the prize pool is 660k
Ducked up a bit there. But let me calculate again.
Blizzard offered 500k+ 25% of the toy sales which was 2.6 million, which is …
Not 660k.
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It seems like a lot of assumptions were made and no one bothered to actually check what was going to happen.
I can see why everyone is outraged but you could kind of see this one coming a mile off.
Personally, as long as it was actually 25% of the profits from the toys that is being put into the prize pot then they have done what they said they would do. I kind of doubt that attaching the ‘prize pool filler’ element to the toys in question would have boosted the sales that much as opposed to those who would have bought the toys had 100% of the profit gone back in ActiBlizz coffers.
Edit: Not posting this to you, Vert, in particular just using your comment as a springboard for my own thoughts.
No, Blizzard offered 25% of the profits from the toy but with a minimum guaranteed prize pot of $500,000. If the toy sales had only created $1.8 million in sales then Blizzard would have topped up the pool an extra $50,000.
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This.
It basically goes like this:
"Hey guys, we’re letting you fund the eSport winnings by buying these toys! 25% of your purchase will go to the eSport prize pool.
And don’t worry, in case no one buys the toys, we’ll ensure there’s a minimum of $500.000 in the prize pool.
If lots of people buy the toys and you generate more than $500.000, awesome!"
Seemingly we’ve purchased enough toys to generate $660.000 for the prize pool, which is quite impressive, and thus Blizzard’s guarantee doesn’t come into play, because we’re well above the minimum.
Hypothetically, let’s say the sale of the toys had only generated $200.000 in prize pools. If that was the case, then Blizzard would supply the remaining $300.000 to reach the guaranteed minimum of $500.000.
But $660.000 is well above $500.000, so yay, go us! 
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thing is : we have no proof that the toys actually sold for 2.6M
This value come from little geniuses on the internet who calculated how much was 4x660k.
So yeah, this is pretty much as bad a move as you can get.
Okay, the promotion was worded so it could be seen as the 25% of sales would be the entire price pool, but that is just not how these crowdfunding goes other places in the industry. The idea of selling things to support esport, is not for it to carry the entire price pool, but for the sales to support it.
Blizzard did pretty much what you can call a scam here - leading players on to believe, that things would be as other crowdfundings are in the industry and then turned a 180 on them.
Blizzard is just getting worse and worse really.
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Carry on with comments like that & you’ll find yourself unable to start wars you can’t finish… remember; MVP’s are NOT employees of Blizzard, as much as your tin-foil hat tells you they are.
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Hearthstone players have commented on this and they have confirmed, that the entire prize pool of 660k is from the sales alone.
But can’t you see a point of view, where the statement and the entire crowdfunding is a bit wrong in itself?
Like all other forms of crowdfunding for price pools, like in League and Dota2, does it different. They have a crowdfunding to add to the prize pool, where the game company put in an amount and then players can help stack it up.
So when Blizzard does it, players kinda assumes that it will be done like all the others.
I think Blizzard should have been more transparent on this and kinda abused that players thought Blizzard followed a standard set by other games.
In either situation, if Blizzard had not sold above 500k in toys, the toys would not actual have contributed, and since the toys have sold over the minimum, Blizzard gets to not pay for the entire pricepool at all. It just sounds wrong.
Mind sharing the source ?
pretty sad to see, even if technically it wasn’t stated that the 500k initial pool was just insurance in case the thing flopped, it was how most people interpreted it, also when you gain 2.6 mil dollars from a toy and use 660k for the tournament it stops being 25% of the pool, because effectively they used only 160k because those initial 500k are funded by the community too. Very scummy.
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This is a tweet from a HS player, who got this information from a pre-Blizzcon meeting with Blizzard:
“Blizzard did not contribute a single cent to the AWC & MDI prize pools this year. They pulled their own ‘base’ contribution of 500k when they realised how well the crowd funding did ($2.64m USD). I wonder how many who bought the toys would have if they had known this.”
From what i hear, he is not the only one confirming this.
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to be honest in the way they frazed it , it was heavly implied, ( and is common practice) that They would put up 500k and then 25 % of the sales would help the warchest “to the next lvl” …
And yes they dident specificly said it but it was heavly implied, and is what every normal company and competition do.
SO yes no matter how much u defend them its a super scummy move.
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Looks & sounds like said player was more interested in the prize money than what they had to do to get it…
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Companies don’t really have a history of being honourable. In any domain.
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That is beside the point. The players are still playing, but when you have a crowdfunding event, you as a player is ofcourse interested in what the pool actually reached.
But yeah, that matters little in this context. What matters is that he confirms, that Blizzard have pretty much contributed 0$ for this years prize pool of WoW events and let the players do it instead.
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or OR they were unclear on what that purchase funded and people find it sketchy, also seeing how every other organization that does something similar doesn’t operate like this with this kind of transaction makes it seem hard that this was not done on purpose. They kept the same % (75% to them 25% to prize) as other games while removing the base prize pool something no one does.
Does it matter what section of the Blizzard coffers the money comes from, as long as it comes from Blizzard - who were selling the pets/toys, in the first place?
To many people, nothing Blizzard does will ever be good enough so they’re f***ed if they do & f***ed if they don’t - the sooner that some people who get their fun from haranguing Blizzard realise that their haranguing is akin to p***ing into a force 10 gale, the better.
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it matters because instead of being 25% it’s way less, because they literally spent only 160k effectively on this tournament and gained 2.4 mil, you can’t make the initial garanteed 500k a part of this transaction, those were already gone to begin with toy or not. I find this deceptive dunno about you.
Irrespective if whether you believe this is a douche move or not, a company cannot be held responsible for people misinterpreting a message that clearly states how they were to do things.
If ppl hated the idea of Blizzard getting off s it free, hold back on toy purchases and force them to cough up the difference.
Turns out people purchased more than the minimum stake, and then go “why not u” when blizzard clearly stated they’ll contribute IF the minimum threshold isn’t reached.
You can’t blame blizzard for people reading their message in a way they “thought” it meant when the wording clearly implies otherwise. In the same way I can’t complain that a greengrocers doesn’t sell firearms because I believed the sign said “ammunition” instead of “nutrition” or thought they “meant ammunition when they’re using the word nutrition”.
I agree with Puny. Nobody should be surprised. Outrage after the facts have been know for ages
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