Blizzcon 2013 Virtual Tickets Now on Sale

[Steven Bogos]

Blizzcon 2013 Virtual Tickets Now on Sale

Can't make it to Blizzcon this year, but still wan't to give Blizzard your money? The virtual Blizzcon ticket has you covered.

Blizzcon is a pretty popular event. Tickets sell out in minutes [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/93720-Blizzcon-2009-Sells-Out-in-Eight-Minutes] as thousands of feverish StarCraft, Warcraft and Diablo fans scramble to pick up a ticket to the show which Blizzard usually reserves for its most major of announcements. If you weren't able to get a ticket to this year's show, you can still be there in spirit by picking up a "virtual ticket" for $40.

The virtual ticket grants access to live, high-definition streams across two channels, which broadcast all of the panels, interviews, and special announcement, the costume and "talent" contents, and the closing ceremony, which has in the past featured performances by Ozzy Ozborne and Tenacious D.

The ticket will also come with the exclusive digital "goodies" that are usually reserved for physical attendees of the show. This year, the ticket promises to reward in-game content, such as World of Warcraft pets and StarCraft II portraits, for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, and Hearthstone.

On top of this, buying in also nets you access to a limited online pre-show sale of merchandise and commemorative items which will be on sale on the showfloor.

It's worth noting that the opening ceremony, and all of the e-sports matches will be streamed free for everyone.

Source: Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/virtual-ticket/]

Permalink

 

[King Kazma]

I've been drained of Blizzard for a long time to come. Diablo III was pretty garbage, SC Heart of the Swarm let me down, Hearthstone just seems like a money grab, and being burned out from WoW after living through the pile Mists was/became. I'm uninterested in anything they have to offer, and nothing seems to be in the pipes (That I know of) for the short term that'll be any good. Maybe 'codename Titan' the mmo now scrapped and 'neo Titan' may be interesting but thats 3-6 years away. My money shall be taken elsewhere now, I lost a lot of the shine from them. That mmo maybe but theres other mmo's coming out or have come out I want to try.
Blizzcon is just handing them more money for the mediocre games/xpacs of late they're putting out. But thats my opinion. I know SC HoTS is still big for the competitive play, so they got that. Everything else though is just eh to bleh. Hearthstone I can't say anything more than I have since I've never played it, but the other 3 I have. Blizz needs to seriously sit down and get their stuff together for this mmo they're gona do. Hopefully with them having control over the company they can do that, but we'll see.

Guess I'm just an old war vet holding a grudge. This o'l Paladin yearns for better days.

 

[J Tyran]

$40 to watch the event online? Thats a lot of cheek, CCP a company a tiny fraction of Blizzards size do this for their players for free every year. World of Warcraft has probably lost more subscriptions in the last few weeks than EVE has, yet they can HD stream all the main presentations, competitions, stage shows, panels, round tables and pretty much everything else that goes on. If such a small MMO provider can do it a much larger company would be able to provide it for their much larger potential audience due to the much larger income.

Blizzard are just money grubbers.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well you are paying for the brand, if people weren't so fanatic about Bliz those prices would never stick, but they are and Actiblizn will ring you out for every penny when the opportunity comes along.

 

[Colt47]

At the rate things are going down with them that brand fanaticism is going to be going into the gutter. They are riding on the fame of previous games with Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, and that ride is rapidly approaching it's final stop given that there is so little of the original feel left to the current franchise iterations.

Not saying the games currently are bad: They are good games in their own right. However, they don't hit the same buttons that the older titles do much like how System Shock 2 vs Bioshock Infinite is. (Loved System Shock 2, just wish they had a way to reallocate the skill points later in the game, as someone could very easily go too far anti-tech and then get overwhelmed when they had to deal with the organics.)

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Yeah, I don't care about Virtual Tickets. All I wanna know is what they're going to do next in World of WarCraft, now that Pandaria is pretty much over.

 

[Alar]

It's also worth noting that (at least in the past) they allow to you re-watch everything that's happened for up to about a week after the show is over, giving anyone who orders the Virtual Ticket the chance to watch and re-watch every bit of footage from every stage, panel, show, you name it. It's definitely worth it, in my opinion.

EDIT: According to the FAQ, it's actually TWO WEEKS worth of replay time. That's incredible.

 

[Colt47]

System Shock 2 vs Bioshock Infinite is. (Loved System Shock 2, just wish they had a way to reallocate the skill points later in the game, as someone could very easily go too far anti-tech and then get overwhelmed when they had to deal with the organics.)

