Prize pool of the WoW tournaments comes entirely from the fans

The eSports fans are angry at Blizzard because the prize pool in World of Warcraft comes this time completely from the fans.

World of Warcraft is under stress again, this time in the eSports section. Players feel betrayed and cheated by Blizzard. They bought toys in the hope of helping the eSports pros – and they do, but much less than expected.

What happened? About half a year ago, Blizzard brought some toys into the World of Warcraft store. These were fireworks and a transformation item that allowed players to take on the look of various bosses. Not only were these items limited in time, but they were also promoted with a specific “bonus”: 25% of the revenues were to contribute to the prize pool of the eSports events, the Arena Tournament and the MDI (Mythic Dungeon International). Blizzard guaranteed a prize pool of at least $500,000 and told the fans:

“With your support, we’re taking the WoW Sports prize pool to the next level.”

The profit comes entirely from crowdfunding: During an event prior to BlizzCon, Blizzard talked to some tournament attendees, at least Snutz from Cloud9 reports. It shows that you’ve made just under $2.6 million with the toys and that $660,000 (25%) of it goes into the prize pool of both tournaments. That means $330,000 each.

The catch: The money represents the entire prize pool. The sum consists entirely of 25% of the players’ toy purchases. So Blizzard does not spend any extra money on the prize pool.

The whole thing is just another case that joins the many Shitstorms around WoW.

Players are angry, feel robbed, and many WoW Youtube players are now getting mad about it. It’s a shame that this time the prize pool was made up entirely of the community’s proceeds. Especially the sentence “With your support, we’ll take the prize pool of WoW sports to the next level” is a sour reminder for many.

This sounded to many players as if Blizzard was contributing the usual value of $500,000 and 25% of the toy revenue would come on top.

Or to put it another way: Although Blizzard made $2.6 million with the toys, the prize pool for the two tournaments only increases by $80,000 each.

On Reddit, there are many comments.

Yakatak writes, “I thought there would be more posts about it, it’s pretty dirty. They try to look as generous as Dota 2, then shy away and keep the millions they’ve earned through ambiguous words.”

Or more drastically, the user Random_act_of_random: “Sigh. I don’t expect anything from Blizzard anymore, and they always find new ways to disappoint me anyway.”

There are also dissenting voices: However, there are also a few who say that Blizzard has followed what they said before: The prize pool would be at least $500,000, and 25% of the revenue would end up in the pool. If that money hadn’t been raised by selling the toys, Blizzard would have added the missing amount.

It has to be said, however, that there are comparatively few of these votes. Most players are outraged or angry and have announced that they will not support such actions in the future.

It was assumed that buying toys would help eSports players, not that Blizzard would just put more money in its pockets.