Talking with your wallet
The issues with RealID continue to plague the World of Warcraft community. Multiple websites have been generated posting the personal info of various employees of Blizzard (I shall not link them here) in an attempt to show how bad this could be.
The fact is dear fellow Warcraft players, we approved this change already when we didn’t read the Terms of Service update that went out back in May and again in June. If this isn’t a lesson to read the terms of service more closely I don’t know what will be.
The latest rounds of updates added in-game advertising and Facebook integration of the battle.net service.
I agree with some of the other posters that this is being done with just one thing in mind. Increasing revenue as high as they can in a product which has a community of 11.5 million world wide, before that product loses interest.
World of Warcraft is an old game. There are others out there, alternatives that people like. People keep coming back to Warcraft for the community they made while there. Activision has recognized this and is attempting to capitalize on it before it is gone.
How do we the consumers fight this? We talk with our wallet. You can join the multitudes that are clogging the phone lines and the account management site and cancel your account. We can only hope this will change the mind of the decisions makers at Activision Blizzard. It may not. Unfortunately it may be too late, for we know deals have already been signed with Massive (an online game advertiser) and Facebook.
So Greg with everything you’re saying here, have you canceled your account yet?
I’ve canceled my long term accounts, and will only be renewing on a month by month basis, as I feel like it. I want to continue to play a game with the friends I’ve made over the years. I want to take this rag tag team we’ve built and reach our goals (as virtual as they are).
I know I’m not alone.
Tomorrow – today’s internet friends are so much more than the Pen Pals of our parents youth.