Thursday, July 8, 2010

Blizzard will require you to use your Real Name on their forums now

http://us.battle.net/realid/?rhtml=y
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25626109041&sid=3000&pageNo=1


This means that if you want to post on any of their game forums with your account, it will be like this...

by Firstname Lastname

haha

Oh all the poor souls who still play wow... how you will suffer from absolutely no privacy. It's crazy and WoW players are going ape shit.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=1

2k pages of replies. many people have already canceled their accounts after reading this.


It's all about money now. Who cares about you or me, or him, or her... it's about your credit card


"
This is simply corporatization/commodification/business as usual. This is the reality of the slogan, "Maximize shareholder value." Activision is doing exactly that; they're tying into social networks, particularly Facebook, in order to maximize advertising revenue. Nothing more, nothing less. They stated over two years ago that Starcraft will see ingame ads and promotions like Facebook's, tied to your personal information, which they own.

You can post 1,000,000 complaints on the official forums, and a hundred other websites, cancel your account, start boycotts, etc. But the decision has been made and Bobby Kotick/Activision will not be backing down. In fact, having worked in enough San Francisco tech companies, I suspect that Activision did some calculations and decided that even if 10-20% (or 1 to 2 million) of current subscribers cancel their accounts, it won't matter; many will be back due to the lure of Cataclysm and the rest will be replaced by new subscribers they hope to attract.

Your personal information is owned by Activision, a private company, and in the agreement you make with them when you sign up, you agree that they own it and can do whatever they want with it. This is not complicated. It's also the case with your cellphone, cable tv, internet provider, auto loan/lease, mortgage, employment contract, etc.

Issues of harassment? Anonymity? Humanity? Sexism? Stalking? Employer abuse? Activision's Kotick sums up the view on that ... customers are "units" and employees are "headcount" which maximize profit. There is nothing besides profit. This is the reality of our culture today.

I just wish ... I wish that the same kind of outrage (50,000 posts as of right now in the official WoW forums, over 260 posts on Metafilter (really?! over a videogame?!) would be generated by the same corporatization/privatization/commodification of public education. Every day, the same mentality that drives Bobby Kotick and Thomas Tippl at Activision drives Bill Gates, the Eli Broad Foundation, the Walton family, Michelle Rhee, Bob Bur#%%@ (side note: Really, Blizz? You're going to censor the name of Detroit Public Schools' superintendent?!), and others to turn schools into profit centers, teachers into minimum-wage temps, and children into profit units, based all on corporate, for-profit standardized tests.

By July 24 (my next billing date), my almost three years of WoW play will end, six months after my Facebook participation ended, for much the same reason. The corporation has moved further in a direction that I'm unwilling to go; therefore, I exercise my option to end the contract and no longer play the game. I will miss the stress relief and escapism. But I will shrug. And find some other way to escape.

But, you'll forgive me if I don't get too upset over one company's use of customer information, when said customers (including myself) voluntarily gave up that information and consented that it be used in any way Bobby Kotick, et al, sees fit. Because, on July 25, I will still, as a professional public educator of over 24 years experience, continue to see that same mentality destroy my profession and one of the cornerstones of American democracy which took over 200 years to develop. And I think that claims priority on my ... outrage meter.

It was a fun three years. I'm tempted to hold an in-game funeral for Arcanthus on July 23rd ...
"

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=2333


"Robert "Bobby" Kotick
The big man at Activision. CEO. The source of all Blizzard's community problems of the last few years. Here's his facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Kotick/637011873
He's not very open, but his friends and family are.

Big donations to the GOP ($28,000 in 2007, and raised over $200k for Bush!) but makes $1.5 million a year and just dumped a huge amount of his company's stock at the beginning of this year. You know, I'd be selling my Blizzard stock right now too.

You'll see that Blizzard's corporate phone and fax are:
Phone: 310-255-2000
Fax: 310-255-2100
in case you want to politely let them know how you feel. Again, we are NOT going for harassment. This page should be creepy enough without WoW nerds harassing people.

But hey, he's a busy man. He's got a wife and three young daughters, ages 6, 9, and 11. The oldest is Gracie, she likes skiing. There are pictures of her that can be found, but I'm not posting them because I think I've made my point there. Anyone messing with his family or kids is a sick ##*!, but you know what? There are a lot of sick ##*!s who play WoW, and as soon as this real id change goes live you will see daily news reports of people who got the attention of one of those sick ##*!s and had their life ruined.

Here's some information on his wife, Nina Jill Kotick (nee Spiegel), age 46, Fordham University '89 (Law), Tufts University '86, Byram Hills High School '82. She used to be a lawyer in New York, passing her NY bar exam in 1990, but later moved with Bobby to CA and got her license in December 1995. With the exception of the time she forgot to pay her bar fees in '99 (Oops!) and her license was suspended, it's been smooth sailing.

If you want to reach her, try (310) 255-2639, (310) 279-3599, or email her at nkotick@yahoo.com

The beautiful family's current address is either 1010 or 1011 Cove Way. They own or owned both but surely they don't need two houses, do they?
1011 Cove Way, Beverly Hills, California 90210
They spent $171,708 for renovations a few years ago, nice place!
Google Map it!

Offices or possibly former home addresses:
701 FOOTHILL RD, CA
11845 OLYMPIC BLVD, CA
3435 OCEAN PARK BLVD #107, CA
715 N Sierra Dr Blvd #107 Beverly Hills, CA 90210


Get Curb stomped jackass! i hope 4chan spams your business lines all day and night after this stupid change"

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=2331

2 comments:

Paz said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joker said...

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL