Okay, there seems to be some general confusion about the redemption date for the pre-order wings. Previously when I went to the Battle.net site, it showed me the graphic linked in this post. It seems like it is still March 31st at 11:59PM as there is another graphic with the original date. This is what is shown when I logged out and navigated to Diablo III from the Battle.net site again:
According to customer service, the redemption date is still March 31st for the US; it seems like the April 21st date is only for certain international markets where retailers will not have the game for sale until early April (and that the graphic was not being correctly displayed – looks like it is now being displayed correctly).
So basically, they did not come to their senses as I originally thought. This is really stupid because all it’s going to result in is a huge amount of forum posts after the fact.
The March 31st 11:59PM cutoff date is a higher level decision imposed because that is when Blizzard Activisions’s first quarter 2014 financial closes (thus all unit sales booked, have to be logged no later than that date/time).
Pre-orders began in mid-December while the bonuses themselves were announced the last week of February. Many therefore made their physical pre-order decision ahead of this last minute pre-order bonus; the only physical copy worth pre-ordering was the Collector’s Edition. It’s an issue they (Blizzard) brought on themselves by tacking on this pre-order bonus at the last minute. If they really wanted to do right, they should provide a more reasonable cutoff date period for ALL retail game code redemptions (digital purchases being immediate, can still be March 31).
Previously, there was no incentive for people to digitally pre-order and it is likely the pre-order numbers were not meeting internal forecasts. It wouldn’t look good to investors if that particular number looked lackluster and the executives didn’t want to take a chance that a lot of digital sales would be taking place from just before launch until the end of their fiscal first quarter (the same 6 days).
This isn’t rocket science and is basic marketing, especially when you are offering a Digital Deluxe version that offers all the same digital goodies as the physical Collector’s Edition. With no incentives, people are naturally going to wait until the last minute when it comes to the digital download version (anyone who wants the actual physical CE, will have put in their pre-order within the first few days – and with a digital version of it, is good enough for those who don’t care about the other physical items).
Thus the last minute decision to do the pre-order bonuses. But because there was no logistical way to put actual redemption codes into physical retail boxes (which were likely already in the distribution channel), they came up with this arbitrary policy where you need to redeem your physical game key within this short 6 day time period. It’s just a decision to try and book as many sells so that the first quarter unit numbers of the expansion, will look good (as they have to release those numbers separately compared to the obfuscation used when they lumped console and desktop numbers together).
Again, the most ironic part of this is it will affect those who pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition. And before someone says release date/expedited shipping, not all shipping destinations have a release date option (APO/FPO, Guam, Alaska, Hawaii and most international addresses which places like Walmart and Amazon ship to) nor are there guarantees on any of the faster shipping options (not everyone lives in the contiguous 48 states where the distribution channels allows for more flexible shipping options). This short time frame is not reasonable because many people pre-ordered their Collector’s Edition that will be shipped to them.
The bean counters who made this decision also realize that some folks who pre-ordered a physical CE, will resort to purchasing a digital standard version in order to play at release/lock in their pre-order bonus (serving as additional sales). Considering the mess that Diablo III has been, this just adds insult on top of that.
