Wargaming Tries to Revoke Digital Rewards, Gets Shot Down

Wargaming.net, the developer behind World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, has a new game in the works—World of Warships, because your mother was right, if you do something for long enough you get stuck and can’t change back. The game is currently still in closed Beta, but to entice people to join into the pre-release fun, Wargaming teamed up with Humble Bundle so people could give money to charity to unlock some sweet in-game gear. Sounds good so far? Cool, because it’s about to get messy.

On June 16th, Wargaming assured donors to the humble bundle that the Soviet warship Murmansk, as well as the other bonuses unlocked by the Humble Bundle, would be permanent—as in, they wouldn’t be lost when the game was fully released in open beta. Given that most of these bonuses would have cost more—a lot more--during the final release, this was exciting news for people who donated. It rewarded their generosity and the fact they jumped on this particular boat early (pun intended).

But then there was a snafu. Namely, it seems like Wargaming was lying.

Earlier yesterday, Wargaming released a separate announcement: apologizing for the ‘misinformation’ and claiming that the Soviet warship Murmansk would not, in fact, transfer to the open beta or the final version of the game. It seemed that there was a miscommunication, and the intention of the humble bundle was merely to ‘preview’ all these fantastic features and goodies until the open beta.

Predictably, people blew up.

At first, Wargaming.net tried to pacify people by reminding them that since this was through Humble Bundle, they weren’t making any money off it—it was all going to charity (Which, of course, is a good thing)… but when that didn’t work, a few hours later they bit the bullet and just said people could keep their warships.

Good news? Yes. Surprising news? No. But good news to make a note of regardless. Personally, I think it was rather silly of them to try to take the warships away after promising it to them—it would have looked better to just rolled with the punches and cut their losses than try their luck appealing to a gamer’s generosity. Still, the fact that they caved—fairly quickly—shows that they’re still receptive to fans, and that is, ultimately, better. I’d rather have a company that corrects its mistakes than pretends they don’t exist.