BlizzCon tickets go up, Blizzard.com comes down
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Aug 11th 2008 at 12:05PM }
Posting on the WoW Forums, Blizzard urged frustrated clickers to ease off the panic button -- "Billing and Account Services and the In-Game Support Department will be unable to provide assistance" -- and dropped this vague reassurance: "Our Web Administrators are working as quickly as possible to remedy the issue, but I'm afraid there is no ETA at this time." While both Blizzard.com and the store have since reappeared, users attempting to purchase BlizzCon tickets are still slapped with the "Failoc" (pictured above) upon credit card authentication. We'll keep you posted.
Update [1:33 pm ET]: Blizzard writes, "This is top priority right now, and we are still actively looking into this issue. I can tell you that we have confirmed that no tickets have been purchased at this time, so no one should fear that they are going to be sold out while they are refreshing."
Update: Check WOW Insider for the latest updates.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Maverick Saturn @ Aug 11th 2008 12:11PM
Nerds ¬_¬ lol
Duke @ Aug 11th 2008 12:12PM
They don't accept farmed gold for the tickets people, so stop asking!!
Marty @ Aug 11th 2008 12:12PM
Gah, don't rub it in, Joystiq! I've been trying to get tickets since 6:30 AM this morning! :(
eldee @ Aug 11th 2008 12:14PM
personally, i think it's a little fucked up that blizzard would charge admission to an 'event' that just promotes its own games.. But people always buy the tickets so I guess it's okay?
Still, when was the last time anybody paid entry to QuakeCon?
Maverick Saturn @ Aug 11th 2008 12:19PM
Smart though, charging people to see Blizzard marketing schemes :)
Young_Nastyman @ Aug 11th 2008 12:29PM
I would pay 50, maybe 60, but 100 bucks a ticket is too steep for me, and this is coming from a PS3 owner and weekly Rock Band DLC buyer
Blazur @ Aug 11th 2008 1:13PM
The price of entry is indeed steep, but right now there's ALOT of excitement with Blizzard working on both SC2 and D3, and the opportunity to play either game ahead of release is enough to justify a ticket.
Gman @ Aug 11th 2008 12:18PM
Its up now...
Marty @ Aug 11th 2008 1:01PM
...uh, no it's not.
Blazur @ Aug 11th 2008 12:55PM
Based on the craptacular state of their public forums, I have little faith in the programming skills of their web programming team at this point.
Chris Mahoney @ Aug 11th 2008 1:05PM
The reason the tickets sell out so fast is the free stuff that you get from Blizzcon like beta keys and cool murloc mounts sell for way more than $100 on ebay.
The Eternal @ Aug 11th 2008 1:16PM
I was so close. 3 tix in basket, added badge names, entered CC number and it stopped. Same error as above. Keep refreshing and logged into CC to make sure I don't get charged like 100 times.
RiccochetJ @ Aug 11th 2008 1:44PM
This just reeks of the Rockies world series ticket debacle. Why the hell did they give so much advance notice on tickets then not have the proper infrastructure to support the onslaught?
Joseph @ Aug 11th 2008 1:52PM
UGH Illiadan " BLIZZARD IS NOT PREPARED!!
You would think that a company that deals with millions of online gamers that they would have thought this out.
Like the character transfers Create a Que for ticket processing..
Even Paypal does that..
Me @ Aug 11th 2008 2:39PM
blizzcon 2008? Didn't they already have this? If not, what was the event where they unveiled diablo 3?
Joseph @ Aug 11th 2008 2:51PM
The did it for the European Conference
dòómlord @ Aug 12th 2008 3:29AM
umm i think it was the WorldWide Invitationals in Paris
deCaff @ Aug 11th 2008 2:42PM
Meh 100 is not that much the expensive part was the ticked to US .
Al @ Aug 11th 2008 3:31PM
I don't think it is unusual at all for companies to charge for their "Events." IT Companies such as IBM, Cisco, EMC, etc... all charge thousands for their events.
In the Gaming world, GenCon and other gaming cons are fairly expensive on a much smaller scale (not sure if they have 10 million players).
Finally it is supply/demand, if the tickets get sold out in 2 days at $100, then modern economic doctrine states that price is too low. Hence people selling tickets for much more later on.
Also some of the "swag" gets sold for at least the cost of the ticket (and more).
I hope I will be able to purchace one.
Lurker28 @ Aug 11th 2008 5:07PM
I am stuck at the payment screen...I can not get passed it. :(
Rat @ Aug 11th 2008 6:39PM
I was able to successfully purchase tickets--or at least I'm pretty sure I was. I got the confirmation email and my credit card company confirmed that the charge went through. I think I'm one of the few, though. Keep trying. This is the most spectacular failure of customer service I've seen...ever, I think.
In my case, I got the error message after I hit the "purchase tickets" button, so I thought I was out of luck again (after trying since 6:30 a.m. this morning) but when I checked my email I had the confirmation note complete with order number.