China's online gamers furious over real name system

By Sophia Meng: Subscribe to Sophia's RSS feed

August 3, 2010 12:04 AM EDT

China's latest move to push netizens to use their real name for playing online games took effect Sunday, however, it irritated online users as no specific data protection methods were made accordingly.

The regulation, issued by the Ministry of Culture, states that players have to register using their real names, ID numbers, addresses and phone numbers.

According to the regulation, new online gamers need to register with their real names and contact details, and old players also need to submit their information within a certain amount of time, said Zuhai Tuo ,Deputy Director of Department of Cultural Market, Ministry of Culture.

Many gamers are concerned registering with real name could affect their employment prospects or lead to stalking in the real world. Some also fear that using their real names will immediately put them at risk from hackers.

Some of gamers posted their furious comments on various locam news site following the report of the issue.

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Following a report of real name system for online games on Tencent Tech site, Rain from Beijing replied that "Undoubtedly the personal information will be leaked." Chengle from Beijing even wanted to quit all of the games upon the policy.

Lexingche, a gamer from Ningbo commented on Sina Tech section, saying "I dont want to say more, just two words, 'I object!'"

Industry analysts in China,too, admit that new regulations will have their limits, especially when it comes to implementing a real-name registration system.

"You can get people to register their information, but you can't confirm that the person sitting behind the computer is really that person," PC World reported, citing iResearch analyst Cao Di as saying.

"Part of the fun of the online gaming would was the sense that you could construct a character different from who you were in the real world," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or the EPIC.

Rotenberg made the comment after Blizzard announced it would require real identities early in July. But he added businesses have "a lot of freedom" in doing so.

The number of netizens in China, already the world's largest internet market by users, has surged to 420 million by end of June, China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), a government-linked industry body said early in July.

Among them, the number of online video users rose to 265 million by June, and the online video industry is set to grow with new opportunities brought by the launch of tri-networks integration project, CNNIC said in the statement.

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