That was actually calculated. If you could reallocate the game would actually lose a lot of tension, the very tension that made the game so , well it.


I will say that maybe this, Blizzard used to realease games... now I think they're just trolling the fan base. Aside from D3 for the console being an objectively far better game than the PC version... heck the whole Mists of Pandaria thing was a troll. Rather than add any of the established and interesting and actual races they chose to dredge up a gag from WC3 and dress it up as canonical lore. Yeah that's right, the pandas... they were just a joke, a sort of easter egg style gag that the devs through in just for chuckles.

WoW is bleeding subscribers, D3 players are switching to other games, like Torchlight 2. Sure they have some new MMO coming out in 3 years but really? will MMO's still be a thing in 3-6 years? and even if so, seeing what they've done with WoW ...kinda makes me question their ability to do good MMOs anymore.

Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn is the best recreation of a good Global Cooldown based MMO out there right now. In fact, it plays a lot more like a Final Fantasy game than the XIII series. The only complaint I have about the game so far is that the crafting system is in a world of it's own and that world is no where as interesting as the main story one.

 

[subtlefuge]

I will say that maybe this, Blizzard used to realease games... now I think they're just trolling the fan base. Aside from D3 for the console being an objectively far better game than the PC version

You've almost got to admire a company who knows how to so thoroughly piss off its primary fanbase. "Oh we made a mess of the Diablo 3 release that PC gamers have been waiting for years for. Welp, we can learn from this and make the game everyone wanted for consoles instead."

I just think Blizzard is becoming irrelevant. They were a "big thing" and now there are several "big things." I guess I'd say Riot has picked up the torch for now. People don't switch from WoW to another MMO, they just find something else to do.

 

[Ympulse]

It's also worth noting that (at least in the past) they allow to you re-watch everything that's happened for up to about a week after the show is over, giving anyone who orders the Virtual Ticket the chance to watch and re-watch every bit of footage from every stage, panel, show, you name it. It's definitely worth it, in my opinion.

EDIT: According to the FAQ, it's actually TWO WEEKS worth of replay time. That's incredible.

No, it's really not, when you figure tha the entire con is going to be on the internet for free in a matter of hours after the airing.

Not to mention re-streams, etc.

Nice try, Blizzard PR drone.

 

[KeyMaster45]

It's also worth noting that (at least in the past) they allow to you re-watch everything that's happened for up to about a week after the show is over, giving anyone who orders the Virtual Ticket the chance to watch and re-watch every bit of footage from every stage, panel, show, you name it. It's definitely worth it, in my opinion.

EDIT: According to the FAQ, it's actually TWO WEEKS worth of replay time. That's incredible.

No, it's really not, when you figure tha the entire con is going to be on the internet for free in a matter of hours after the airing.

Not to mention re-streams, etc.

Nice try, Blizzard PR drone.

Most people who buy it are just doing so because they want the digital swag that would normally come with obtaining a physical ticket. The stuff is usually highly sought after, especially the usually in-game WoW pet or goodie, and typically goes for hundreds if not thousands on e-bay as soon as scalpers get their hands on their swag bags. It's also worth mentioning that BlizzCon tickets are so very hard to get hold of because the biggest buyers are scalpers that then turn around and sell the tickets for 3x the price on E-bay or other website.

It's also worth noting that if people are posting up Blizzard's streams later on for free then that's technically illegal and piracy, and endorsing piracy on this website is against the rules; which it would seem you just did.

 

[Ferisar]

At the rate things are going down with them that brand fanaticism is going to be going into the gutter. They are riding on the fame of Blizzard North with their original Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo games, and that ride is rapidly approaching it's final stop given that there is so little of the original feel left to the current franchise iterations.

Not saying the games currently are bad: They are good games in their own right. However, they don't hit the same buttons that the older titles do much like how System Shock 2 vs Bioshock Infinite is. (Loved System Shock 2, just wish they had a way to reallocate the skill points later in the game, as someone could very easily go too far anti-tech and then get overwhelmed when they had to deal with the organics.)

Blizzard North did not make SC or WC. Please quit making shit up. That branch of Blizzard made two games and an expansion to one of them, that's it. Yell at Diablo, whatever, I'm done arguing about that game because it's a huge waste of time, but don't touch the other two.

OT:
Cool. Don't care. It's been this way ever since they had the stream going from the start, it's just "in" to hate now, or something. Goodie bags are neat though.

 

[Colt47]

At the rate things are going down with them that brand fanaticism is going to be going into the gutter. They are riding on the fame of Blizzard North with their original Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo games, and that ride is rapidly approaching it's final stop given that there is so little of the original feel left to the current franchise iterations.

