Is barcoding more anonymous than a normal alias?

General Discussion
1

I just ran into a streamer who demanded that I, a barcode, release my identity or be labelled a coward. What do you think - is playing on a barcode any more anonymous than any internet alias? Is someone a coward based on what type of name they pick, or does this streamer just have a chip on his shoulder?

Here is his initial claim:

Streamer: why hide behind barcode to talk !@#$?

Barcode: why not, explain it to me.

Streamer: it’s cowardly. I dont know who I am talking to you know who you are talking to.

The conversation goes on for awhile, so I will paraphrase:

Barcode: Identifying accounts is really hard, true or false?

Streamer: TRUE! Look at SC2unmasked! There are tons of unidentified accounts!

Barcode: So, if identifying accounts is hard, then knowing a non-barcode alias is pointless because you still don’t know who it is.

Streamer: NOPE! Accounts are easy to identify!

Barcode: So, if accounts are easy to identify, you can punch their name into SC2unmasked and instantly know who they are, thus barcoding is not any less anonymous than a normal alias, correct?

Streamer: NOPE! Because I am not going to check sc2unmasked!

Barcode: You are calling me a coward on the basis that I use a name which is only anonymous because you refuse to punch my name into sc2unmasked?

Streamer: NOPE! SC2unmasked can’t identify everyone! (reads unidentified accounts on SC2unmasked).

Barcode: You just listed evidence, saying it is hard to identify accounts, which means aliased accounts are no different than barcodes.

Streamer: NOPE! If I knew your alias, I’d be able to recognize you!

Barcode: If aliases are easy to recognize, then I am only a coward because you refused to punch me into sc2unmasked at get my alias.

Streamer: NOPE! Sc2unmasked can’t identify everyone!

Rinse and repeat.

He then blocked me and called me a bunch of names on his stream. Ironic that he was repeatedly calling me a coward as I challenged his ideas in front of all the viewers who idolize him but of course he was blind to this irony.

The problem here is that he wants to eat his cake and still have his cake too. He wants players to be hard to recognize, because then barcodes are anonymous, but at the same time he needs players to be easy to recognize to support his original claim that trashtalking on an anonymous barcode is cowardice. Yet it can’t be if you can just punch their name into SC2unmasked and instantly find out who the barcode is. His “solution” to this error in his reasoning is to say that he isn’t going to punch a barcode into SC2unmasked, which means I am supposedly guilty of being a coward as a product of his own personal inaction. That’s completely absurd. His actions don’t prove my cowardice. My actions prove my cowardice.

Do you think Mr Streamer is correct? Is playing on a barcode any different from playing on a non-barcode alias any less anonymous than a barcode?

3 Likes
2

Obviously. I can’t even go a week of playing on a new name before everyone already knows who they’re playing. The lower the MMR, the more incognito you are.

If you gotta use a barcode to get an adv… you need to focus more on using better strategies. It’s ladder points, not the end of the world. Man up.

2 Likes
3

If accounts are easy to identify, then a simple search on SC2unmasked tells you who they are, and thus the supposed anonymity that is supposed to exist doesn’t exist, and you can’t therefore be a coward based on what name you pick. Given these facts, either all accounts are anonymous or none of them are. Either way, his claim that playing on a barcode is cowardly because it’s anonymous is false.

4

I’ve never used a name that wasn’t “Playa” with any intention of disguising who I was or something. I’ve absolutely never cared/even crossed my mind.

I don’t think you can really hide who you are for any meaningful amount of time in GM by using a non barcode name. The people who fool you are the guys like pilipili who would PLAY ON 50 ACCOUNTS. No one can keep track of all 50 of your accounts, especially when you’re playing on a new name every day.

Guy is playing on his 100th account that he created 5 hours ago, while blind countering you. So stupid.

Here is how I know, fairly well, whether I’m playing vs you or theriddler. I check to see if the person is blocked, lol. That’s about the only method of realizing who a barcode is before a game finishes. And obviously you can’t just block every barcode… or else there is no way to identify them.

5

After game. If you know who you play in game, you have advantage of knowing what strategies they like to use. Generaly, if you cheese every game, you wont get to GM without barcode or some way to transition while doing enough dmg for your bad eco to not matter.

