Comments on: Error 37? Eh, I’ve Got Your Customer Service Right Here!

By: Azméa

Azméa — Tue, 29 May 2012 10:31:46 +0000

Lol I’m such a mess emotionally today that this actually made my eyes tear up

By: Valentin

Valentin — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:49:23 +0000

The amazing PR was the “hoped for” CONSEQUENCE of a financial decision, and this financial decision was made because they could afford to make it. As I said, no matter how good the PR could potentially be, they would not have done this if they could not afford it financially.

By: pliers

pliers — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:16:36 +0000

Blizzard did nothing wrong to make these people in their unfortunate situation. I imagine most of them would sigh and repurchase the game. This is amazing PR, but is not primarily a financial decision (unless you want to argue that good will over the next 10 years is more valuable than a few million dollars).

By: Valentin

Valentin — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:01:44 +0000

It was a business-savvy move, done because they made some internal calculations and realized that they wouldn’t be losing an unacceptable amount of money on doing this. Why lose an assured number of Diablo 3 Expansion 1,2,3 customers now by NOT doing this move, when you can take a pocket-change loss of probably couple of million dollars and make it up through, as I said, future expansions as well as, NOW I REMEMBER, money made from RMAH transactions.

At 22 million people, it’s not like Australia has offered hundreds of thousands of Blizzard gamers, so, lets just say 100k Australians ordered through GAME.
If all 100K put down 50$, Blizzard’s loss is 5 million, which is something that Activision will have no problem spinning/explaining it to their investors in the quarter call.

To put it another way, ANY gaming company will do something like this if it will make sense financially (I mean, would you do this if you KNEW that pulling such a move would bankrupt you?). So, small, acceptable loss now, guaranteed bigger reward later.

By: Beruthiel

Beruthiel — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:32:58 +0000

Eh, a lot of people probably just don’t understand exactly what happened. And a lot of people also just like to complain about anything

It is a shame, but I agree with Johnathan, people on the internet will be jerks about anything!

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:45:48 +0000

So goes the internet forum community. A dude could cure cancer and there would still be people pissing and moaning about it (Didn’t cure it fast enough, did not make enough cure to meet immediate demand).

By: sayling

sayling — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:12:08 +0000

Unbelievably, some people are trying to diminish the benevolent gesture here (see Wow Insider comments).

By: Zy

Zy — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:21:13 +0000

Thanks for posting about this, it’s good news to get out there.

By: Rades (@_Rades)

Rades (@_Rades) — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:07:58 +0000

I’m so glad you wrote about this, Beru! So often we forget that Blizzard’s customer service really is quite good, especially when compared to equivalent companies. They absolutely didn’t have to do this, but if I was one of the people affected, this would guarantee me to be a loyal lifetime fan, that’s for sure. Much kudos to them here.