Wargaming Scandal, E3 Humble Bundle

[longwd]

I'm not sure how many people here keep up with Wargaming or there soon to be released World of Warships. However somethings have gone down in the past couple hours that have seen the NA forums ablaze in anger.

During E3 Wargaming announced that they would be pairing with Humble Bundle for a deal over the course of E3. The deal would be that if you donate minimum $1 to Humble Bundle you would get instant Closed Beta Access, 1000 in in game gold, a Week's Worth of Premium, 5 ship slots, and a Tier 5 Murmansk Cruiser.

Many were curious if these gifts would be reissued after Open Beta Test and the account wipes.

A Game Developer created a thread informing the players that these prizes awarded through Humble Bundle would carry over after the wipe and be reissued to the purchasers once the game went into Open Beta.

Open beta started today and many saw that they did not have any of the Humble Bundle deals in their games. Suddenly customer service was flooded with complaints. Then a few hours later the same Developer who promised the players they would get the Humble Bundle prizes in OBT came back with this comment.

Captains,



Last week, as part of the E3 Digital Ticket Humble Bundle, we offered the chance to gain access to the World of Warships Closed Beta Test. For as little as $1, players were able to dive into the World of Warships CBT and receive a bunch of games in return, all in the hopes of inspiring you to donate to charity. For those of you who donated to Humble Bundle in support of charity--thank you!



Being involved with Humble Bundle, an organization that supports a wide range of charities such as the ESA Foundation, Child's Play, and Video Game History Museum are a noble cause, and one we've always wanted to be a part of. Unfortunately, we bungled this first-time effort. This is on us, not Humble Bundle.



Last week we said you'd get the Murmansk on your accounts after we went into Open Beta. That was incorrect; we had only ever intended to treat this partnership with Humble Bundle as an opportunity to preview premium World of Warships content and to help drive donations to charity.



While we were quick to work with Humble Bundle to revise messaging on their web portal on June 17, we neglected to revise our own forum thread topic from June 16. Should we have left that thread unaddressed for a week? No. That's our failing in effectively communicating back to you.



We screwed up, plain and simple, and we hope you understand that we're sincerely sorry. This was never our intention and we hope that you can forgive us for this blunder.



As we're about to leave port and head out to the Open Beta sea, we hope to see you in battle. There are some very exciting times ahead for World of Warships that we'd love for you to be a part of.



Sincerely,

gunlion



P.S. Any player who redeems the Humble Bundle code now will still get access to CBT immediately allowing them to have a head start before OBT, but they won?t have access to the aforementioned premium content.

This has resulted in hundred of players flooding the forums in show of disapproval and anger demanding that they honor the deal they had originally stated they would get. What are your folks thoughts on this?

 

[Redryhno]

Sucks that it was all intended to be a charity drive and they neglected to inform the player base until after they'd forked over the money.

Personally, I'm split on this. They offered one thing, and then changed the "you get this" to "They get this and you get nothing, we forgot to tell you that", which I'm very much against. But, it was sorta a too good to be true deal considering what I've seen of the game makes it a bit of a grindfest with the gold and a good ship to boot which I"m glad didn't make it over the wipe from a game balance perspective.

But I think I"m going to have to say that they should've told everyone this crap to begin with or not offer it at all. Charity's nice and all, but nobody likes feeling like they got ripped off or taken advantage of.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I was one of those who bought it on the 16th, before they changed the deal so I believe I deserve what I paid for. I believe that change would only apply to people who bought it the 17th and later. The solution would be to either refund us all or give us what we bought.

 

[guamunist]

I'm just peeved they were so cheap as to not give us a better ship if they were going to take the ship, the gold, and time away. Man they could have given us a tier VII or higher. Like it would have matter anyway it would have been gone in a few weeks. Another solution is if you bought into the charity drive you got to play space warships again. They made the promise that any premium time, doubloons or ships bought from the gift store would be given back in beta. Ok so the ship wasn't through the store. Fine but the time (1 week) and the gold 1000 I feel was purchased pretty much how they intended. We should get that at least as an OOPS.

 

[Xan Krieger]

http://kotaku.com/humble-bundle-confusion-leads-to-world-of-warships-ange-1714082047 Kotaku picked up the story, now I hope the Escapist does it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

And the people are rightfully pissed, the shit Wargaming sold was misrepresented... that is grounds for legal action in most countries.
I'm pretty sure they will honor the deal once the shitstorm goes big enough, but they sure as hell don't intend to do it just because it would be a decent thing to do.

 

[Pseudonym]

Well, if you offer people a deal and you tell them you are selling x product for y amount of money you can't after you've received the money decide not to give whatever product you've promised. This seems to be a stupid mistake and I don't know whether anyone could have known they were making such a mistake. None of the things they offered seem like they should cost the company unreasonably much to give away. They've already programmed it all. I do think they should give people the things they payed for.

