First round of BlizzCon 2009 tickets sold out in under 30 minutes

by Griffin McElroy on May 17th 2009 1:30PM

Convinced that the creators of their favorite PC gaming titles just weren't making enough money with its MMO/Class 3 Narcotic, World of Warcraft, Blizzard fans came out of the woodwork yesterday to throw buckets of cash at the aforementioned developer. No, they weren't generously donating -- they were purchasing one of the rarest scraps of paper in existence: A golden ticket to BlizzCon 2009.

Said buckets of moolah were flying fast and furious -- the first round of tickets, priced at $125 a pop (a $25 increase over last year), sold out within 30 minutes. Don't fret if you don't get your hands on any of the remaining entry passes (the next round drops May 30) -- you can always pay-per-view the entire event on DirecTV (or online) for $39.99. A hefty fee, but given the huge games they'll likely be showcasing this year, it might just be worth it.

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Tags: blizzard, blizzcon, blizzcon-2009, diablo-3, starcraft-2, tickets, world-of-warcraft

Reader Comments (24)

Simply amazing...while I don't doubt that Blizzard makes quality games, I just don't get the hype w/ WoW. Sure I went thru my MMO phase when Guild Wars came out...and then CoH...& even the Beta of LOTRO. I just don't find the graphical style of WoW appealing for an MMO. But hey...to each their own.

Strange, that's 29 minutes slower than I anticipated.

I wonder how many tickets total they had for this round.

The title of the article is misleading, they were effectively sold out within the first few seconds. At 10AM PDT they opened up a queue for buying tickets. If you didn't get in the queue within the first couple seconds then you were SOL. There were over 12000 people in the queue within the first 30 seconds of them going on sale.

I got tickets. The new queue system is much better than last years bumblefuck failoc system.

Blizzard needs to put more focus on Diablo 3

I think its safe to say that although Diablo 3 is going to be a fantastic RPG, Diablo 2 is probably the only Blizzard game that modern day games in its genre have surpassed, whereas with StarCraft pretty much no other (other than WC3) RTS has been balanced enough to support a real professional scene.

And StarCraft 2 is closer to being finished anyway.

Huh. I've played most of the worthwhile Diablo-esque games of the last few years, and I just didn't find any of them quite as entertaining as D2, which I STILL play.

Yeah, I think I'm missing something too. What game exactly has surpassed it? Sacred? Titan's Quest? Don't toss out Oblivion, it's not the same genre.

Blizzard needs to put more focus on Diablo 3

Or you could skip the direct TV broadcast and listen to www.wcradio.com's complete live coverage of every panel for free.

Do you get a WOW pet with the free stream?

Given the new queue system throttling the amount of people who could purchase a ticket at once, the actual sellout time was probably much much less. I was able to get in without a queue, but you had mere seconds before the tickets went live before you were too far in line to actually get them.

how do you know when they started to give the tickets out? anyone shares some tips on it. i wish i could get the ticket in the second round.

Check the fansites - WoW Insider, if nothing else. Most of them kept close tabs on what precise time tickets went on sale (10 AM yesterday, if I recall correctly).