Blizzard responds to the BlizzCon ticket problems
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 15th 2008 at 3:00PM
Tamara Chuang from Blizzard's hometown Orange County Register has been following the BlizzCon ticket story here at WoW Insider, and she finally heard back from her queries to Blizzard about what happened earlier this week. The Q&A is up on her blog right now -- Shon Damron of Blizzard's PR team responded to a few questions about what happened on Monday and Tuesday at Blizzard and what they'll do differently to sell tickets to their events in the future.Not surprisingly, Blizzard says they just weren't prepared for the demand -- last year, tickets sold much slower, and the close release date of the next expansion, in addition to the growth of WoW over the past year and, on the horizon, interest in Starcraft II and Diablo III, pushed fervor for tickets to a high. Blizzard thought by adding in more space and selling more tickets they'd account for demand, but they say a review of the entire process is now in order.
Damron says a lottery (like the one they plan to use to sell the extra 3000 tickets) will be a definite possibility. We'll have to see exactly how that process works as Blizzard sells off the rest of the tickets for this year's BlizzCon, but it does definitely sound to us like they are taking serious considerations to make sure that buyers of BlizzCon tickets, many of Blizzard's biggest fans, don't go through what happened earlier this week again.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, WoW Social Conventions, Blizzard, News items, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Xearo Aug 15th 2008 3:09PM
A Lottery?? Are you kidding me? Just get Ticketmaster, or a stable method for people to order. If the loot tables of WoW are any sort of indicator, I'll be waiting on pure luck to go, or I'll have to "save my blizzcon DKP" to buy a ticket... It's not Rocket Science guys...
Tryst Aug 15th 2008 4:02PM
They mention in the article that they might use a lottery system to distribute tickets for BlizzCon 2009. I hope they do not implement this. I'd rather get my tickets because I get through to buy them. Oh well.
Ktok Aug 15th 2008 3:17PM
Lottery is a horrible idea. Just make a store that's stable... simple as that. I'd rather be able to plan who I go with in advance, rather than based on who got lucky enough to win a lottery for 10,000 tickets out of 10,000,000 customers. That's just... idiotic.
Yes, I know, a lot of plans were screwed up by a failing store *this* year. So... fix the store! Lord, all the servers they have to run WoW and they can't get a few more servers to make their store more stable? Don't even try handing me that...
Nick Aug 15th 2008 3:45PM
Actually the Lottery is intended to be a second chance for only those who had active account prior to the tickets being sold out. It's in fact a more fair shot than trying to be the fastest person...
Ktok Aug 15th 2008 4:46PM
The article in question states that Blizzard may use a lottery for the entire ticket pool next year though. That's what concerns me.
I have no problem if they do it half and half even... but making the entire pool of tickets a lottery is not cool.
Personally though, I'd rather see more cons. Or at least one on each coast. Assuming everyone isn't crazy enough to try and go to both of them, it would open up the experience for a lot more fans, especially those who can't make the trip to the other side of the country. Sadly, most of my guild falls into the "not enough time/money to fly from the East coast to CA" category.
Well, that, and at least one phobia of flying ;)
Nick Aug 15th 2008 4:53PM
Yeah. Lets hope that this lottery isn't for each con and just a fair shot for those who were cheated out of a chance by sloppy web handling.
Cause yeah... then it become more of a contest than an actual event...
Ahoni Aug 15th 2008 3:24PM
LOL. Everyone just needs to get a grip. This whole thing reminds me of when Bruce Springsteen tickets went on sale in the NJ/PA area at the height of his Born in the USA popularity boom. Not only were Ticketcrapster overwhelmed, they crashed the phone systems in 3 states. You could not place a phone call in NJ that day, it was bloody hysteriical.
Face it people, there is no way in hell Blizzard can win here. They have 12,000 tickets to a convention. They have tens of millions of fans. Whatever method they picked to deal with the situation, some people were getting screwed out of "their" tickets.
Does that excuse what happened? Nope. Blizzard makes some seriously crappy webservers. The WoW site is slow. The armory site sucks. They just don't do web servers well. Really no surprise here.
Candina@WH Aug 15th 2008 4:03PM
/agree
Lets do the math (math is fun!)
12,000 tickets for Blizz Con
10,000,000 ACTIVE WOW Accounts
5,000,000 (Conservative) Starcraft Players
5,000,000 (Conservative) Diablo Players
Lets De-dup and put the whole population at 12,000,000 (EXTREMELY conservative)
1% of 12,000,000 is 120,000 people. This is considered the 'fringe'.
12,000 is 0.1%. This could be considered the Lunatic Fringe.
It has been my experience that most marketing departments are heavy on 'creative' types and often very light on 'numerative' types. ;-) 'We didn't expect the volume...'
jbodar Aug 16th 2008 9:33PM
@Candina
The vast majority of WoW subscribers are overseas and not as likely to fly halfway around the world to Blizzcon though.
"World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia."
Source: http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/080122.html
So, I'd say your final figure is not that conservative, considering the cost of airfare nowadays. They were still quite naive to not expect such demand though.
