Blizzard to offer compensation, refunds for poor service of Diablo 3

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shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
Disagree. Blizzard thinks their reputation is so good they can get away with not buying the servers required for peak load and save money, riding out the waves of criticism until the load stabilizes to normal levels.

Sure. Its easy money. The more people buying and NOT playing, the better your profit margin. I'm sure they'd like the same with WoW too. Free cash.
 

Raider1284

Senior member
Aug 17, 2006
809
0
0
They should offer a refund for being a shitty game (compared to what they used to deliver) It's like buying an American car in the 1980s once good turned to utter garbage and cost of ownership very high.

If our modern economy worked like this everyone would be out of business.

you were the one that decided to buy this game, you werent forced to buy it.

There are no guarantees on software, there never has been, and their probably never will be. You could have done your research or waited a few days to read reviews or hear about early adopter issues. Its your responsibility as a consumer to know what you are buying before you buy it.

If you blindly buy something that is a risk you are electing to take. You cant demand a refund after the fact because you believe its a bad game.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
If our modern economy worked like this everyone would be out of business.

you were the one that decided to buy this game, you werent forced to buy it.

There are no guarantees on software, there never has been, and their probably never will be. You could have done your research or waited a few days to read reviews or hear about early adopter issues. Its your responsibility as a consumer to know what you are buying before you buy it.

If you blindly buy something that is a risk you are electing to take. You cant demand a refund after the fact because you believe its a bad game.

Won't ever change if you just accept it either. :colbert:
 

RPD

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2009
4,971
483
126
While I think people are TOO heavily bashing Diablo3 (keep in mind I didn't buy it, I don't support DRM as such with my wallet, regardless of how good a game might be), after reading all the people making all the noise about log in issues and everything else they might have with the game, I took a step back and realized; as gamers today we put up with a lot of BS with games simply not working or not delivered as promised, excessive down time or whatever and we have been conditioned to just accept it. Generally speaking the mob mentality is to just bend over and accept it. It must be true because the games still sell like hot cakes. As implulseE69 stated, if everyone continues to buy it, it will NEVER change and continue to get worse.

Why in this industry when people complain about down time, log in issues, with any game that has an online component, defends tell them thats just the "norm" and to accept it. Saying things like well there's just soo much code, hardware or whatever. That shouldn't be our problem!!

It wouldn't fly with any other product. Yes it's a video game, it's a hobby blah blah blah. But it's still $60 or whatever, it's still money someone is spending on a product they wanted. Say you bought a new dvd or blu-ray, it'd be like not being able to watch the movie for the first 1-3 days, or you could never watch it on a Tuesday. Who would buy a movie with a limitation like that? Someone bought and someone wanted to use it. What part of that transaction doesn't make sense, and why when people get upset about something so simple people are so quick to defend the defective product?
 
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gladiatorua

Member
Nov 21, 2011
145
0
0
You cant demand a refund after the fact because you believe its a bad game.
Yeah. But you can if the game doesn't work for you. For example if your connection is unstable or lags from time to time. Imagine permadeath mode with lags. If the game doesn't work for you for any reason refund should be available. It doesn't cost a lot of money and saves a lot of customer loyalty. When the problem get fixed people might return.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
Yeah. But you can if the game doesn't work for you. For example if your connection is unstable or lags from time to time. Imagine permadeath mode with lags. If the game doesn't work for you for any reason refund should be available. It doesn't cost a lot of money and saves a lot of customer loyalty. When the problem get fixed people might return.

Your answer is for them to offer a refund for the 2 days it was unstable? And that it doesn't even have to be a stability issue on their end? Should car companies be forced to offer full refunds on manual transmission cars because your dumb ass bought one and then realized you couldn't drive it until you learned two days later?

No, the issues were the game sold much more than expected and the servers were hit much harder than they expected. Access was limited for the first TWO days. Nobody forced you to buy the game on release day. A massively anticipated release has a few hiccups? Well, tough shit.
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
While I think people are TOO heavily bashing Diablo3 (keep in mind I didn't buy it, I don't support DRM as such with my wallet, regardless of how good a game might be), after reading all the people making all the noise about log in issues and everything else they might have with the game, I took a step back and realized; as gamers today we put up with a lot of BS with games simply not working or not delivered as promised, excessive down time or whatever and we have been conditioned to just accept it. Generally speaking the mob mentality is to just bend over and accept it. It must be true because the games still sell like hot cakes. As implulseE69 stated, if everyone continues to buy it, it will NEVER change and continue to get worse.

