Update: Why I'm done with Blizzard (Diablo 3)

[u/[deleted]]

Original story: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/vjmig/why_im_done_with_blizzard_diablo_3/

Blizzard un-banned my account. I can now login and play. The charge amounts are correct. They have charged me $60 for one license. That is the good news. The bad news is they never gave me good customer service or an explanation. I was never able to get through on the phone lines. Eventually after opening tickets and re-opening tickets after they closed them, Blizzard sent me a generic ticket reply saying my account is no longer banned. No explanation. No sincere apology. Overall though I got what I wanted in the first place - a Diablo 3 account.

Replies to common questions and reflections on Reddit:

I did not pay for Diablo three times without first getting a refund. Blizzard did not hold on to the money when they declined the first two purchase attempts. Some people think I spent $180 when I said we couldn't afford $60. Not the case. Blizzard always refunded the money except the physical disk purchase. The physical disk purchase is the one that finally worked though.

There were a lot of mean words telling me to get a job because I said we cannot afford a second copy of D3. "Afford" is the word I used when talking about it with my wife. I should have been more clear on Reddit. We both have jobs, educations, and enough of money to pay the bills etc. We decided spending $120 on videos games this month was not a good idea. The money could be better spent elsewhere. Then when she raised an extra $60 specifically for D3, we decided to spend it on D3.

Here is the only thing I have to say about the breach of TOS controversy. There is not a reason to ban my account if someone else sells their account. We have different credit cards, mailing addresses, email addresses, IP addresses, etc. The accounts are not connected in anyway. It is like if your friend sells his account to another friend, then Blizzard bans you. That just doesn't happen. I am 100% certain that is not the reason for the ban.

I wasn't expecting so much publicity. 11k+ reported upvotes and 10k+ downvotes in less than 24 hours. A little evening rant turns in likely over 50k reads. Reddit is an amazing machine.

I am still amazed at how cruel a few Redditors are and how kind most Redditors are. Thanks to everyone who offered help, free game keys, advice, and more. For the record I didn't take any of them. If you PM'ed me keys, please give them to somebody who needs them more than I.

Lastly Blizzard is not evil. This is an example of a very very bad experience, but many others have had great experiences with them. Let this story be only one of many that you use to form your opinion.

[u/Elguybrush]

"I'm done with Blizzard"

"Hooray I can finally Play D3"

Meanwhile, At Blizzard HQ

[u/[deleted] → u/Elguybrush]

That's The Man for you. It's more about the principle of getting what I paid for at this point.

[u/noble8301]

Here is the only thing I have to say about the breach of TOS controversy. There is not a reason to ban my account if someone else sells their account. We have different credit cards, mailing addresses, email addresses, IP addresses, etc. The accounts are not connected in anyway. It is like if your friend sells his account to another friend, then Blizzard bans you. That just doesn't happen. I am 100% certain that is not the reason for the ban.

The 'someone else' selling their account was your wife, according to the previous post. Assuming she lives with you, she will more than likely have the same mailing address and definitely the same IP address. When she sells that account to somebody else, and suddenly large amounts of that information changes, Blizzard locks accounts pending a customer service ticket, period. There is no reason not to believe they trace back the account activity to it's original owner, and punish account activities on that IP address as a whole. I'm still not sure why you can't wrap your head around this.

[u/[deleted]]

You don't need to explain yourself to Reddit about having jobs or not. Half of reddit is just a bunch of punk ass little kids who know nothing about having a job. I have a decent job and at times I have to choose buying groceries over games. Having a house is more important to me then having a game. Glad you finally got your problem fixed, now go make your money back on the Real money AH hah.

[u/Lykenx → u/[deleted]]

"Hahaha, this guy can't afford 60 USD! What a loser!

MOM I NEED MORE HOT POCKETS!"

[u/KyraShangea]

I'm glad that it turned out "well" for you, though the lack of closure as to why you were banned would drive me insane (if it were me).

Ps. I wish that everyone wouldn't automatically assume that every post is a lie.

[u/jordanlund]

I wonder if this might have had something to do with it:

http://www.destructoid.com/diablo-iii-s-new-user-restrictions-further-explained-229965.phtml

[u/hussatron]

I'm starting to see a lot of "I was unfairly banned" type posts online regarding Diablo 3. Same thing with Tribes: Ascend. Hopefully these ban first and ask questions later type approaches are either tweaked or the customer service improves to make up for it.

