World of Warcraft Creator Blizzard Caves on Real-Name Plan

After feeling the wrath of World of Warcraft gamers for days, Blizzard Entertainment says it’s abandoning a plan that would have exposed the real identities of people who play its popular online games on the company’s discussion forums.

In a post on those same discussion forums Friday, Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime said the company has “been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums.”

“As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums,” Morhaime wrote.

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