Mike Morhaime apologizes, offers 3000 more BlizzCon tickets
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 14th 2008 at 2:10AM
If you haven't heard by now, there were some problems with Blizzcon tickets. A lot of problems.
However, it looks like even Blizzard now realizes that they could have done a lot better during those 2 days of Fail Murloc agony. Blizzard President Mike Morhaime has just posted a personal apology for all the trouble with tickets on the official BlizzCon site.
In addition, he's announced that they've rearranged their convention hall space and will be able to offer 3,000 additional tickets. In order to avoid the problems of the last batch, they will be sold by a lottery system, and only sold to those with an active Blizzard account as of August 12th, 9 PM PDT, the time when the last batch of tickets was officially sold out. Further details on the lottery will be posted when they finalize their plans.
Of course, There's probably far more than 3,000 customers who were put out by the problems, but this is probably as much of an olive branch as we can expect, given that they can't overpack the convention halls and it's likely too late to find or create a new, larger venue.
Hopefully though, Blizzard is serious when they say that they will do what it takes to prevent this from happening in the future. We'll look forward to buying our tickets for BlizzCon 2009 without the presence of the Fail Murloc.
Filed under: Events, WoW Social Conventions, Blizzard, News items, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Lenina Aug 14th 2008 2:24AM
Even though they won't be able to offer tickets to everyone who was unable to get one, I think it was very professional of them to admit their problem and offer the best solution they were able to.
/tip hat
Finnicks Aug 14th 2008 3:05AM
Blizzard owes me 10 cents in royalties for every lottery entry!
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8765644929&sid=1
:D
Stabbarella Aug 14th 2008 3:18AM
And you owe me 20 cents since I posted that idea late monday morning in the 250+ page thread that has since been deleted :P
vlad Aug 14th 2008 1:38PM
@3 screenshot or it never happened!
@2 a lottery is not a copyrightable concept :P
zrob Aug 14th 2008 2:31AM
Cheers Mike,
While I've taken myself out of the running since the end of sales yesterday and spent my ticket+plane money on a new ipod, I genuninely appreciate this apology. It means a lot.
Tenros Aug 14th 2008 2:36AM
I agree, though this will probably not appease most people who hoped for tickets, it's the best Blizzard could do right now for their customers. I'm glad to see they owned up to their mistakes and are at least trying to make it better.
Jennifer Aug 14th 2008 2:36AM
I'm actually surprised and impressed that Blizzard took the guts and actually apologized (as they should).
This will do much to appease those of us who lost hours upon hours messing with their buggy system -- ticket or not.
It was a very good move, and I do appreciate the effort to fix things.
DirtyPriest Aug 14th 2008 2:39AM
Possibly, they should do this next time. Just let people sign up ahead of time. Then send out invites based on lottery (with all the competition for the tickets it might as well be random). Kind of what they did with the frostmourne replica. So you don't have millions of people ramming the server at the same time.
Ktok Aug 14th 2008 8:46AM
That would only work well if you don't have friends... or if they let you sign up to get multiple tickets should your number come up.
kpurdy_ Aug 14th 2008 2:44AM
help us Mike Morhaim... you're our only hope
Greengiant Aug 14th 2008 2:46AM
I think it was a great move on Blizzard, I knew they were going to do something to try and make it up.
Just think about it this way, Blizzard always learns from their mistakes, so next years blizzcon will BE HUGE!!!!!
They might even host it in a much bigger venue like how some of the WWI were held. Olympic stadiums anyone? :-D
Even though I have tickets this year, I really want to goto their next event because due to the mass of people trying to goto this one they are bound to make it huge for the next one :)
This is really an exciting time for gamers world wide, Gaming is finally starting to get accepted in the US like it is in Korea with games like World of Warcraft.
If you don't get to go this year, just remember that the next blizzcon is really going to be LEGENDARY!!!
shotjustice Aug 14th 2008 5:58AM
First, let me say /agree with pretty much everyone above.
Second, I think that if Blizzard worked with sites such as ebay to catch the scalpers, there could potentially be an additional 1000 tickets made available from confiscation. But, that's on Blizzard's shoulders to address, and I don't expect it to be an easy thing to do.
Third, in reference to the idea of a larger venue for next year, I doubt Blizzard will move the con outside of their "home turf", if you will, of southern California. And I don't know of an indoor venue much bigger than Anaheim CC at that kind of price. The LACC is almost certainly more expensive by a large degree. What Blizz might consider is using LA Live or somewhere similar, which mean they could potentially expand to meet demand; rent Nokia Theatre LA Live, Staples Center, and even expand into portions of LACC as they need. This would give them significantly more flexibility in attendance, IMO.
Elilara Aug 14th 2008 2:52AM
That's really good to hear! I won't be able to get one since I wasn't registered on the site in time, but I'm very glad those who had the ticket in their cart, filled out info, then were told it was sold out, will have another chance! I'll plan ahead for next year :D
Araidine Aug 14th 2008 3:01AM
YAY!
OnniHopeDream Aug 14th 2008 3:05AM
/roll
I just got an 87, beat my roll for the blizzcon ticket!!!
Manatank Aug 14th 2008 3:17AM
Let me be the first to say that I think this is silly. Blizzard didn't do anything wrong in the first place. All of the jerks hitting refresh should have known better, and don't deserve to go in the first place.
Eh? Aug 14th 2008 6:40AM
"Let me be the first to say that I think this is silly. Blizzard didn't do anything wrong in the first place. All of the jerks hitting refresh should have known better, and don't deserve to go in the first place."
Thank you very much for pretty much calling EVERYONE who tried to get tickets "jerks." How very arrogant to have that sort of attitude and say who does or does not "deserve" to go.
Blizzard is very much at fault here for not paying attention to their community to see that the initial response to there being another Blizzcon was so much more intense than last year. They did not pay attention, they did not anticipate the load, and therefore their systems and their customers paid the ultimate price.
Network servers can be easily fixed, site and back-end code can be easily rewritten and optimized, but customer satisfaction and confidence in your ability to provide a product are much much harder to repair.
That the president of Blizzard himself apologized, the company admitted their failings, and are even working on a small gesture to help make up for it is awesome. Blizzard certainly didn't HAVE to do this, they sold all the tickets they said they had, and while it would have reflected badly on the company, they would have recovered the bit of reputation they lost eventually. By doing this not only do they recover that much quicker, but they show that they really do care about their customers in a way that precious few other companies do.
Please don't cheapen it.
larsiezwei Aug 14th 2008 3:46AM
Im grateful...and still hopeful. Im thankful that Blizzard Mr Mike apologized and really glad to see something done about it.. Im just hoping theres a good advance warning to when the lottery will go out.
Kettu Aug 14th 2008 4:35AM
Yeah, it was very good of them to extend an apology. Even though the chance to buy these 3000 tickets are going to be distributed via lottery, at least we have an actual legit chance to get another crack at going instead of playing 40+ hours of unexpected, and unwanted, Failoc Roulette.
peter Aug 14th 2008 11:54AM
Apologize? "Sharing the frustration"? Hm, yeah. I'm sure they're also very frustrated at the 300,000 US$ extra they'll cash in from the now frantic fan crowd.