Decision Making Process by Blizzard Entertainment Inc on Real ID implementation Essay Example

which they concluded not to make it compulsory for a person to use their real name. Looking closely at the decision process stated above, we can see that the decision process is compromise, since the final decision is made through negotiation. Also, given that this is a rather large organization, and also given that at the issuance of the statement above, we can clearly see that this decision was not made by the president of Blizzard himself but instead, he consulted from other stakeholders which then makes this a group decision. The company was getting feedback from players of World of Warcraft, and while some did not mind the use of their Real names for identification, many others turned this down and preferred the older ways where Real ID would not be necessary.

But then, people who wanted privacy were the majority and in this industry, if the players of a specific game feel like their priorities are being violated, they just stop playing the company's games and look for other alternatives. This would net to huge losses for Blizzard and given that it has been around for quite a while means they have big economies of scale and they would all be for nothing if the company were to face closure or receivership. There is also the case of lost reputation, which is next to impossible to comeback from, and even if the company would most likely be acquired it would be at a huge loss. With these facts, one would consider their decision rational, as it tries to maximize or reach the best outcome and also the final decision is based on the computational

model of decision making. Another element of a rational decision is that they considered the numbers, the people who were against this were actually the majority and were clearly the main reason that made Blizzard come to this conclusion.

The objective of the decision were dynamic, because the decision was based on the thoughts of very many gamers, as well as the developers of World of Warcraft. Like the developers, there were likeminded people who thought that there was good I creating a more human interaction oriented forum for all gamers, but for many other this seemed as a big breach in privacy. Therefore, they had to come up with a decision that would satisfy everyone, which was to not launch the implementation, or do nothing as a person with the decision making skills would say. Also, it could be that the developers hoped that the gamer would cave in to allow change and maybe let through the implementation of Real ID in order to match the thoughts of the developers.

We can see that there was little information to the developers as to which would be the best decision for this very delicate situation. Therefore, the decision made had to be objective oriented, to fix the current problem and then to wait and see how the situation would play out and look out for opportunities for sequential decision making that would create a suitable situation for the implementation of their objective in the near future. This decision making process considered was the process model because we can very well see that we can see the very dynamic decision making process, as well as the objective oriented

decision making that, is associated with this model. This, we believe was the best possible model for the task as it considers both the short term and also the long term objective and it helps achieve these means with as few actions ad there possibly can be.

It is important for a company as big as Blizzard to consider not just the best thing for the company for a few months but also in the long run, and while the objectives may not appear to be achieved in one action, they could consider subsequent actions that would lead the company to the goal in the end. The decision to not implement the Real ID project was bounded by the opinion of the gamers who were quite irritated by the decision. It is important that they follow the opinion of the majority of the users and doing otherwise would make the very fruitful hard work, time and money invested be for nothing. Other people that may have been thought of in the making of this decision include the shareholders, and even potential new gamers that would not have joined the World of Warcraft gaming forum had they went ahead and made it compulsory to use ones real name for registration. It could be said that the information to the disposal of Blizzard Entertainment was in plenty, and therefore unlimited and this may have impacted the decision as there was an uproar, referred to as the epic battle by the gamers since it was more less like a tug of war match where Blizzard tried to push the implementation of Real ID while many users were very much

against it. The implementation got nearly 50,000 negative reviews which can be considered a very big number of unpleased gamers and which would therefore require that the developer reconsider their decision.

The outcome of the decision making process could be considered as acceptable or unsuccessful. On one hand, by not launching the Real ID implementation to the forums as well as in gaming, they were able to keep their customer satisfied but then on the other hand, their objective to implement the project was unsuccessful. While most viewed it as an invasion of privacy, some saw it for what it truly was, a way to connect people. And while it wasn't possible to implement it then it doesn't mean that it will be impossible to do so in the near future. By applying the sequential decision making in the process decision making model, it just may be possible that in the near future they could implement Real ID.

Reference

1. http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3624/3006
2. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/120220/InDepth