Early in June Wargaming offered World of Warships beta testers access to one of the game’s stronger ships in exchange for the purchase of a Humble Bundle. Ten days later, Wargaming rescinded the offer.
On June 16, a Wargaming Representative went on record saying those who purchase the bundle will gain access to the Soviet warship Murmansk. Even better, the ship would carry over when the game moves to open beta.
Yesterday, a post on the forums overruled their previous statement, saying that “we had only ever intended to treat this partnership with Humble Bundle as an opportunity to preview premium World of Warships content and to help drive donations to charity.” The Murmansk won’t be carrying over to open beta.
Wargaming was quickly met with backlash from players. Fans on Reddit and the game’s forums have repeatedly accused Wargaming of fraud and pulling a bait-and-switch, as well as demanding they receive the items they were initially promised. Wargaming said this in response:
“Being involved with Humble Bundle, an organization that supports a wide range of charities such as the ESA Foundation, Child’s Play, and Video Game History Museum are a noble cause, and one we’ve always wanted to be a part of. Unfortunately, we bungled this first-time effort. This is on us, not Humble Bundle.
Last week we said you’d get the Murmansk on your accounts after we went into Open Beta. That was incorrect; we had only ever intended to treat this partnership with Humble Bundle as an opportunity to preview premium World of Warships content and to help drive donations to charity.
While we were quick to work with Humble Bundle to revise messaging on their web portal on June 17, we neglected to revise our own forum thread topic from June 16. Should we have left that thread unaddressed for a week? No. That’s our failing in effectively communicating back to you.
We screwed up, plain and simple, and we hope you understand that we’re sincerely sorry. This was never our intention and we hope that you can forgive us for this blunder.”
In regarding to the bait-and-switch accusation, Wargaming has said this:
“All transactions were handled directly through Humble Bundle storefront, and proceeds were given to charities in the amount that players specified their donations to be distributed. Wargaming did not profit from the sale of the E3 Digital Ticket Humble Bundles.”
Wargaming have since partially revised their previous decision. Player’s will receive their Murmansk, but the other items were not mentioned.