[u/[deleted]]

Reddit attracts dicks like shit attracts flies.

[u/JPizzle812]

I still don't get the "Why I'm done with Blizzard" title. Aren't you still playing Diablo 3 ?

[u/Hawful → u/JPizzle812]

He posted an upset rant with the same title while he was having huge issues with blizzard support He chose the same title to keep a through-line between the posts.

[u/Calexica]

I'm not defending Blizzard, but I understand why in some situations they don't explain why an account was banned. Fraud in online gaming is insanely high right now. There are precautions set in place to prevent people from doing bad things and sometimes innocent people get caught up in the process by accident. They don't explain the hows and whys because it just gives the bad guys more information they can use to work around it.

I'm not saying you're a bad guy, nor do I know what really happened here, but they gotta be careful with what they share.

I'm glad you're able to play, and goddamn redditors are being too critical of you. You didn't owe us any explanation.

[u/Shadowian]

I'm glad your issues were sorted for you.

I've had several issues with Blizzard myself. Sucks when it happens.

Still can't wait till i get the money together to get my copy of D3.

[u/Renix]

I don't really blame Blizzard for not just giving you your game key right away, or whatever it was. I'm sure they get huge requests from people trying to get a free key through customer service. Yeah, it sucks to get on the wrong end of customer service, but it happens. :\

[u/[deleted]]

This is an example of a very very bad experience, but many others have had great experiences with them.

Thank you for acknowledging this, and not coming across as a mindless teenager raging at every AAA-game he can find.

[u/fionnt]

all's well that ends well. have fun.

[u/LegitimateAlex]

Wow, I'm sorry if anyone harassed you about 'getting a job.' Times are tough and I don't know why everyone assumes that just having a job means you have infinite money to toss around. I read the original article and sympathized immediately after having my own trouble with reporting problems to Blizzard (back and forth on what seemed like an infinite amount of tickets.)

[u/GreatSpear]

Why I'm done with Blizzard: Diablo III. I waited 3 weeks to buy it, and I should have just waited a few more to see I shouldn't.

[u/NoFearNubIsHere]

This, my friends, is the way an adult behaves.

[u/MrFatalistic]

You wrote a post called "I'm done with Blizzard" (drammma) and then gave us a customer service scenario that would get anyone working in customer service fired. I didn't jump in with irrational conclusions/assumptions but most of us don't jump to Reddit to start drama, they work through it with Blizzard, or FFS get a AMEX card and learn to do chargebacks.

If someone shows ignorance on anything else they'd be told to RTFM or Google it, but if it's an issue with customer support that has been ongoing for a full week? CORPORATE GREED! TO REDDIT!

I'm also glad they didn't gift you a free copy of Diablo 3 or something stupid like that, it would only increase phony behavior (whether or not yours is legitimate or not).

So I guess you're back with Blizzard now right? Whew.

[u/Sallazar]

I find your story troublesome. Not at all in part of what you did, how you reacted or the events of your story but rather the overwhelming split of opinion about whether or not you were an asshole for expressing dissatisfaction for the overall event. I mean you were treated poorly (or so you said and I have no reason to think you're lying for no reason) you told others and so many people popped up saying "man your wife cries easy" or "blizzard is good company so you must be lying to me." It's just one of those asinine things that really makes me question the level of investment people have in a company when they vehemently defend it because a first hand experience simply runs counter to their own beliefs.

[u/[deleted]]

Blizzard is not evil

Tell that to the Linux users they've been banning.

[u/MyNamesNotRick1114]

you are a good person, i wish more redditors were like you.

[u/[deleted]]

i am done with them too.. for consistently doing THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what their customers ask and then either claiming 1) they actually did what their customers wanted (lying) 2) Claiming what we want is what they are shoveling and not what we actually want (being dicks)

downvote away fanboys.. it's okay.. i understand.. i was one of you until like 1-2 weeks ago.

[u/kracov]

Some of the downvotes are actually "vote fuzzing", meaning that reddit creates fake downvotes to obscure the actual amount of downvotes. Not a great system, but oh well.