Gamers worldwide are up in arms with Activision Blizzard Inc’s. new policy which will make identity theft protection a mere fantasy.

Blizzard, publisher of well known RPGs (Role Playing Games) “World of Warcraft”, “Diablo” and “Starcraft”, announced that forum posters will be required to reveal their real identities immediately after the launch of their newest Starcraft series on July 27.

They rationalized that this policy is necessary to limit the amount of trolling and other forms of cyber harassment in their forums. They also argued that the Real ID system is widely used in such social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter. This move will also allow gamers to better interact with their friends. Since their own staff who will serve as forum moderators will also use their real names, better customer service will be provided and complaints will be easily addressed.

Irate players flooded online gaming forums. One Warcraft forum reportedly had more than 40,000 posts in their forum alone. Others also received thousand of entries dedicated to this policy alone. Posters cited violations to their freedom of speech and Blizzard’s initial sign up terms of agreement which stated that the company will never reveal the players’ true identities.

They also chided the company for their reasons in removing the anonymity cloak. They believe that this is an unacceptable excuse for Blizzard’s inadequacy in moderating the forums. Moderators allowed “flame wars, trolling and other unpleasantness” to happen instead of strictly implementing guidelines which includes banning of members from the site. They are questioning why they are being forced to reveal their identities to cover up the ineptitude of the Moderators.

Techno savvy gamers may be tapped by unscrupulous individuals for identity theft. Protection provided by not revealing ones true identity will be compromised. To prove their point, some forum posters  even posted information regarding Blizzard employees and their families which they said can easily be obtained online once you know their real names.

If and when this policy is implemented, identity theft protection will, according to naysayers, cease to exist.

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