Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Hardware

We had heard that there were problems with the Blizzard Authenticator (a few society who’d ordered them had gotten their money refunded by Blizzard), but apparently there are at least a few going out. Mania got hers — she says that it works great, that she has already associated it with her accounts, and that she’s thrilled with her purchase.

Not everybody is so lucky — reader Tweaky emailed us to say that his order was sipposed to go out UPS Next Day Air, but after it didn’t show up and he had a tussle with Customer Support, he thereupon found out it was actually going through the USPS and that it would show up late. No word on whether he’s seen his yet or not. A few society commented on our last post that they actually had shipping returned to them, so perhaps Blizzard originally planned to send some UPS, and thereupon had to switch to a cheaper mailing method.

At that point, Blizzard has the keyfob sold out on their website, and there’s no indication when we’ll see any more (soon, probably). It appears that not only did they vastly underestimate demand for the Authenticator, but that citizens are seriously concerned about the safety measure of their World of Warcraft history. No other game company has ever offered anything like that before, but given the response, it could soon become a standard.

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Original post by Mike Schramm