Hello,

Please allow me to start by apologizing for the frustration and disappointment that the last few days have caused.

Everyone here has taken this situation very seriously. The president and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Morhaime, posted a message to all Blizzard gamers last night (8/13/08) in response to this issue. Here is that message in its entirety:

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Blizzard Gamers,

On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, I want to apologize for the challenges and frustrations you experienced while trying to purchase BlizzCon tickets on Monday and Tuesday. BlizzCon is about the positive experiences you all have had with Blizzard games. As a result of this week’s events, the excitement that many of you felt about the show has turned into dissatisfaction and disappointment.

Due to these circumstances, we’ve reevaluated our convention hall space and come up with some solutions that will allow us to offer 3,000 more tickets for sale. We know this will not be enough to satisfy the very high level of demand for tickets this year, but we want to ensure that BlizzCon remains a great experience for those of you who are able to attend. To avoid the issues many of you faced this week, we’ll be selling these 3,000 via a lottery. We’ll post further details once our plans are finalized. Please note that the lottery will only be open to those with an active Blizzard Account as of 9:00 PM PDT on August 12, the time that the “Sold Out” notice was posted.

I, and everyone else at Blizzard, share the frustration and disappointment that many of you have expressed as a result of this process. We’ll do what it takes to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime
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At this time we do not have any additional information on the lottery or how the signup for it will work. I encourage you to watch (www.worldofwarcraft.com) and the BlizzCon Forums (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=9391140&sid=1) as details will be posted in both locations once they are available.

Thank you for sending us your concerns.

Regards,

Jim G.
BlizzCon Support
http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcon/