Blizzard CEO suffers invasion of privacy

GAME DEVELOPER Blizzard Entertainment has come under attack from an irate fan to demonstrate the ramifications of the firm's policy on using real names in its forums.

The developer behind World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo recently made the bold move to force gamers on its forums to post using their real names. Given that gamers traditionally like being referred to by their "gamer tags" and the pseudo anonymity that those tags afford them, Blizzard's insistence was too much for many die-hard Battle.net fans.

One such fan, deciding to use the less than flattering handle of "nerdy white male", thought it would be best to illustrate the dangers of posting messages with real names on the web. Focusing on those working at Blizzard, he went to work.

After digging up and publishing details on Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick and his family and other employees, solely based on knowledge of his full name, the activist claimed that once the Real ID came online, any "sick" individual could unearth similar information, and that could possibly result in sexual harassment, coming into contact with abusive ex-partners or even jeopardising players' jobs.

Though the claimed dangers might have been exaggerated by the disgruntled user, there is no doubt that players were not happy with Blizzard's requirement to use real names on its forum.

Blizzard has since backed down, allowing players to continue posting messages using pseudonyms. µ