Log in issues were only a problem first few days. Everything in that department has been fine now basically for the last month.

Also, it will never change because how software servers work, in that they can only prepare for so many possible issues when they launch. Most the time at a launch of a online server game, an unintended issue or massive bug or too many people try logging on compared to the expected amount causes servers to have problems first few days.

It doesn't matter how many people don't buy it hoping it will change, because it won't, because that is the nature of computer software programming. Millions of lines of code, you will always miss a few important issues until enough people point it out at launch.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,107
1,260
126
While I think people are TOO heavily bashing Diablo3 (keep in mind I didn't buy it, I don't support DRM as such with my wallet, regardless of how good a game might be), after reading all the people making all the noise about log in issues and everything else they might have with the game, I took a step back and realized; as gamers today we put up with a lot of BS with games simply not working or not delivered as promised, excessive down time or whatever and we have been conditioned to just accept it. Generally speaking the mob mentality is to just bend over and accept it. It must be true because the games still sell like hot cakes. As implulseE69 stated, if everyone continues to buy it, it will NEVER change and continue to get worse.

Why in this industry when people complain about down time, log in issues, with any game that has an online component, defends tell them thats just the "norm" and to accept it. Saying things like well there's just soo much code, hardware or whatever. That shouldn't be our problem!!

It wouldn't fly with any other product. Yes it's a video game, it's a hobby blah blah blah. But it's still $60 or whatever, it's still money someone is spending on a product they wanted. Say you bought a new dvd or blu-ray, it'd be like not being able to watch the movie for the first 1-3 days, or you could never watch it on a Tuesday. Who would buy a movie with a limitation like that? Someone bought and someone wanted to use it. What part of that transaction doesn't make sense, and why when people get upset about something so simple people are so quick to defend the defective product?

Blizzard is a marketing master. They have the system of programming their customers to be attached and loyal to them down pat.

http://mpdev.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Documents/JM_Forthcoming/emotional_brand_attachment.pdf

People defend them to no end. If you step back and look at the marketing behind Diablo 3, it was masterfully done. In the bigger picture, Blizzard markets to their player base in really insidious and psychologically powerful ways. Hence, many of their players will defend them to no end like they are their close friend.

I think a portion of it is due to the addictive nature of many of Blizzard's games, mostly WoW though. A junkie won't defame their dealer, they need and love their fix.
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
While I think people are TOO heavily bashing Diablo3 (keep in mind I didn't buy it, I don't support DRM as such with my wallet, regardless of how good a game might be), after reading all the people making all the noise about log in issues and everything else they might have with the game, I took a step back and realized; as gamers today we put up with a lot of BS with games simply not working or not delivered as promised, excessive down time or whatever and we have been conditioned to just accept it. Generally speaking the mob mentality is to just bend over and accept it. It must be true because the games still sell like hot cakes. As implulseE69 stated, if everyone continues to buy it, it will NEVER change and continue to get worse.

Why in this industry when people complain about down time, log in issues, with any game that has an online component, defends tell them thats just the "norm" and to accept it. Saying things like well there's just soo much code, hardware or whatever. That shouldn't be our problem!!

Because that is the way it works. Unfortunately, if you haven't noticed the gaming industry as a whole is taking giant losses on new IPs so instead of treading new waters and thus resort to cash-cowing known working IPs. Who's fault is that? Gamers.

They remove dedicated servers from a game who built it's reputation on the MP aspect. Game goes on to break records AFTER gamers boycott it (the infamous boycott MW2 group where 90% of members were playing MW2.)

It is our problem because these are products we, a great majority, want. We put up with it because in the end most of us are getting something worth our exchange. The irony here is I'm sure you've supported a product that didn't sport a flawless track record but those negatives are far outweighed by the positives.

Diablo 3 is one example to some. Funniest thing I read is "some people have this issue" yeah but from what I'm seeing "million more don't." Be vocal, protest the devs, but trying to turn it around and point fingers as the ones who are enjoying the product as "it's your fault this is happening" is beyond asinine.

I think I lost sympathy for some of the whiners after some guy said he was bored with the game after mentioning he played 200+ hours when the game was out only for 3 weeks, factor in down time, that's 10+ hours a day. If you got bored after 10+ hours a day - how is that Blizzard's fault?