1 Like
6

I’ve done exactly that and have witnessed others doing exactly that as well. If aliases were unique, meaning once you registered an alias NO OTHER PERSON COULD USE THE SAME ALIAS, then having an alias would make you somewhat identifiable. You still wouldn’t be identifiable if you were to play on a different account with a different alias. However, anyone can have any name they want, and at times there are dozens of people with the same name. Barcoding is a great example of this in action - dozens of people with the same name that are hard to distinguish because they have the same name. Ergo, knowing someones alias doesn’t tell you a blasted thing since it could be anyone.

The bottom line is that you are playing against someone who by definition is anonymous - they are some random dude somewhere on the planet, with a random name that he picked, which name can be anyone elses names, and he can change his name at will to any other name. SC2 is an anonymous sport. That’s how it is. Calling someone a coward based on their anonymity is illogical in an anonymous sport.

7

Who is this streamer?

8

That’s really going out on a limb there. How many people have you played that were using Playa that wasn’t me? I’ve never played anyone who was trying to imitate anyone other than Avilo, Livibee, and some girl player from WoL. So, basically, if it’s not geeky riddler, then “it is who they say they are.”

No one cares about one exception out of a billion examples. There’s nothing anonymous about playing SC 2 unless you try to make it be so. Given I only use my own builds, people instantly know who I am after playing me 1 time. I’d have to use a barcode or change my name every day to be anonymous.

If most of your opponents aren’t anonymous… why would you want to be anonymous? To gain a stupid advantage, outside of game play, on a ladder? W/e floats ones boat, I guess.

In BW, people rarely ever used their known name. Everyone had a 1000 accounts. It was more strange to play on a known account than a random one. It was just fun coming up with names and what not. It was more about “wearing a different shirt” than trying to pull one over on someone.

Part of why it was hard to be “known” is that no one ever knew you, given you always played on a different name. I don’t think it was even established that you were supposed to pick a name and stick with it. Like it was some kinda marriage or something.

9

First of all, streamers are obviously going to be easier to identify. That, however, does not hold true on average for the ladder, since the vast majority of players don’t stream. When you face against an opponent, you don’t know who that person is. The only thing you know is their alias, but that alias could belong to anyone. Anyone can create an account with any name that they want to.

Yet that is what your argument hinges on. Streamers are an exception. The vast majority of players are anonymous regardless of the fact that they use a non-barcode name. Even if a person uses a single account, with a single alias, and nobody else uses that alias, you STILL don’t know who this guy is. He’s some random dude on the internet. There is no effective difference in anonymity between a barcode and a non barcode. Both are anonymous.

This streamer just wanted to make himself feel good by pretending to be a brave, identifiable, individual (as if being identifiable makes you brave, lmao).

10

A guy can say he is a woman, but the next woman you see prob doesn’t have man parts. It would be dumb to not play to the percentages.

In GM… you play the same geeks day in and day out. Everyone knows who they’re playing. Everyone knows the barcode Toss is probably going to cannon rush them, regardless of who they are. Same players every day. If I’m facing Jimrising and it’s the typical time Jimrising is playing, it’s Jimrising. Don’t need to tune into anyone’s stream to realize that.

Anytime you’re curious who someone is… you look them up on sc 2 unmasked, and as long as their alias is shown… mystery over with. If you don’t know who you’re playing in SC 2… they’re not worth knowing or they’re a barcode. Or it’s Kane playing on his 98th account despite being “retired.” Always going to be one king geek.

1 Like
11

I am going to keep that as a secret. These people can be ridiculously unreasonable and petty and they command a legion of trolls who idolize them (their viewers). With a single command, a brigade of hundreds of trolls could show up and start shouting expletives and that would ruin the conversation about barcodes. He invited me to chat on his Discord, but I declined since I knew it would be nothing but him and his buddies shouting expletives to drown out my cold hard reasoning.

12

Not at all. In the past month I have played vs 312 opponents. 95% of those I played less than 5 games against and 58% of them I only played once. Sure, you are going to recognize a streamers name when they come up, but the vast majority of the time you will have no clue who this person is. That’s just from the last month, too. Go back one more month and it’s 508 total opponents. The total pool of opponents in the last year was 3557.

These are simply cold hard ladder statistics. There is no way you can remember thousands of opponents, especially when they are constantly changing their names and when names can be shared. It’s not possible. Is Kampfgrump and Battlefrog the same guy? No clue. There is no way to tell. These two people are completely anonymous despite having a non-barcode name.

