In a time when people and / or organisations are lobbying for increased privacy protection practices on the Internet, Blizzard has decided to take the opposite direction.

Online businesses all to often go to great lengths to communicate to their users the tools or practices that are in place to guarantee the security of their personal information - usually through the terms of service agreements, website or e-mail footnotes, registration notifications, etc.

An ironic but relevant recent example is that not long ago a campaign against Facebook's hesitance to empower their users with more control over their privacy took place, and said website acknowledged and acted on those demands, albeit not quite as much some people would have liked - after all, Facebook's survival pretty much depends on people being sociable and not private.

But the essence of the Internet has always been about the possibility of being anonymous. Being anonymous is the culture of the web. People use and have used made-up "internet" names in their e-mail addresses, their instant-messaging programmes (anyone remember ICQ?), when commenting on online newspapers, discussion sites, forums, the lot.

Yet, if most people want to be known by an alias on the internet, it would be logical to believe that they would like to remain even more so anonymous on online games - in which naturally MMORPGs are included.

This deduction is based on a simple belief - people play MMORPGs to abandon if just for a few hours their "John Smith the businessman, married with a now over-weight middle-aged woman; or Jack Watson, I will fail my end-of-year exams" identity in favor of "Warlord the Ranger, guild leader and esteemed contributor" one.

At least this was the case before the "RP" began to be ignored by the gaming studios which resulted in the appearance of the  "I Will Pwnz U" names which suggest little sentimental attachment between the player and the virtual character. In any case, and for whatever reason people decide to play online games or socialise with strangers on the internet through whatever means, its still a choice people make to spend their leisure time in a "world" or a space that escapes their every-day reality - including their identity.

In addition, most people do not feel comfortable with their "real life" friends or family, boyfriend or girlfriend, discovering that they like to spend their time playing an orc or vehemently discussing the implications of the recent nerf to their character attributes.

Blizzard's tactic to reduce trolling, flaming and other forum abuses by forcing people who enjoy taking part on forum discussions to post under their real name might be denying them the illusion of the persona people create for themselves in online games or other online sociable activities. This is not the case, nor does it affect, the professionals (such as the developers or column writers) who are tied to the condition of reality their job instates.

Of course, this does not apply to everyone. Some players are quite happy to comment on their personal lives to guildmates via teamspeak or otherwise; or to their friends about their gaming habits. The question is if a certain level of familiarity or trust needs to develop before that happens? Do developers or column writers use their real names when posting or commenting on forums or sites aside from the one they work for or their social network site of choice?

Blizzard is defying the internet culture; the culture of parallel anonymous lives in a space which invites people to be someone (or something) else and let their imagination and creativity fly in the process. Such space is the online gaming world. Will true identities in their forums kill that illusion? Will it bring newspaper headline news describing the actions of some nutcase who crossed five states to declare his love for "Roberto, the mechanic" whom he thought was "Candice, the ruthless swordmaster"?

If Blizzard sticks to their guns as they claim they will, only time will tell what will happen.

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