How is everyone okay with this?

[Deleted]

Irrelevant. They provided the information to you.

Consumer law with regards to advertisements disagrees.

[anothdae]

and you keep linking that extract from basic consumer rights laws.. sorry that doesnt fly when a binding contract is in place.. just so you know

Its not binding, few online "click" contracts are, and blizz isnt even trying to enforce it (letting you opt out), not even mentioning the fact that "this can be changed at any time" is not legal -at all-.

Yes, it was misleading, and yes, people are rightly upset at blizzard for that fact, just like they are upset when Blizzard talks about green lock fire then backs away really fast. Technically its not wrong, but it wasnt the right thing, or the good thing for blizzard to do. (in either case)

[schwarzkopf]

Irrelevant. They provided the information to you.

Can anyone point me to anything at all they said which was wrong ?

Been looking through and so far nothing has been wrong at all, not advertising, not random quotes and not contract.

PS: when is not immediate (as per dictionary definition).

[Abandon]

Consumer law with regards to advertisements disagrees.

Then feel free to sue. Be sure to keep us updated with your lawsuits progress.

Can anyone point me to anything at all they said which was wrong ?

Been looking through and so far nothing has been wrong at all, not advertising, not random quotes and not contract.

PS: when is not immediate (as per dictionary definition).

Nothing they said was wrong, it was just possible for people to make an assumption that was incorrect, and then ignore the contract where it was clarified.

[mbrodie0]

Consumer law with regards to advertisements disagrees.

no it doesnt read my post above.. or do i need to requote it for you?

[Alewen]

ok so while replying here i been on the phone for the past 25min talking to my partners uncle who works in business law, explained to him the whole situation, the blizzcon message, the add, the contract etc...

his exact words - "An announcement or add are not legally binding, the fact that a contract is present means that everything you have basically heard before is irrelevent, the only information that actually counts is whats stated in the contract regardless of what your interpretation of what was previously stated may be. Failing to read the contract basically renders your rights useless because you entered a legally binding agreement with said service provider and as long as they uphold there contractual services they are in no breach of contract"

hope this helps you sleep tonight

Check Mate! And now, everyone just needs to sit back, and wait patiently for their beta invites. And if they are really unhappy with their contract they can easily call up Blizzard Account and Billing and request to opt out.

[Idoru]

The assumption that everyone that is unhappy reads and posts is erroneous, the VAST majority do not.

So you are only assuming that "a substantial number" are unhappy?

Based on what?

[anothdae]

Can anyone point me to anything at all they said which was wrong ?

Been looking through and so far nothing has been wrong at all, not advertising, not random quotes and not contract.

PS: when is not immediate (as per dictionary definition).

Them changing the advert is a pretty good place to start looking for evidence that the first one was "wrong", to a degree.

[mbrodie0]

Its not binding, few online "click" contracts are, and blizz isnt even trying to enforce it (letting you opt out), not even mentioning the fact that "this can be changed at any time" is not legal -at all-.

Yes, it was misleading, and yes, people are rightly upset at blizzard for that fact, just like they are upset when Blizzard talks about green lock fire then backs away really fast. Technically its not wrong, but it wasnt the right thing, or the good thing for blizzard to do. (in either case)

they are letting you opt out because they are getting slammed with nerd rage, what would u do

[anothdae]

So you are only assuming that "a substantial number" are unhappy?

Based on what?

The fact that this thread is one among many, and it is past 3k comments. That is substantial.

[Abandon]

Them changing the advert is a pretty good place to start looking for evidence that the first one was "wrong", to a degree.

And people did start looking for evidence they were wrong there. They didn't find any.

[Deleted]

no it doesnt read my post above.. or do i need to requote it for you?

I suspect it does, and Blizzard agree - otherwise they wouldn't have changed the wording on their ad.

[Abandon]

The fact that this thread is one among many, and it is past 3k comments. That is substantial.

If you removed the posts which are just people repeating the same thing because they don't understand what a word means, or bringing up a point that was already brought up and discussed to death 20 pages ago, you could probably cut it down to about fifteen pages.

[mbrodie0]

I suspect it does, and Blizzard agree - otherwise they wouldn't have changed the wording on their ad.

link to old add and new add? i'm just seeing hearsay atm

[anothdae]

Check Mate! And now, everyone just needs to sit back, and wait patiently for their beta invites. And if they are really unhappy with their contract they can easily call up Blizzard Account and Billing and request to opt out.

And ask your partners uncle if online "click to agree" contracts are legally binding, or if contracts that include language such as "any part of this can change at any time" are legally binding. Also ask him if he has ever worked with a case of deceptive advertising or consumer protection.

[schwarzkopf]

Them changing the advert is a pretty good place to start looking for evidence that the first one was "wrong", to a degree.

The original was fine with respect to AP and Beta (although it did infer the D3 would take 12 months to receive).

I suspect it does, and Blizzard agree - otherwise they wouldn't have changed the wording on their ad.

So what if they put more information in the advertisement ...

Here is a sample:

Statement 1: My car is blue.
Statement 2: My car is dark blue.

Statement 2 in no way automatically makes Statement 1 false.

[Anjerith]

To the guy asking if he never gets a beta pass if that would indicate that Blizzard broke a contract with you illegally - yes.

However, This is the second week of the beta. We likely have *months* of it to go. While you may not get in when *you* think you should, you will get in.

Also, Anothdae, Blizzard did nothing "wrong". They cannot MAKE a player understand the words they read in a contract, that is how the old 200 page contracts worked and noone understood those anyway. Blizzard very, very clearly stated the limitations of the Beta Access in very simple wording. Ignorance on the customers part is what led to any sort of break in communications.

[anothdae]

If you removed the posts which are just people repeating the same thing because they don't understand what a word means, or bringing up a point that was already brought up and discussed to death 20 pages ago, you could probably cut it down to about fifteen pages.

Interestingly, that

1) works both ways
2) is relevant to other threads that arent this long
3) doesnt change the relative response of the community

Right or wrong doesnt matter for this sub-argument about the number of people upset by this.

[Docdruid]

ok so while replying here i been on the phone for the past 25min talking to my partners uncle who works in business law, explained to him the whole situation, the blizzcon message, the add, the contract etc...

his exact words - "An announcement or add are not legally binding, the fact that a contract is present means that everything you have basically heard before is irrelevent, the only information that actually counts is whats stated in the contract regardless of what your interpretation of what was previously stated may be. Failing to read the contract basically renders your rights useless because you entered a legally binding agreement with said service provider and as long as they uphold there contractual services they are in no breach of contract"

hope this helps you sleep tonight

That sounds about right, but in the eyes of many Blizzard just lost a lot/all credibility, and that in my opinion is a big issue for them, specially this year. A contract is a contract, but Mike just gambled away all his credibility with the fan base, and we will see some repercussions.
All in all there is a few that are mad, a lot that were sad with this miss app and some that do not care, time and number will eventually tell if this 'advertisement strategy' worked or not, until then just sit back and relax while you wait for that beta invite

[Deleted]

link to old add and new add? i'm just seeing hearsay atm

Its been posted in here a few times

Link to article about it - http://wow.joystiq.com/tag/annual-pass/