It wouldn't fly with any other product. Yes it's a video game, it's a hobby blah blah blah. But it's still $60 or whatever, it's still money someone is spending on a product they wanted. Say you bought a new dvd or blu-ray, it'd be like not being able to watch the movie for the first 1-3 days, or you could never watch it on a Tuesday. Who would buy a movie with a limitation like that? Someone bought and someone wanted to use it. What part of that transaction doesn't make sense, and why when people get upset about something so simple people are so quick to defend the defective product?

This flies in every other business. XBox 360 anyone? iPhone 3S anyone? There are countless products with defective issues that are bought by the millions. People will weigh the positive over the negatives in almost all situations.

What I find most amusing is people demanding refunds because a game isn't what they expected then turn around and say "you wouldn't accept it in x-example." Sure, go buy a music CD, a movie, and return it after you've opened it, watched/listened to it and see how that flies. There are certain restrictions on certain products set forth by manufacturers. The product isn't "defective" when your only argument is "I don't like the down time."
 
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railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
Blizzard is a marketing master. They have the system of programming their customers to be attached and loyal to them down pat.

http://mpdev.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Documents/JM_Forthcoming/emotional_brand_attachment.pdf

People defend them to no end. If you step back and look at the marketing behind Diablo 3, it was masterfully done. In the bigger picture, Blizzard markets to their player base in really insidious and psychologically powerful ways. Hence, many of their players will defend them to no end like they are their close friend.

I think a portion of it is due to the addictive nature of many of Blizzard's games, mostly WoW though. A junkie won't defame their dealer, they need and love their fix.

Wow, you were against the call-outs of shills in VC&G because supporters of a product support it, yet here in a reversal you are comparing proponents of a game to drug users?

The word irony isn't enough to explain how you attack people for their support of one product that isn't your preferred choice yet defend (accepting no fault) on a product you do enjoy. Incredible.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,107
1,260
126
May of came off as harsh, Railven. The important take away was some players, not all. Also not for simply enjoying the game, different strokes and all, but defending bad practice for gamers in general out of some blind loyalty.

There are people who are direky addicted to wow and addicts defend their addictions. Probaby too strong a thing to say I guess.
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
Unfortunately, if you haven't noticed the gaming industry as a whole is taking giant losses on new IPs so instead of treading new waters and thus resort to cash-cowing known working IPs.

Who's fault is that? Gamers.

The reason many games are "let-downs" or "bad" is never because it is actually a bad game, but because many gamers today have crazy high expectations for new games or expect their favorite aspect of a game will stay or get better in the sequel, when that isn't the design the programmers want.

Example: I expected my favorite MMORPG's sequel (at the time it was Asheron's call) to be utterly amazing. However it just didn't hold up to my expectations of the changes from the original. So I stopped playing that quickly.

Example: I got Halo when it came out on the xbox as a gift and knew nothing of the series or game. I thought eh... FPS not a huge fan of these. Tried it... became one of my favorite games of the xbox generation.
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
May of came off as harsh, Railven. The important take away was some players, not all. Also not for simply enjoying the game, different strokes and all, but defending bad practice for gamers in general out of some blind loyalty.

There are people who are direky addicted to wow and addicts defend their addictions. Probaby too strong a thing to say I guess.

My issue is how you generalize supporters of a game as drug abusers. Of course WoW has addicts, so does gaming in general (however, without gaming addiction being recognized as a mental disorder, we're just talking semantics), but in this situation you try to devalue people's opinions by some how trying to portray them as an extreme.

I understand some players don't like the game, and I've read through countless reasons. I've also read through countless reasons why players like the game. It's just idiotic to try to paint any group in some negative light from "fanboys" to "crack feins."

You've made your opinion of the game, and Blizzard of late, very vocal. How about sticking to the source of your problem - Blizzard.

I'd rather not be called a shill for liking AMD products nor compared to a drug user for defending Diablo 3/Blizzard.

The reason many games are "let-downs" or "bad" is never because it is actually a bad game, but because many gamers today have crazy high expectations for new games or expect their favorite aspect of a game will stay or get better in the sequel, when that isn't the design the programmers want.

It seems to always boil down to this. People act like they are owed something or deserve recognition.