Not saying the games currently are bad: They are good games in their own right. However, they don't hit the same buttons that the older titles do much like how System Shock 2 vs Bioshock Infinite is. (Loved System Shock 2, just wish they had a way to reallocate the skill points later in the game, as someone could very easily go too far anti-tech and then get overwhelmed when they had to deal with the organics.)

Blizzard North did not make SC or WC. Please quit making shit up. That branch of Blizzard made two games and an expansion to one of them, that's it. Yell at Diablo, whatever, I'm done arguing about that game because it's a huge waste of time, but don't touch the other two.

OT:
Cool. Don't care. It's been this way ever since they had the stream going from the start, it's just "in" to hate now, or something. Goodie bags are neat though.

Huh, just double checked and they only made Diablo. My bad. =)

 

[Ferisar]

At the rate things are going down with them that brand fanaticism is going to be going into the gutter. They are riding on the fame of Blizzard North with their original Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo games, and that ride is rapidly approaching it's final stop given that there is so little of the original feel left to the current franchise iterations.

Not saying the games currently are bad: They are good games in their own right. However, they don't hit the same buttons that the older titles do much like how System Shock 2 vs Bioshock Infinite is. (Loved System Shock 2, just wish they had a way to reallocate the skill points later in the game, as someone could very easily go too far anti-tech and then get overwhelmed when they had to deal with the organics.)

Blizzard North did not make SC or WC. Please quit making shit up. That branch of Blizzard made two games and an expansion to one of them, that's it. Yell at Diablo, whatever, I'm done arguing about that game because it's a huge waste of time, but don't touch the other two.

OT:
Cool. Don't care. It's been this way ever since they had the stream going from the start, it's just "in" to hate now, or something. Goodie bags are neat though.

Huh, just double checked and they only made Diablo. My bad. =)

<3 It just bugs me to hell when, you know, that happens. I'm also a fanboy. I guess. Or soomething.

Words.

 

[Baldr]

Now this is a tough one.

I have zero interest in the event.

Are these virtual tickets limited in any way?

Depending on how many are sold it might be a sound investment to buy it just to sell the swag to someone else.

no limit, in 2011 they sold well over 10,000 digital stream passes. Surprisingly I've bought 2009-2011 passes and never had an issue with the streams or anything. The physical goodie bag is worth a lot more than the digital stuff.

 

[Charli]

Now this is a tough one.

I have zero interest in the event.

Are these virtual tickets limited in any way?

Depending on how many are sold it might be a sound investment to buy it just to sell the swag to someone else.

I don't think it'll be worth it, the most valuable thing is likely the event pet... and that usually requires a few months to become valuable, and I don't know if this is true, I'll have to verify...but I THINK the virtual code will be linked to battle-net accounts, so you'll probably auto receive the in-game goodies and no codes for them like previous years...

So tbh I wouldn't bother.

Everyone knows 'a friend' who has bought the ticket, so we all generally just hold mini livestream events to watch it that way.

 

[Ympulse]

It's also worth noting that if people are posting up Blizzard's streams later on for free then that's technically illegal and piracy, and endorsing piracy on this website is against the rules; which it would seem you just did.

Oh noes, call the internet police! Someone said something I disagree with!

I'm just reminding everyone on this silly website what reality is, re-streams are a thing, no matter how much of a moral high ground you're trying to take.

Also, my friend, anyone that is going to pay high for Blizzcon swag is going to buy the ticket for said swag regardless, so we're back to the two reasons anyone that isn't a lemming would actually pay for something like this:

1: They're a Blizzdrone that would buy a pile of feces if it had a Blizz sticker on it

OR

2: ...wait, nevermind, can't think of any other reason.

 

[Alar]

It's also worth noting that (at least in the past) they allow to you re-watch everything that's happened for up to about a week after the show is over, giving anyone who orders the Virtual Ticket the chance to watch and re-watch every bit of footage from every stage, panel, show, you name it. It's definitely worth it, in my opinion.

EDIT: According to the FAQ, it's actually TWO WEEKS worth of replay time. That's incredible.

No, it's really not, when you figure tha the entire con is going to be on the internet for free in a matter of hours after the airing.

Not to mention re-streams, etc.

Nice try, Blizzard PR drone.

1.) I might want the swag.

2.) I might want to support the event (I like Blizzard).

3.) I might want to watch it in higher quality rather than ripped from the streams.

Nice try, Forum Mean Guy.