's trying to remove anyone who plays games from the business of making games. These people have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
Right. Are you saying then, that it is not an individuals responsability to make sure they are protected? At some point there has to be a responsability by the individual to look out for his or her own interests. It's certainly not Blizzard or Activisions responsability to make sure my facebook is locked down so no one can poke around my life without my permission.
At some point something like this was going to happen. If it wasn't Blizzard it would have been another company doing something similar and just as silly. It's sad that it takes an event (for lack of a better term) like this to open people's eyes.
The guy posting the blog seemed to generally post where he was getting the info from. He wasn't able to find anything on Kotick himself, but Kotick's wife's information was quite available.
Then there was the other Blizzard employees where he managed to find all sorts of information like when the wedding was and directions to the rehearsal dinner.
Yeah, this is what I ended up doing. I guess I was just hoping it would get a category all of its own.
I see a lot of information that's available to the public. Like being suspended from practicing law because of a late payment. You can get most of that stuff without a social network. Just by the mere fact of knowing their name and location.
You do understand most people have friends and family?
Friend of Friends might as well be "anyone". Give me someone's friends list and I could probably friend at least one person on that list.
Here's the other thing. The more information you have, the more information you have to get even more information.
Look at the example above. Kotick? Not much. Oh, but you have his wife's name. Hey, look at all the nifty information I can find now!
And if you are willing to pay you can get all sorts of info. I wonder if Kotick has a criminal record...
Yes. What does that mean? Is there some secret backdoor in all social networking apps where if you hit my brothers facebook page suddenly you can jump to mine scott free? Also how does that somehow alleviate the responsibility of the individual to take precautions to prevent their information from being easy to access?
If they're in IT, the older they are, the more likely it is. Remember the net before Canter and Siegel? (To be specific since we're talking about real names: "Laurence Canter" and "Martha Siegel".) We were all a lot more open and a lot less anonymous back then. Nobody tried to mask their email addresses back in 1987! And if you appear in the credits for video games, or have given interviews in the gaming press...