 

[longwd]

Well they've come around and decided to award the Murmansk to the people who bought the Humble Bundle. However they haven't agreed to give them the 1000 gold and week of premium.

 

[Ricardo Lima]

While it was for charity they should honor the promise.

 

[kasperbbs]

Doesn't matter that it's cheap, doesn't matter that it's for charity, if i paid for something then i expect to get it as advertised.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Can't say it's the first time Wargaming's had to walk back something like this.

Seriously, they tend to cut the knees off of their PR folks every chance they get.

 

[The Lunatic]

Pretty much. It's entirely dishonest to offer something for sale and then turn around and say "Actuallly..."

They've now said they're crediting players with the Murmansk, however, are refusing to credit the 1000 Ingame currency nor the slots which were also purchased.

People should not accept half-measures on this matter. As a consumer, you are entitled to what you purchased, it is unacceptable for a company to give a half measure on them delivering a product that you purchased.

 

[longwd]

What's hilarious is that there are a number on the forums who are saying now that they got the Murmansk they shouldn't demand the rest and just be happy.

 

[The Lunatic]

What's hilarious is that there are a number on the forums who are saying now that they got the Murmansk they shouldn't demand the rest and just be happy.

Kinda like buying a shirt and being happy you got a tank top.

Honestly, I'll never understand how Wargaming fanboys can be so defensive of the company's practices.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

It all depends how official a thread on a forum is, and if that counts as official backing.

If you went in a shop trying to buy a fridge, and the spotty faced teen, distracted by some boobs walking past in the background, says a product is £250 instead of £270 then that doesn't mean you are entitled to the £20 off. It was a mistake. Humans make them.

When you buy something you essentially take part in a very small version of a contract arrangement. You agree the terms as you pay for the goods. Whatever was on the actual HumbleBundle site is probably the overarching agreement and anything that was released officially on their own sites/shops.

 

[longwd]

I think they are afraid to press their luck. They think WG may drop a hammer if people complain to much. However WG is to comfortable in their position of controlling the customer.

 

[longwd]

The humble bundle agreement originally said through beta. Not closed beta, or till open beta, but literally through beta. So people asked on the forums. Then Gunlion, an actual developer for World of Warships and Wargaming stated that it would be given back after the Closed Beta wipe and move to Open Beta. This was shortly confirmed by another Developer a few hours later. It wasn't till three days later they changed the Wording on the Humble Bundle but none of the developers noticed till a week layer. After which thousands had bought the bundles. No one was told it had changed till yesterday.

 

[lacktheknack]

The store I work at puts out a flyer every week. Sometimes, misprints happen, and we put redaction notices on the product displays.

The end.

As long as money never changed hands, then Wargaming is in the right to redact mistakes. Unless I'm misreading the situation, money didn't change hands.

EDIT: I misread the situation. They should get their stuff.

 

[Lufia Erim]

It all depends how official a thread on a forum is, and if that counts as official backing.

If you went in a shop trying to buy a fridge, and the spotty faced teen, distracted by some boobs walking past in the background, says a product is £250 instead of £270 then that doesn't mean you are entitled to the £20 off. It was a mistake. Humans make them.

When you buy something you essentially take part in a very small version of a contract arrangement. You agree the terms as you pay for the goods. Whatever was on the actual HumbleBundle site is probably the overarching agreement and anything that was released officially on their own sites/shops.

However if said spotty faced teen , distracted by breasts accidentally put a price tag of 250$ instead of 270$ and i get to the cashier and she tells me it's actually 270$. Not only is she required by law to give it to me at 250$ , but she has to take 10$ off that price. For a total of 240$ + taxes.

At least where i live.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

It all depends how official a thread on a forum is, and if that counts as official backing.

If you went in a shop trying to buy a fridge, and the spotty faced teen, distracted by some boobs walking past in the background, says a product is £250 instead of £270 then that doesn't mean you are entitled to the £20 off. It was a mistake. Humans make them.

When you buy something you essentially take part in a very small version of a contract arrangement. You agree the terms as you pay for the goods. Whatever was on the actual HumbleBundle site is probably the overarching agreement and anything that was released officially on their own sites/shops.

However if said spotty faced teen , distracted by breasts accidentally put a price tag of 250$ instead of 270$ and i get to the cashier and she tells me it's actually 270$. Not only is she required by law to give it to me at 250$ , but she has to take 10$ off that price. For a total of 240$ + taxes.

At least where i live.

Wow... That is definitely not the case where I live. I have no idea how it works online. Is there an international trading standards act, or is it the case of you get the rules of the country you are in? Or even do you get the rules of the country it's posted from?

Who knows... All I know is that some people whinging in a forum (probably with some of the greatest offences to the British Language known to man, angry mobs seem to have an issue with being literate) won't get them far, and there will probably just be a small 'payout' by the company to keep people sweet. Once they have exhausted themselves first. Small prizes seem a lot bigger when you are exasperated.