As fans of a series, it does suck to see things change and even worse for something we don't approve of, but damn one guy above said "it isn't about YOU," well the same applies. If the change satisified a million people but pissed of a few thousand, geee...who's right?

Example: I expected my favorite MMORPG's sequel (at the time it was Asheron's call) to be utterly amazing. However it just didn't hold up to my expectations of the changes from the original. So I stopped playing that quickly.

Example: I got Halo when it came out on the xbox as a gift and knew nothing of the series or game. I thought eh... FPS not a huge fan of these. Tried it... became one of my favorite games of the xbox generation.

There have been countless products I've bought that I enjoyed only to be disappointed by follow-up/successors. I think it's natural for products/companies to try to evolve beyond the scope of what they were, else they'll remain niche. I hate seeing artist I like go mainstream because their follow-up album will be more mainstream sounding and auto-tuned, but whatever they didn't owe me to stay the same. ANd if that next album flops there is a chance they'll go back to their old style or maybe I'll like their new style. Who knows.

But acting hurt because of their change - really people? Really?
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
There have been countless products I've bought that I enjoyed only to be disappointed by follow-up/successors. I think it's natural for products/companies to try to evolve beyond the scope of what they were, else they'll remain niche. I hate seeing artist I like go mainstream because their follow-up album will be more mainstream sounding and auto-tuned, but whatever they didn't owe me to stay the same. ANd if that next album flops there is a chance they'll go back to their old style or maybe I'll like their new style. Who knows.

But acting hurt because of their change - really people? Really?

Not just acting hurt, but bashing others who still enjoy or now enjoy their "new album".

This is why I have adapted the practice of not looking too hard into games coming out.

I only find out:
A) Specs required (If PC)
B) Read 1-2 reviews of critics/gamers
C) See a picture of 2 of it.

If it entrigues me, I will purchase it. And normally it always ends up being a good game, since I went in with 0 expectations of a godly/great game. Unlike people I know who spent countless hours months before the SWTOR launch on learning every detail of the game, watching every video, and convincing themselves this will be the ultimate MMO just to turn up dissatisfied within the first 2 weeks of launch. (Not saying SWTOR isn't a good game, just that people who thought it would be so much more than it was, were dissatisfied with the game and it bore them.)
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
Not just acting hurt, but bashing others who still enjoy or now enjoy their "new album".

This is why I have adapted the practice of not looking too hard into games coming out.

It goes both ways, and I think that is why turns this into a f($)-fest. I know I'm guilty of it at times (often giving in to my inner troll haha.)

I only find out:
A) Specs required (If PC)
B) Read 1-2 reviews of critics/gamers
C) See a picture of 2 of it.

If it entrigues me, I will purchase it. And normally it always ends up being a good game, since I went in with 0 expectations of a godly/great game. Unlike people I know who spent countless hours months before the SWTOR launch on learning every detail of the game, watching every video, and convincing themselves this will be the ultimate MMO just to turn up dissatisfied within the first 2 weeks of launch. (Not saying SWTOR isn't a good game, just that people who thought it would be so much more than it was, were dissatisfied with the game and it bore them.)

I remember before the internets you'd get morsals of info from gaming magazines and they'd have, what 1 or 2 pages if lucky, of coverage. THat was enough to create the hype monster. Now you got flash videos, game trailers of trailers of trailers with pop-up's of trivia. It's gotten to the point where I think most people beat the game before it launches and since they already know the ins-and-outs they have nothing to surprise them.

I totally agree with that assessment. Or those that hold on to some pre-position based on previous experience, while very valid, and refuse to accept change.

Not saying everyone should like every product, but sometimes the complaints I hear make me laugh. For example complaining about the graphics but then saying you'd rather play Android games. Really? Just blows my mind.
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
It goes both ways, and I think that is why turns this into a f($)-fest. I know I'm guilty of it at times (often giving in to my inner troll haha.)



I remember before the internets you'd get morsals of info from gaming magazines and they'd have, what 1 or 2 pages if lucky, of coverage. THat was enough to create the hype monster. Now you got flash videos, game trailers of trailers of trailers with pop-up's of trivia. It's gotten to the point where I think most people beat the game before it launches and since they already know the ins-and-outs they have nothing to surprise them.

I totally agree with that assessment. Or those that hold on to some pre-position based on previous experience, while very valid, and refuse to accept change.

Not saying everyone should like every product, but sometimes the complaints I hear make me laugh. For example complaining about the graphics but then saying you'd rather play Android games. Really? Just blows my mind.

Or when people love to use opinion as fact for trying to prove a game they personally don't like or have a vendetta against is bad. This is a pet peeve of mine. It is ok to not like a game. It is ok if other people like a game you don't. Can people just accept this?
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I'm trying to think of a game where the lofty expectations of the gamers simply caused the game to fail, but I can't think of any. In my experience, the reasons games typically fail are:

1) Poor marketing
2) The game is just bad
3) The Molyneux Effect

You could chalk the third one up to lofty expectations, but those are directly caused by the developer. Since this is the PC Gaming forum, I'll go into a tiny bit of detail about it. I called it "The Molyneux Effect" after Lionhead Games' Peter Molyneux. His Wikipedia article actually mentions it in the beginning, so I'll just quote that:

Despite the success of his games, both critical and financial, Molyneux has acquired a reputation for issuing over-enthusiastic descriptions of games under development, which are found to be somewhat less ambitious when released. The most well-known case of this was with Fable, released in 2004 without many of the features talked about by Molyneux in press interviews during development. After the release, Molyneux publicly apologized for overhyping (sic) the game.
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
I'm trying to think of a game where the lofty expectations of the gamers simply caused the game to fail, but I can't think of any. In my experience, the reasons games typically fail are:

1) Poor marketing
2) The game is just bad
3) The Molyneux Effect

You could chalk the third one up to lofty expectations, but those are directly caused by the developer. Since this is the PC Gaming forum, I'll go into a tiny bit of detail about it. I called it "The Molyneux Effect" after Lionhead Games' Peter Molyneux. His Wikipedia article actually mentions it in the beginning, so I'll just quote that:

I don't know if there is, or enough numbers/evidence to prove that a game actually failed because of the overhype.

Just that when a game is below personal expectations people consider it bad because it was worse than they thought. If it meets their expectations they normally say it is ok, or good, or decent enough because it reached what they thought it would. If it exceeds expectations, many people will preach how amazing and great it is shooting off 9+/10 comments.

Though I do know how hyped SWTOR was from both myself, my friends and people I played other games with. And right now it lost enough people to condense servers and thinking of a f2p set-up. No one I know now still plays, last one to stay in SWTOR was a friend I plaeyd WoW with and he lasted a whole 2.5 months. (We were all certain it would be a "better" game than WoW, when it turned out it was just a "different" game then wow, we didn't enjoy it as it was nothing spectatularly new.)
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
Though I do know how hyped SWTOR was from both myself, my friends and people I played other games with. And right now it lost enough people to condense servers and thinking of a f2p set-up. No one I know now still plays, last one to stay in SWTOR was a friend I plaeyd WoW with and he lasted a whole 2.5 months. (We were all certain it would be a "better" game than WoW, when it turned out it was just a "different" game then wow, we didn't enjoy it as it was nothing spectatularly new.)

I'd definitely say SW:TOR is one example of a game that failed due to hype. We can go on about how well it sold, but that was definitely hype monster's reason.

4 months later and the game is debating switching from a pay-sub to a F2P. That is a huge loss in my eyes. Rift didn't suffer this bad. Tera seems to have a strong following (at least stronger than SW:TOR but it might be too soon to conclude.)

Vangaurd comes to mind as another MMO that failed due to hype. Sony preached the hell out of it, only for it to launch bugged, late, and overall a skeleton of what the original devs said it was suppose to be.

Oh, Duke Nukem Forever - that game totally flopped.

All I can think of for now. I'm sure I'm missing an obvious one.
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
Oh, Duke Nukem Forever - that game totally flopped.

I wanted to play this just for old times sake (loved the N64 one), but after hearing how bad it was I never did. It is now $10 at Walmart near my home. I may pick this up just for kicks.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,107
1,260
126
Here is the latest pile of fail from Blizzard, I would make a separate thread just for this, but I don't want to raise any more hackles...


http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/06/21/buy-diablo-iii-digitally-now-play-full-game-three-days-later

Buy Diablo III Digitally, Play Full Game in Three Days?

