GamerNode: News - Blizzard apologizes for BlizzCon ticket fiasco

Blizzard apologizes for BlizzCon ticket fiasco

Category: PC, Posted: 08/14/2008 at 08:26PM EDT by Frank Ling, Content Contributor

BlizzCon for the Blizzard faithful has been held yearly since 2005. The event sponsored by Blizzard offers hands-on opportunities to play old and new games, costume contests, songwriting, beta tests, and the all important goodie bag; all this and more for about 100 simoleans, or if you reside in the US, that's $100.

But this year's online ticket sales went quickly south as the server started to malfunction for unknown reasons. The website froze, people were stuck at the checkout page, and lots of choice words were uttered.

Only a few were actually able to buy the tickets when they were available on August 11. So the next day, when the server was working again, the remaining tickets were sold out in a matter of minutes, leaving many frustrated and upset that they couldn't buy a ticket.

But Blizzard has seen the error of its ways and has apologized for what happened. Blizzard president, Mike Morhaime, said on the official Blizzard site:

Blizzard Gamers,

On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, I want to apologize for the challenges and frustrations you experienced while trying to purchase BlizzCon tickets on Monday and Tuesday. BlizzCon is about the positive experiences you all have had with Blizzard games. As a result of this week's events, the excitement that many of you felt about the show has turned into dissatisfaction and disappointment.

Due to these circumstances, we've reevaluated our convention hall space and come up with some solutions that will allow us to offer 3,000 more tickets for sale. We know this will not be enough to satisfy the very high level of demand for tickets this year, but we want to ensure that BlizzCon remains a great experience for those of you who are able to attend. To avoid the issues many of you faced this week, we'll be selling these 3,000 via a lottery. We'll post further details once our plans are finalized. Please note that the lottery will only be open to those with an active Blizzard Account as of 9:00 PM PDT on August 12, the time that the "Sold Out" notice was posted.

I, and everyone else at Blizzard, share the frustration and disappointment that many of you have expressed as a result of this process. We'll do what it takes to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

Ok, everyone can cancel their spells against Blizzard now. BlizzCon will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in California on October 11-12.