A huge disappointment for gaming enthusiasts, tickets for the gaming convention hosted by Blizzard Entertainment in Anaheim from October 10 to 11, were quickly (and I will say, mysteriously) sold out within one hour over two consecutive days.

Many World of Warcraft gamers have posted numerous complaints and expressed dissatisfaction regarding the technical problems of Blizzard’s store webpage. Many users were not able to log into their accounts because technical errors occurred on the site. Blizzard posted a statement explaining that due to high traffic of the store website, the website would be shut down for temporary maintenance, and it would be available again once the technicians fixed the problem.

So, the site went up again, but since millions of people were trying to get their tickets at the same time, the website still could not function properly and got shut down again around 20 minutes after it was “fixed.” Blizzard once again apologized for the inconvenience and declared that the site would be back up in the morning (August 12). That morning the same problem happened again; people just could not get all the way through the 5-step checkout process because of the site’s loading problems and high traffic. The website was shut down yet again after functioning normally for only about 15 minutes.

My boyfriend was one of the millions of people desperately trying to get his ticket to the convention and he finally made a successful phone call to Blizzard’s headquarter (of course, he had to keep calling all day because the staff were too busy to answer their phones). He was told that the site would be back at 8 o’clock that night and that there were still plenty of tickets left. So he waited in front of the computer until 8p.m. and instantly attempted to buy his ticket, but he failed because he had trouble logging into his account yet again. When he eventually was able to log into his account at 8:20p.m., the tickets were completely sold out.

I heard last year that the tickets were sold out very quickly too; but, people did not experience technical problems at all. What I don’t understand is, since so many people could not log in to buy the tickets, why were the tickets sold out so quickly in one hour? Maybe it depended on your internet provider or speed, because Some people who actually bought their tickets said that they did not experience any problems during the purchasing process; others claimed that people with high-speed internet could log in smoothly. Maybe that is true, but I’m just amazed how quickly the convention sold out…there making a killing that’s for sure!