Want to do a speed run? Too bad.


by Anthony Gallegos
June 21, 2012



Most of the staff at IGN has been enjoying Diablo III. In fact, many of us talk about it so much that we've convinced friends and other co-workers to buy it. While plenty of people are willing to go out to a store or purchase a boxed copy online, many more turn to Battle.net and quickly pick up a digital copy. As of the new 1.0.3, though, new customers can apparently only unlock the full game three days after purchase.
In a post on Blizzard's support forums, the details are made clear (though not explained at all):
As of patch 1.0.3, when purchasing a digital version of Diablo III through the online store or your Battle.net Account, players are restricted to the Starter Edition for the first 72 hours (sometimes less). Players on Starter Editions have the following restrictions:

  • Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
  • Level 13 cap
  • Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
  • No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)
  • Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account's home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.
Basically, people who go out and purchase the game in-full are restricted to the content from the Beta. We've reached out to Blizzard for clarification, since at the moment we're just left wondering why this step would be taken. Perhaps it has something to do with restricting access in order to help server loads? Or maybe keep would-be farmers from buying a bunch of copies to put a ton of auctions up and get around the 10-item per account limit? Let's all speculate together.


So you buy the game and you can't play it fully because of a waiting period. Let's all defend this because Blizzard is incapable of having proper security in place.


This company has gone to the dogs.
 

mingsoup

Golden Member
May 17, 2006
1,295
2
81
Anyone know if this applies to US gamers as well?

I want one as well. I don't why I feel so thwarted. I've bought 100's of 60$ games and never felt I needed a refund. For some reason I feel that way with D3. I really don't like how they can sneak in and change a game so drastically overnight, a game I was very much enjoying.
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
So you buy the game and you can't play it fully because of a waiting period. Let's all defend this because Blizzard is incapable of having proper security in place.

That article bothered me. Now, there's no "shill" or "fanboyism" at work here, but rather that it feels like something I would see on one of those Mainstream Media networks (Fox News, CNN, etc.) that simply report whatever negative thing they see. The issue is that IGN is a news website, and they fail to actually do any investigative journalism to find out why it's like that.

How can you form an opinion with only a smidgen of the story?

What's even sadder is that reporting "Why?" doesn't even take any investigative journalism because World of Warcraft's digital copy is the same way. Fortunately, as an old WoW player who has run into this, I can tell you why Blizzard does it: gold farmers and hackers. The wait is there because the aforementioned people would use invalid (possibly stolen) information to purchase accounts. The information would fail days later, and the accounts would be revoked. However, the hacker already got to use them for a few days, which is good enough for them.

If Blizzard doesn't do this, you get more spammers and gold farmers in games, but if Blizzard does do it, people can become inconvenienced in other ways. It's sort of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

I'd definitely say SW:TOR is one example of a game that failed due to hype. We can go on about how well it sold, but that was definitely hype monster's reason.

4 months later and the game is debating switching from a pay-sub to a F2P. That is a huge loss in my eyes. Rift didn't suffer this bad. Tera seems to have a strong following (at least stronger than SW:TOR but it might be too soon to conclude.)

Vangaurd comes to mind as another MMO that failed due to hype. Sony preached the hell out of it, only for it to launch bugged, late, and overall a skeleton of what the original devs said it was suppose to be.

Oh, Duke Nukem Forever - that game totally flopped.

All I can think of for now. I'm sure I'm missing an obvious one.

What's interesting is that you mostly listed MMOs there, and maybe that means I should add a number four in my list: "The Next Best Effect". I'd like to think this effect is mostly present in long-lasting games (hence why MMOs were mentioned), because people do want new stuff, and if you mix that with the possibility of #3 in the list, you may end up getting a bit of hysteria over the two combined.

Although, I do think SWTOR is a decent example of user-based hype, which I would mostly attribute to Bioware being on the project. It wasn't uncommon for me to see, "Bioware is making it, and they make great games!" However, I'm not terribly surprised that this game is floundering. I wasn't impressed after I tried the beta. It's crazy how companies try so hard to "be the next WoW", but they don't even bring enough to the table. They think some gimmick like adaptive storytelling (i.e. slightly more interactive leveling in a MMO) will help them succeed. :rolleyes:

Vanguard just sounds like a bit of #2 and #3 though.
 

CottonRabbit

Golden Member
Apr 28, 2005
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I can see the # of refund requests skyrocketing now. If I bought a game and had to play the demo for 3 days, I'd demand a refund for sure.