Real ID and the future of WoW

Thinking, always thinking... and thinking alone, mind you.

It has now been a week since the most worrisome saga in WoW's history ended, and I will now discuss what I intended to discuss when I first began writing my last post, Disabling Real ID for great justice. If you are sick of hearing about Real ID, then you'll be happy to know that after this post, I won't touch the topic again unless some new development makes it worth writing about; I promise. Also, in this post, rather than talking about Blizzard's plans when I talk about the development of Real ID, I'll be talking about Activision-Blizzard's plans, because the direction that Real ID is taking may not be in Blizzard's hands.

Allow me to start with a confession: in case you couldn't tell from my repeated championing of the soloist cause, I'm an introvert. For those who don't know, and for those who need a reminder (as non-introverts often do), introverts are people who find time spent with other people tiring, and the more people they spend time with, the more tiring it is. Introverts need alone-time after spending time around other people because quiet contemplation and self-meditation is how we re-energize. Conversely, extroverts, the opposite of introverts, get their energy out of social interaction and find time alone tiring. Leave an extrovert alone for a hour or two and he'll reach for his cell phone; put an introvert in a crowd for an hour or two and he'll be looking for a spot where he can spend some time to himself to recuperate. (If you want to know more about introversion, Jonathan Rauch's "Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group" is an excellent write-up on the subject.)

Why do I bring my introversion up? Because, after reading Psychochild's post on the Real ID issue (which I found on Larisa's blog), I realized that a good deal of the angst we had over the Real ID fiasco could have come from our introverted tendencies. As Psychochild puts it, the internet has traditionally been the realm of the introverts. Because introverts find focused, genuine discussion in small groups much more bearable than more superficial discussion in large groups, we flock to the internet and the focused communities it can create. Digital activities in general are more likely to draw in introverts because time spent at a computer is usually time spent alone, even though, when we are on forums and the like, we are communicating with other people.

However, as Psychochild wrote, "a funny thing" happened to the internet; it became social. Social networking arose out of the extroverts' desires to use the internet to keep track of their ever increasing social interactions, for example, and online communities became larger, because the formerly small communities that the introverts flocked to simply wouldn't do for the extroverts. WoW, it seems, has also become a victim of this phenomenon. Thanks to its increased appeal to the casual player (because they prefer alone time, introverts are more likely to be dedicated players than extroverts are) and its growing popularity, which has the effect of causing more extroverts to bring their friends into the game, WoW is following the general trend of the internet in that it is becoming more of an extrovert's stomping ground than an introvert's stomping ground.

Because more extroverts are flocking to WoW, it doesn't surprise me that Activision-Blizzard would think that making the game more social in nature would be a good move, and the Real ID change was likely a first step towards making that happen. Real ID itself is a lot like social networking in its nature, and Activision-Blizzard was probably hoping to jump on that bandwagon to increase the appeal of WoW. This is where they crossed the line in the eyes of their introverted customers. As Psychochild says, "The problem is that introverts really don’t like being forced out into the open. Choosing to put information out is one thing, but when told that this is the only option, we’ll get fighting mad. Especially if sharing information is the gateway to a text-based communication medium like the forums, which is one of the old-school forms of communication that introverted geeky types enjoyed. In essence, Blizzard told introverts, “Expose yourselves to others or we won’t let you participate in something you probably enjoy.” When it’s put in that context, it makes sense that people would raise a fuss. But, I suspect that Blizzard hadn’t considered this, and figured that everyone has already joined a social network and wouldn’t mind."

Indeed, many people have already joined a social network, and that isn't surprising. After all, only 25% of the population (approximately) is introverted, while 75% is extroverted, and extroverts are the type to gravitate towards a social networking platform. From a marketing standpoint, it makes sense that Activision-Blizzard would jump at the opportunity to cater their game to extroverts. After all, it's probably more profitable to market a product towards extroverts than introverts, especially since extroverts, because of their social nature, are more likely to spread word-of-mouth advertising about the product in question. Between those facts and the rise of social media, is it any wonder that Activision-Blizzard and Facebook have been discussing ways to cooperate and integrate their respective technologies? It's a logical result of the extroverts' desires to bring more of their social tendencies into what has traditionally been the introverts' realm.

And sadly (sadly for me, at least), I see that trend continuing into the future. As the WoW gets more popular, with more people opening up to the possibility of casual gaming and with Blizzard developing their game to cater to the casual gamers, more people are going to play. Now, what do extroverts love? Large groups of people to interact with. And what do introverts shy away from? Large groups of people to interact with. These facts sustain a vicious cycle that causes anything that becomes popular to attract extroverts and drive away introverts. Quite simply, WoW is a victim of its popularity; as WoW becomes more popular, more of the WoW-playing population will become extroverted, as the size of the community drives away the introverts that got this game off the ground. And with a more extroverted player base, you can bet that changes like the Real ID change will be pushed harder by Activision-Blizzard, and will probably be more well received. If they've learned their lesson from this attempt, their going to make this happen slowly, until Real ID reaches a point of integration where the use of real names on the forums isn't that big of a stretch.

Now, for you extroverts (if any of you reading this are extroverts; as Psychochild says, those who are serious enough about WoW to read/write blogs about it likely at least have introverted tendencies), this may be a good thing. It will mean that a genre that was typically not designed with you in mind (MMOs) will finally be open to you. However, it also means that we introverts will need to either adapt to this changing game and try to find ways to limit our social interaction within what will likely be an increasingly social game, or just move on to other, less popular and more introvert-oriented games. I can imagine a future for WoW where telling your guildmates that you don't use Real ID will be equivalent to telling your real-life friends you don't use Facebook, and this will likely be in a world where Real ID is not dissimilar from Facebook.

So, to those of you who look at a future like this with disdain and loathing, hoping it will not come to be, I say, enjoy this while it lasts. Enjoy Cataclysm, read up on all the news you want, concern yourself with the seeming inferiority of one particular element, be it a class's talents or a profession's new patterns. Revel in these relatively minor concerns for as long as you can, for we have been given a glimpse of a dismal future where, for us introverts, game balance will be the least of our concerns. And for you extroverts, well, your time will come. It may be at our expense, but it will come...

Now please excuse me; the druid needs some time to mull over all this. Don't worry, Monday's post will be more cheerful than this one; I promise.