Did Blizzard just scam their e-sports fans and participants?

Games & Technology
1

So, the way I understand it, it goes like this:

Blizzard made a statement in this article:
xxhttps://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/22933274/support-wow-esports-with-your-toy-purchase

Show your support for WoW esports with two new toys, now available in the Blizzard shop and in-game shop.

For a limited time, every purchase of the Transmorpher Beacon or Lion’s Pride and Horde’s Might Fireworks, 25% of the proceeds will contribute toward the year’s finals LAN event prize pool for the Arena World Championship (AWC) and the Mythic Dungeon International (MDI) with a guaranteed minimum prize pool of $500,000 USD ($250,000 USD for each event.) Your support will help take the WoW esports prize pool to the next level.

Blizzard made 2.6 million dollars. 25% of those are 650K, at least according to player C9 Snutz.

Now, one would think, that the 650K from the players will be added on top of the guaranteed minimum prize pool of 500K and that would result into a total prize pool of 1,150,000 (or at least that’s the impression I and others were left it upon reading the original statement).
Apparently, that is not the case, not according to C9 Snutz anyways. You can check his twitter and a video with Asmongold as a source:

xxhttps://twitter.com/Snutztv?lang=en

xxhttps://twitter.com/Asmongold/status/1189342962985119744

What Blizzard are now claiming (according to Snutz) is, that they originally intended to add money on top of player contributions to make the sum add up to 500K;
but now that the sum raised by players exceeds 500k (it amounts to at least 650K), Blizzard themselves wont be contributing at all.
Meaning, that the prize pool will be comprised solely of the the 650K raised by the players, while what was originally called a “guaranteed minimum price pool of $500,000 USD” Blizzard will be keeping for themselves.

This seems funny and a scam to me, because Blizzard originally phrased the whole thing as if there’s $500K guaranteed, and that player contributions will take the prize pool to the next level (as in beyond that, or at least that’s how I’m interpreting this).
They never said, that if the player contributions will exceed 500K, then the prize pool will be comprised solely of the player contributions, and that the players contributing will be effectively giving money, so that Blizzard don’t have to contribute themselves.

So, there you have it. As if siding with communist censors wasn’t enough.

2

Go whine at a forum of a game that is related with e-sports (unlike Diablo).

1 Like
3

I’m not whining. Personally, I don’t care about e-sports nowadays, as I don’t find the games to be interesting and/or balanced enough for me to consider them e-sports.

What I care about is how Blizzard are conducting themselves. There are still some players on these forums, that are excited for new Diablo games. I figured they should be aware of how this company does things.

1 Like
4

The sponsors of quite a few tournaments guarantee a minimum prize pool (poker is a good example). If there are not enough entry fees collected to fill the pool, the sponsor covers the difference. If the pool, there is no difference for the sponsor to make up. This is very common, makes sense, and guarantees the participants a minimum prize purse.

1 Like
5

This begs the question about what was their tournament prize pool work was about last year; which they added a small sum of quarter million. This is not how they worked and they claimed most of it as profits without clearly paraphrasing it at the announce. They either need good PR workers or really have to hire more staff to double check everything. Is this a miscommunication between teams or there’s an intended misled?
This whole thing is actually a small discussion because all companies work for profits yet it still raises questions.

6

That’s all good and well, but here’s the thing.

For those of us, that are not familiar with how things are done in poker tournaments, Blizzard did a very poor job when it comes to properly communicating what they intended to do, so that it’s understood, especially when it comes to players, for whom English is not their first language.

Hell, I do not believe you can make the argument, that this is common sense, because most people avoid poker, or other forms of gambling, let alone follow their pro scenes and how they handle things.

The fact, that a pro player (who, after all, participates in tournaments for a living) failed to understand it and is now complaining on twitter and to famous streamers should be a sufficient indication, that they didn’t handle things correctly.

When I read it, I also understood, that there’s 500k guaranteed by Blizzard, and that player contributions will be added on top of that.

Hell, this is a native English speaker, and he was also left with the same impression:
xxhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk87SITPNQY