1 Like
13

The higher the MMR the more exclusive it gets. In HotS, when I wasn’t tanking my MMR, I only played against a few people. Puck, Bails, Drunkenboi, Noregret, Hitman. You really don’t get to play against many players once top 16.

Things have probably changed due to “dead game.” When a lot of people are playing the game and the match maker never has to expand its search, you’re really playing in a bubble and have no clue what people are doing outside of a handful of guys.

14

This data is from Grandmaster league. If you were to fire up a replay tool on your replays you’d get the same result. It is not possible to keep track of who is who outside of exceptions like streamers and even then it is difficult.

There is no effective difference in anonymity between the name eASe and Utro and “IIIIIIIIIIIII”. They are all anonymous.

15

The way I see it is… I either know who I’m playing or the reason I don’t know the guy is cause his MMR is too low to care. If I don’t know them, it usually doesn’t make a difference unless they’re a Zerg player who all-ins every game. Not even trying to “take a shot.” That’s just the easiest way to beat Toss. It doesn’t really matter if I don’t know a Terran or Toss player.

P vs P is easy and Terrans just do the same s, unless it’s one of those guys who makes his rax somewhere in the middle half of the map and then makes a factory near by and 1 base all-ins.

16

Specifically we are evaluating whether or not it is cowardly to be anonymous. I am saying it can’t possibly be cowardice to have a barcode name when almost all other accounts are going to be just as anonymous regardless of if they are barcode or not. Either all accounts are anonymous and cowardly, or none are. Neither of these positions is tenable and MUST be rejected as false. You can’t label an account cowardly based on the name of that account.

17

I’m saying in my next 10 games played, I’ll probably already know what 8 out of 10 of them will do, due to me having played them every day for the past week. If I don’t know what they’re going to do ahead of time, they’re using a barcode.

For example, if you play me… there’s no surprise. No one is surprised about playing me. It’s basically a meme.

18

Again, I challenge you to look at the actual data - you will find you have a much greater pool of opponents than you realize. There will be hundreds in the past month and thousands in the past year. Given the sheer number of opponents, and the fact that they can set their names to anything they want to, there is no way to keep track of who is who. This game is anonymous by nature so having an anonymous account can’t possibly distinguish you as a coward.

This idea that anonymity is bad is a common mindset in this community specifically with regards to barcodes which is why I bring it up. Having a different name than your opponent doesn’t make you some virtuous saint - thinking you are better than someone on the basis of their name is pretty toxic which this community needs a lot less of. It’s especially toxic when you make those allegations publicly and especially if your name holds weight in the community. This only worsens if you are unable to defend your accusations logically & factually.

1 Like
19

Obviously it’s the similar concept of why people dislike playing against random. They know your race, while you’re playing in the dark.

You can’t say you have doubts about whether you’re playing me or not or what strategy I will do. If I wasn’t able to deduce I was playing vs you via checking whether you were blocked or not, I’m sure I would have lost more games than otherwise.

It’s more gratifying to win when there is no doubt your opponent knows who you are and what you will do, because… it’s harder to do. Regardless of how big an adv is or not, someone is always going to be miffed over a perceived adv.

When Pilipili was playing on his 6th thousand alternative account and trying to blind counter me, he had a huge adv. That simple. If I was also playing on my “6th thousand account,” the result of the games could obviously have been different.

It’s not news that people like the idea of a level playing field. Well, perhaps it is, given everyone still decries Protoss no matter what the stats show.

When you’re playing a smurf and they tell you who they are, it’s simply a gentleman thing, and it does make a diff depending on the diversity of their play style.

20

Nah, I think this is purely an ego thing. He couldn’t stand having lost to me, so it was time to discredit me as an individual and thus undermine having lost to me. I think that’s the basic reasoning behind all the people who complain about barcodes. They can’t stomach their loss so they have to downplay it. Undermining the validity of the loss by saying the opponent had an unfair advantage is a great way to do exactly that. It’s the same exact reasoning as Avilo and his cries about maphackers and this behavior of barcode shaming should be seen as just as rude as accusing your opponent of being a maphacker.

That’s only true if there is an exploitable pattern in how you play. If they try to profile you and you do something different, they will be even more screwed than a normal game. You can only gain an advantage from profiling someone who has incredibly predictable play.