Free 7 days of game time for select unsubscribed players
by Adam Holisky 
Nov 25th 2009 at 1:00PM
Blizzard is offering, via email, select inactive accounts the chance to return to the game with free seven days worth of game time. These emails are what appears to be a special unannounced promotion for those that have left Azeroth, coinciding with the five year anniversary of WoW.
We can confirm these emails are legitimate, the links and headers all point back to blizzard.com servers. And indeed a blue over in the Customer Service forums has more or less confirmed that it's legit.
These kinds of promotions are not all that uncommon in the MMO world. Several companies that have MMOs of varying degrees of success have offered them in the past -- they're a nice way to get some old players back and make them feel like part of the community again.
We want to be sure we're clear: it appears these emails are not going to all unsubscribed accounts. If you have an unsubscribed account, don't count on getting one; right now it looks like it's just random chance whether or not you'll get some free game time.
Thanks to AishaLove for the help!
We can confirm these emails are legitimate, the links and headers all point back to blizzard.com servers. And indeed a blue over in the Customer Service forums has more or less confirmed that it's legit.
These kinds of promotions are not all that uncommon in the MMO world. Several companies that have MMOs of varying degrees of success have offered them in the past -- they're a nice way to get some old players back and make them feel like part of the community again.
We want to be sure we're clear: it appears these emails are not going to all unsubscribed accounts. If you have an unsubscribed account, don't count on getting one; right now it looks like it's just random chance whether or not you'll get some free game time.
Thanks to AishaLove for the help!
Filed under: Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
lumacman Nov 25th 2009 1:05PM
yep its legit. a guildie of mine that left for aion ( peice of crap that game is) logged on last night and told us about it. now if only he would stay...
Knyle2 Nov 25th 2009 2:02PM
LAMEZORS.
Here u guys go, those of you that do support us steadily, Nothing for you.
Those of you that decided to stop patronizing us.. Here you go.. Play for free!
Jimmy Nov 25th 2009 2:17PM
7 days, bud...
Phaelan Nov 25th 2009 5:07PM
yeah, i got one today for a RAF account that i had last year, kinda neat, set it up, but idk how much i'll use it. just FYI there are no restrictions outside of the time limit
Mordockk Nov 25th 2009 1:05PM
I'm sure they check your /played to know whether or not you'll get hooked again after 7 days.
Miri Nov 25th 2009 1:11PM
So the email is legit...I was checking my email while stuck in traffic earlier and saw it...I guess it's for the account that I have one lowbie alt on...(8 accounts, 7 are active right now)
I was wondering if it was real or not--if anything, I thought it was a REALLY good fake, lol.
Sarakin Nov 25th 2009 1:18PM
whoa 7 active accounts? Why do you have so many? multiboxing? the biggest altoholic ever that 50 per account wasn't enough?
Vandersveldt Nov 25th 2009 1:36PM
I have to assume that being 105$ a month, it's not his money being spent.
Miri Nov 25th 2009 1:57PM
@Sarakin - Yes, my husband and I multibox, so we each have 4 accounts :) I "retired" from 5-boxing, and usually the max number of characters I'll run at any given time is 3. Most of the accounts are RAF accounts leftover from our first RAF experience, and then another RAF account that we were using to level some characters really quickly to play with some RL friends.
@Vandersveldt - It's definitely my money being spent :) My husband and I are both in the tech field and thus spend a lot of time with technology. What I spend on WoW is a tiny amount in comparison to what I spend on my gourmet cooking ingredients, shoes, and new computer builds :) I have no kids, so my money has to go somewhere!
Sky Nov 25th 2009 6:15PM
why would you not have kids? your missing out on life ma'am
PeeWee Nov 25th 2009 6:30PM
"Kids! You want to have one of those? ... Oh, Ellie, look, they're noisy, they're messy, they're expensive... they smell. " -Dr. Alan Grant "Jurassic Park" (1993)
Namus Nov 25th 2009 9:20PM
@PeeWee: Deadly Offtopic but in the original Jurassic Park novel Dr. Grant actually likes kids because they are curious hehe.
tonedeff Nov 26th 2009 10:07PM
@Sky
LOL.
why would you have kids? your missing out on life ma'am
Kar On E Nov 25th 2009 1:14PM
Absolutely legit. My alt account got one and I took it up, just when I was trying to decide whether to renew it long enough to transfer my little shaman off of the account.
Sometimes, life just works out right. :)
jasonkidd1234 Nov 25th 2009 1:15PM
Yeah they probably are trying to get people with a load of playtime to play again.
I doubt they're sending it to people that have like 5 hours of play time.
Hopefully they send it to my one friend. He won't even try WoW again, he's waiting for Kotor MMO, but I know if he'd play WoW again he'd love it, he just is too stubborn to play it =(
Hell, he liked warhammer and that game was crap when you play WoW again. Playing WAR makes me want to play WoW.
Tolkfan Nov 25th 2009 1:17PM
EU included or just US as usual?
Anyway, great chance for scamers. Blizzard says the mails are legit but also random, scammer sends his own mails, player trusts it because blizz said so, BOOM!
Chris Nov 25th 2009 1:26PM
Actually if you read the post the blue says they won't confirm unless they see the e-mail, i think that warning should be included in this article.
Lidodger Nov 25th 2009 1:19PM
Lol, I just put in my game card too =(
Ron Nov 25th 2009 2:15PM
Got the mail today.
Think Blizz used an old db.
Activated like 6 weeks ago. ;-)
eROKv Nov 25th 2009 1:43PM
like passing out crack on the sidewalk outside the rehab center! haha!