Want to use Twitter in WoW? You’ll have to turn on Real ID first

Though I admit that it took me at least 20 minutes to figure out how to set up and use Twitter in WoW, when I did get it working, it just worked. However, this is at least in part because I use a game feature not everyone cares for: Real ID. For those who aren’t familiar, Real ID connects your real name to your Battle.net identity. When you enable Real ID and accept Real ID friend requests, those friends can now see your full name as well as what you’re up to in any Blizzard game — and friends of your Real ID friends can look you up, too. It’s a feature that players concerned about online privacy don’t care for, but you have to turn it on in order to use the in-game Twitter feature.

So why is this hurdle in place? Bashiok reports that Twitter was attached to Real ID because Blizzard wanted to tie it into parental controls. By putting it behind the gate of Real ID, it’s automatically locked (along with some other social features) for anyone playing with parental controls, while adding specific parental controls settings for Twitter would have required a non-trivial amount of work.

So we’ve gotten in-game Twitter functionality quicker than we otherwise would have. But at the same time, the Real ID requirement locks some gamers out of the fun — and, now that I’m sharing screenshots on Twitter myself, I’ve got to admit it is a lot of fun to bring your social circle into WoW with you by sharing in-game moments. Hopefully, eventually everyone will be able to enjoy the same.