When I was growing up, my next door neighbors kids were, to not put too fine a word on it, the neighborhood rejects. For a start, even at the age of 9, we knew that having the surname, “Hancock” was just not a good thing. There were two kids. The older one was our age, lets call him Dick, and his younger four year old brother, whom we shall know as Charles. Dick wore clothes that his grandmother gave him for Christmas, he smelled funny, he ate funny food, he had coke bottle glasses and he had a ‘hawf hawf’ sounding laugh which kind of set your teeth on edge. He was renowned for having horrible accidents, like the time he was walking along the high asbestos fence which divided our two properties and he fell with a leg either side, slicing open his nut sack. There was a lot of blood. And it could have only happened to Dick.
His younger brother was renowned for being a retard. By the age of four he still hadn’t uttered a single word in front of us. He was prefectly normal, didn’t have any of those autistic problems or whatever they are. He just didn’t want to speak. Of course, our parents made us ‘include him’, which meant him following along behind us wherever we went at a distance of about 22 meters. I tried to convince him that I was a werewolf, but to no avail.
As it turns out, Europe is Dick and Charles in WoW. As far as Blizzard is concerned, we are the reject kids over the back fence. The type that they have to let follow along behind even though they would rather not have to. What other conclusion can I come to given the release of the 2010 Warcraft Arena Tournament. If you click on that link it takes you to the warcraft site where they give all the cool details on this years tournament, which features a total cash prize pool of $200,000! Cool huh? Apart from this, all participants have the chance to get the “exclusive” armored murlock pet. The word exclusive is in inverted commas due to the fact that this is the same pet that was offered last year. Players who finish in the top 1000 also get the “exclusive” Vanquisher title, which, yep you guessed it, is the same one as last year.
So Blizzard hasn’t put much effort into this but at least there is the 200 grand, right? Well yes … and no. You see, this is only for the US and Oceanic realms. If you play on the EU realms you need to click this link here. In effect, these two competitions are exactly the same. You go a special realm, make your new level 80 toon and gear it up to your hearts content with gear and weapons and gems and enchants and small furry animals. Then you go and play against other 3 man teams and you have the chance at the “exclusive” murlock pet and vanquisher title and you also get …
Oh wait. That’s it. No 200 grand. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 big ones. Not even 200 little ones. You get … well, you get fuck all.
So Europe, we’re just the leftovers. I suppose they could have split the 200,000 into two prize pools of 100,000, but obviously that wouldn’t make any sense. And I suppose it’s fair like this because the US and Oceanic players have to pay an entry fee of $20. In the FAQ they explain why there is this entry fee, (it’s the second last on the list, right down the bottom):
“… There are several reasons for the entry fee, one of which being that, as with most professional tournaments, the fee helps ensure that participants are invested in the competition and remain dedicated to it for the duration of the tournament. In addition, the stakes are higher for this tournament than for standard Arena play, with a total prize pool of more than $200,000 in cash prizes up for grabs. Furthermore, this format should help provide high-level players with an intensely competitive, even playing field on the tournament realms …”
Oh okay, so they pay an entry fee so they get a big cash prize. But hang on a second … I’m just looking at the EU site and it says that we have to also pay, €15. This can’t be right. Let me go and check the FAQ on that one:
“… There are several reasons for the entry fee, one of which being that, as with most professional Passes, the fee helps ensure that participants are invested in the competition and remain dedicated to it for the duration of the Arena Pass event. This format should help provide high-level players with an intensely competitive, even playing field on the Arena Pass realms …”
One of the other characteristics of the kids next door was that you could make them believe almost anything, (except that I was actually a werewolf). That’s because we thought they were idiots. It seems that Blizzard thinks the same way too.
April 29, 2010 at 1:54 pm
This is marketing genius.
11.5 million players, let’s say 1% of them part with the money to enter, that’s $2.3M minus the prize fund is $2.1M profit.
I can just picture that planning meeting; while they’re already laughing so hard they can hardly breath someone suggests that they don’t offer the Europeans any prize money, “they’ve all got bad teeth and most of them don’t even speak English, they’ll never notice”….
Then everyone has to go home to change their trousers.
April 29, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Well hey, at least you can still enter. There are many who live in the US who can’t even enter by virtue of the state they live in.
As a Canadian I don’t even pay an entrance fee. Instead I have to submit a 250 word essay by mail, comparing Canadian video game tournaments to those of the United States. Oh no, the horror! (I think that’s about a third of the size of your blog post). Unless I lived in a certain province then I can’t enter as well.
Regardless, are there legal issues with offering a cash prize for a Europe wide contest? I have trouble seeing how a continent wide contest isn’t going to run into additional issues as well. None of the the Latin and Asia Pacific countries have issues, so maybe not.
April 29, 2010 at 6:13 pm
When you say, ‘the horror’, are you inferring that my blog post was horrific? If so, I call you a cad, sir! A cad!
As far as I know, Latin and Asian Pacific countries have a metric shit-tonne of issues. Why do they need more with WoW?
April 29, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Nah, was more amused that a 250 word essay is substituted for the entrance fee and the length seems rather short. Especially in comparison to the size of your blog post. But a cad I may still be!
I’m just curious as to whether the lack of monetary prizes is something Blizzard can’t do anything about. Nearly all ‘national’ contests in Canada prevent Quebec based entries because of legal issues.
I’m unfamiliar with how things operate across the pond though. And Google so far has been less than helpful in this regard as I try to satisfy my curiosity.
Either way, I still agree that the size of the entrance fee is disproportionate without the cash prize.
May 3, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Blame the governments of the EU. They built the mechanisms that prevent a cash tourney, not Blizzard (though the entry fee should be reduced or eliminated entirely if you can’t win any cash).
On a side note, related to “Dick” and “Charles”: Asperger’s worked for Einstein, so beware your misguided judgements about what “retarded” means.
May 3, 2010 at 4:36 pm
My whole point is that the entry fee should be reduced or eliminated which you mention yourself, so I fail to see what we’re blaming the EU for.
As for the retard quip, that was from when we were kids, as I thought I had set out clearly enough. If you think that I now go around labelling kids retards who don’t talk to me, then less power to you.