JPN Aug 15th 2008 3:35PM
"Damron says a lottery...will probably be a definite possibility."
Really? So it might be for sure a maybe? That's pretty concise.
Raegn Aug 15th 2008 3:39PM
Wowinsider.com already reported on Mike Morhaime (sp?) apologizing and confirming that an additional 3000 tickets are going to be distributed by lottery.
Mike, I'm not trying to be mean, but you made it on to G4 because of your WoW prowess; you should actually read your fellow bloggers on occassion.
You make yourself look like crap by not doing so. Lead blogger, sure; lead information source? Polar opposite of the truth. You must care since you do this job. Please listen.
To help prove this, any posters who agree that Mike has posted the same content after his colleagues, or has rehashed an already covered topic, please respond to this post.
If you're designated as lead blogger for an AOL derivative, shouldn't you be held to an above average standard? Only the deserving should make it on TV. Does Mike live up to that? Please post - based upon comments I will post the link to the "Contact Us" site of WoWinsider for those who don't have it.
We would appreciate an honest response from you Mike. You're human, we get that. Why are your posts such as they are (see above)?
Tryst Aug 15th 2008 3:58PM
What are you talking about? This is linking to an article in the OC Register where the reporter is interviewing a Blizzard employee, not Mike Morhaime. He's not even mentioned in the article. I, for one, was very interested in hearing the specifics of what happened on Monday and Tuesday, especially that the store was up for a combined total of 15 minutes over the two day period.
Prophetik Aug 15th 2008 5:12PM
What the hell? Please read before you flame....he's posting about an interview The OC Register conducted with the PR person from Blizzard.
Raegn Aug 15th 2008 9:32PM
The issue is one that has been brought up in many of Schramm's posts in the recent past; he nearly always posts information already posted by his fellow bloggers. Despite the information source his article quotes, all of the content his article elaborates upon has already been covered. Instead of being a fanboy, trying being objective and researching my points before you try to shoot them down.
Mike has a history of being the laziest blogger on this site in his reporting. That being said, maybe he has RL commitments that prevent him from checking in as much as he would like. I respect that but I certainly hope Dan Whitcomb pays attention to his readers as the editor of this site.
Dan, looking at the comments, do you really feel Mike deserves to be lead? Rossi does immeasurably better to the reader's eye. I'm not trying to be overly critical, but please. This guy makes it onto a cable network when he is arguably the most shallow writer on staff (outside of Moo - and her role is far different from Mike's).
So Tryst, L2Research.
Tryst Aug 16th 2008 8:39AM
"Wowinsider.com already reported on Mike Morhaime (sp?) apologizing and confirming that an additional 3000 tickets are going to be distributed by lottery."
Nowhere in Mike's article or in the OC Register article does it refer to Mike Morhaime's apology. Mike refers to the statement the Blizzard person makes in the article saying that BlizzCon 2009 tickets might be distributed via lottery and then he links to the other article about the 3000 BlizzCon 2008 tickets being sold by lottery. Linking in parenthesis is not reporting something as new. The "thesis statment" of your article is incorrect.
Mike summarized the article quite well. If Blizzard is repeating itself or is confirming suspicions that were posted on the forums that's not Mike's fault. Besides the article telling us that Mike Morhaime had apologized this is the only other source of information I've seen that comes straight from Blizzard.
I'm not going to waste my time researching whether or not someone is doing their job properly - unless I'm managing them, of course. I couldn't give a crap if Mike does a good job. If I don't like his article, I don't read it. I come here for info so I don't have to find it myself. BUT, I will throw down with you to research any other interesting topic out there. C'mon, let's see what ya got.
guy brand Aug 15th 2008 3:43PM
I agree, just get ticket master lol. Let professionals sell your tickets.
I spent 2 days refreshing my browser night and day. Maybe next time they could communicate better. Never been so frustrated.
Robert Aug 15th 2008 3:50PM
Statement from Mike Morhaime
Posted by: MikeM| 8-13-08
YAY FOR 2 DAY OLD INFO. TY SO MUCH FOR THIS!
Eric Aug 15th 2008 3:52PM
Poor Blizz having to deal with such fanboy ideals, stability in a store thats more popular than walmart, even if it is only for the Blizzcon tickets for an hour. Its cool how everyone thinks that computer tech is magic...
I understand Blizz shit happens, too bad rabid fans can't take it or even understand it.
Blizz doesn't actually MAKE servers, they buy them and put their software on it. The sites tend to be too flashy for even broadband internet with all the images and crap.
Really there is no excuse for people trying to make Blizzard out to be the bad guys, its the fanatical fan base that really need to get over it.
Maybe next year this can be avoided, expect it to be the same.
Robert Aug 15th 2008 3:52PM
Statement from Mike Morhaime
Posted by: MikeM| 8-13-08
YAY FOR 2 DAY OLD INFO. TY SO MUCH FOR THIS!
Tryst Aug 15th 2008 4:02PM
This article from the OC Register came out this morning and contains further details about what happened. L2READ.