Don't forget that your prism account is not anonymous.
[1] example: http://classic.battle.net/war3/ladder/w3xp-player-logged-gam...
EDIT:
To be clear
>so presumably their RealId will be as well when the new system is implemented.
Is false on its face from Blizzard's announced policy. This, of course, eliminates the last concern of the parent.
Which is hilarious and retarded at the same time, cause I'm posting on the blasted Battle.net forums in the first place because of the game I'm playing (in my case, WoW). It should be in the context of the character in said game, not my real name. WTF does my real name have to factor in what I want to say in my realm's forums or something? And why require real names in subforums that are legitimately being used with little trolling that in-game GMs will actually tell you to go to to post about problems and such?
In fact, WTF does my real name have anything to do with whether or not I will troll? I can go create a new account with a fake Real Name quite easily, and that's only to troll on the forums. Trolling outside of the forums and in real life is probably going to explode with this change. Which I'm sure is great for Blizzard, they can stop hiring so many CMs to moderate their forums.
Additionally, I think you'll find I'm acutely aware of how non-anonymous my posts are, and have always been relatively tame in my posting history on all sights.
It's not the acting out that will effect the professional careers of the people. It's the fact they have the hobby at all which is an issue professionally, especially in this job market.
Which is going to be hired most places: 29 yr old who has a reasonably good background and hobbies include gaming, reading and music, or a 29 yr old who has a reasonably good background and hobbies include reading and music? For many fields, the second is a more attractive candidate, and not for completely irrational reasons.
Second part of the question totally varies. I'm in agreement with you that the first is probably more attractive. But, there are millions of game players out there. Hard to think that all of them self-hate.
I'm all for people being able to use their Real Names to establish a little credibility, but forcing someone to do so is going to make things worse, not better, because the trolls probably don't have much to lose, while normal, sane people that give forums like this their modicum of value, will be silent.
They will know that this will have their real name attached to it. If they don't have discretion before attaching their name to a long rant, I have no sympathy for them.
Friends of mine who play one of the Blizzard games (World of Warcraft) and work at a (non-MMO, console based) game company don't understand that everyone else views gaming, especially PC gaming, as a non-legitimate hobby and a questionable mark against you on a job search, funding search, or anything of the sort really.
It's not like religion, race, political affiliation. It's a very legitimate concern, as there is a tendency for people who play these games to stay up much of the night instead of getting a proper nights rest. They don't understand how much they're giving up people's privacy; lots of users will stop playing these games for professional reasons. The bank vice president: Gone. The guy running a business: Gone. The advertising exec: Gone. None of them can afford to have this come out professionally.