We've done a few stories and podcasts on the subject, but I am always curious to see how people on forums feel about the concept of online etiquette and the horrible reputation gamers have in the eyes of the non gaming public? The Armor Games forums seem pretty tame by comparison but I am thinking more in terms of your online gaming experiences.
To be honest, I feel like gamers need to clean up their acts and grow up a bit before developers take steps similar to what Blizzard tried with the REAL ID concept (no usernames to hide behind).
Just like with so many other stereotypes, I think that it's only true for a very, very loud minority of the players. I've met a lot of decent people on online games, but unfortunately, it's the spamming ******** whose entire vocabulary seems to consist of "OMG" "WTF" and "NOOBS!" that you notice, and they give all gamers a bad reputation.
To be honest, I feel like gamers need to clean up their acts and grow up a bit before developers take steps similar to what Blizzard tried with the REAL ID concept (no usernames to hide behind).
It didn't do much to be honest. Anomynity doesn't make people evil, it shows the true aspects of some people and how foul they become (I'm looking at MW2).
Often you will meet people who abuse this - this you probably already know, it would be good to have some proper ways of tracking these people because honestly I think they mays well be shot sometimes (why not? You don't do something negative "because you can", so I'm gonna do it because I'm following your logic).
Anonymity is evil only to those that participate in acts that are deemed evil. Evil is such a strong word though...
I believe that any game company that employs anonymity is moving steps backward in their efforts of online etiquette. If they implement anonymity, then they might as well eliminate CD-Keys, because that is an ID in itself as well. The only difference between ID and non-ID is the extra step butthurt pirates have to go through in order to obtain a free game. Eliminating usernames and implementing anonymity just seems so silly, though.
Eliminating usernames and implementing anonymity just seems so silly, though.
Say what? Blizzard removed peoples usernames on your friends list so that you can see their real life name.
What you said "Eliminating Usernames and Implementing Anonymity" seems impossible lol.
Did you misunderstand or did you put it wrong?
Or am I just an idiot? XD
Good point, it would seem that anomynity may just be a catalyst to something that is already there.
It also makes it there in other scenarios. Before I got my brother-in-law on the computer he would've been fine, I can't even remember what he'd be like but now he is the nerd-raging, abusive, foul, immoral fool that your generalized MW2 gamer would be.
Oh, and yeah, he plays CoD lol.
The saddest thing is because of me he is aware both of morality, self awareness and the thing that let him betray those tenants. He is fully aware that what he does is wrong but because society allows it, he doesn't care.
In a way, I can't blame him - I certainly can, because I compare myself to him and if anything he's had it better than me (his parents spoil him so much) but I can't help but see that unfortunate and bad events on people can often make them better as a whole.
Since this has been brought up more than once I'm going to clarify:
Blizzard removed peoples usernames on your friends list so that you can see their real life name.
People have no way of seeing your Real ID unless you tell them what it is, and it's still possible to add character names to your friend's list. You don't have to tell anyone your name unless you want to.
Before I got my brother-in-law on the computer he would've been fine, I can't even remember what he'd be like but now he is the nerd-raging, abusive, foul, immoral fool that your generalized MW2 gamer would be.
How old is your brother? Because, to be honest, if he's in his early/mid teens, then I'm not surprised. Most people grow out of it, though.
Anyways, I don't think it's that much that anonymity makes us do "evil" things, it's more that this anonymity allows us to do what we feel like doing without fear of consequences. You'd still want to do it even if it wasn't for the anonymity, but you wouldn't either because of good manners or fear of consequences.
