I just loved the live stream in WWI 2008. Is it even possible to get DirectTV outside US, in europe for example? Anyway even if you could I would never get one for one weekend event.. it was just a stupid idea from Blizz imo.

I just keep browsing the web pages for updates then, just like before WWI 2008 when was the first time to see what actually happens there in these events.

"blizz fans unhappy" is not surprising heheh.
I have no interest in paying for something I can read about that same day anyway so I’m not too worried about it. People are just upset that they "have to" pay for another WoW mount.

WoW Radio (http://www.wcradio.com) will be covering the event for free.  The quality probably won’t be as good, but the keyword here is FREE.

-G

It feels like an attempt to extort the fanbase after creating the expectation for free streaming video at prior events.  If they were to, for instance, charge a nominal fee for streaming video delivered by them or an online partner, I don’t think anyone would object and many would happily sign up for the service.  Right now Blizzard is essentially asking people to buy DirectTv service for two years plus the additional fee for the event itself.  Would you buy a cellphone plus contract just to talk for three days?

Interesting that with Battlenet 2.0 being so important them, they would choose the TV provider that does not offer high speed internet.

The lowest monthly sub is $30 but you have to take that out for 24 months so that would cost you $720 (or pay $480 penalty for early contract termination).  They throw Blizzcon in for free if you sub through the Blizzcon page. Existing DirecTV subscribers will have to pay $40 to watch the event.

What usually happens with these special promotions is that the event holder will get a portion of the profits from new subscribers.  I can see why people would view this cynically as Blizzard have already netted US$1.5 million in ticket sales (US$100 x 15,000 tickets sold, was 15,000 wasn’t it?), top that up with the large volume of merchanidizing which will be sold and you could be forgiven in thinking they would live stream for free.

like professor said, if they charged for the stream itself i would be ok with that but pointing people towards directv(which sucks imo) is bad(again imo). i can understand why they would do it, money, but it seems they will make enough of that anyway(is there ever enough?)

my girlfriend has DTV, im going to buy it for her, then resell the mount >_>

According to the Wikipedia page, Direct TV has 18m subscribers. (In the US and parts of Latin America.) They also have a huge satellite truck fleet and do a lot of live events, such as concerts, so clearly they’ve got expertise in this field. One would suspect they gave Blizzard (Activision?) a good deal on this coverage, and that the companies have some other business arrangements planned for the future?

As for Direct TV, with 18m subscribers, adding (or not) a few thousand rabid Blizzard fans isn’t going to make any real difference to their bottom line.

As for the fans, I’d imagine the vast majority of you guys would prefer to see just the panels streaming, online. Direct TV’s coverage is going to be far more comprehensive, but will probably go beyond the needs/desires of most fans. Even aside from the issue of price.

One would hope that Blizzard will allow gaming sites to post videos of the panels, if only a few days or a week later. They just can’t say anything about that now or people wouldn’t sign up for the Direct TV service.

Yeah… since I am going this hasn’t affected much… but I can see where things are sorta shaky. I hope this will help them next time they do some sort of cross media event.