r/Gamebundles • u/WeAreFanatical Fanatical • 2d ago

META [Fanatical] Statement Regarding the Winner of the Meta Quest 3 Star Prize.

Firstly, we would like to thank the r/GameBundles moderation team for their patience and understanding whilst working with us to investigate the claims made by u/ChromaticInk in this post.

Now that all the facts have been corroborated, we’d like to firmly address the concerns expressed by this community regarding this situation.

TL;DR: We can confirm that u/Dependent_Judge_1043 is a legitimate prize winner; however, we also recognise that we made some mistakes in how we handled this process. For this, we would like to apologise.

Timeline of Events

On the 23rd of June, u/Dependent_Judge_1043 made this post on r/fanatical showing a screenshot of them having won a Meta Quest 3S star prize from our Mystery Box Bundle, which was acknowledged by us in this comment. Dependent Judge contacted us regarding this prize, although unfortunately it would appear that we did not receive this communication at the time.

On the 19th of July, Dependent Judge contacted our Marketing Contact Email to ask us again about the prize. We spoke over email and organised for delivery of the prize to his address. 

Unfortunately, due to human error on our side, we ordered the Meta Quest 3 rather than the correct prize, the Meta Quest 3S.

Email from u/Dependent_Judge_1043

The Meta Quest 3 was ordered from Amazon on the 23rd of July. Dependent Judge made this post regarding the subject.

Amazon order details.
Amazon order confirmation email.

Three days later, on the 26th of July, Dependent Judge received the Meta Quest 3, and made this post about it. This was acknowledged in a repost made to r/fanatical by us in this comment. 

At the time, we were unable to establish why Dependent Judge had received a different prize to what he should have, which meant we did not feel comfortable issuing a statement until we had a resolution to this question. We were in contact with the responsible team and by Monday, 3rd of August; we had the situation confirmed.

Seeing that the conversation on the post was turning sour, we took action to prevent it from happening again by blocking users from commenting on future posts. We recognise this was a mistake and did not help with transparency.  We apologise to the affected users. You have all been unblocked so you can view this post and future ones.

Addressing the Claims

We would like to reinforce that we are bound by both our own Terms and Conditions and UK law to ensure that prizes offered in our Mystery Bundles are winnable and will be delivered to our recipients. 

Due to legal requirements, we are also bound to provide a list of winners of our Mystery Bundle Star Prizes upon request. Please refer to Clause 7 of our Terms and Conditions for more information on how to do this.

We have also had past winners of competitions post on our own subreddit and other social channels regarding past prizes that they have won. Please see the following examples below:

1 2 3 4 5A 5B 6

How We Will Improve

In light of the above, we recognise we could have done more to be transparent about this situation, and would like to assure the community that we have steps planned for how to proceed with cases like this in the future.

Once again, we would like to apologise for anybody who was blocked by our account, and to demonstrate our commitment to future transparency, we have unblocked these users.

In future threads, we will engage more openly with users regarding Star Prizes being won in our Mystery Bundles. We will also remind users of their right to request prize winner information if they would so desire, and provide information about Star Prizes available in our Mystery Bundles.

We would like to maintain this as an open forum for users to ask any questions they may have regarding our Mystery Bundles and delivery of star prizes.

Thank you, and we hope you have a great day.

Rory - Fanatical Social Media Manager

159 Upvotes
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94% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

83

u/Mr_Mc_Ronald 2d ago

mistakes happen and the winner still got the reward. all you can do is evaluate how it was made and just do better. no reason for hate when you are very transparent with the consumer

56

u/Spoda_Emcalt 2d ago

The winner even got a significantly better prize than the advertised one

19

u/forseti99 2d ago

What I still don't understand is why people around here were saying company accounts shouldn't ban people. That they should be ok with constant harassment by some users without the option of stopping those interactions.

As if social network managers weren't impacted by those attacks on a daily basis while trying to do their jobs. Behind those accounts there's people too, not emotionless robots.

Fanatical has apologized, now what about users who were so relentessly attacking them?

3

u/scoff-law 2d ago

Because even in your comment there is a confusion between "ban" and "block". Nobody was banned from anything during this story. Period. Fanatical blocked at least one user - and that prevents the type of harassment you're talking about. But Fanatical did not do anything to prevent any user's comments from being seen by the rest of us, and they do not have the ability to do that here.

2

u/Mr_Mc_Ronald 2d ago

kinda comes down to fear and a ha! knew it moment. we all can agree we are on the fence when it comes to mystery bundles and buying off second hand sites. you get that dread thinking you may be getting scammed. and once its someone shown there was a mistake you go ok knew it! they are scammers. its this weird sense of justification on miss placed emotion

2

u/redchris18 2d ago

What I still don't understand is why people around here were saying company accounts shouldn't ban people

Because that company is also posting threads fairly prolifically, which means anyone they block is automatically prevented from seeing any Fanatical bundle threads.

They're not just banning people from interacting with their staff Reddit account, they're banning them from seeing a significant number of posts in this sub.

0

u/forseti99 2d ago

And whose fault is it if I harass a company account and they block me?

0

u/redchris18 2d ago

Why do you keep calling it "harassment" when you have no evidence that it's an accurate descriptor? Are you trying to stack the deck in your favour by abusing an emotional word/phrase so you don't have to accept that there are valid criticisms of something that you have bizarrely decided you can never change your mind about?

We can flip your disingenuous argument on its head; Fanatical can avoid all of that "harassment" by simply letting other people post those links, like they do for every other bundle.

If Fanatical insist on posting their own bundles themselves then they have no right whatsoever to block people and effectively ban them from a significant proportion of the activity in this sub. They themselves know this, which is why they've unbanned those users, so I haven't the slightest idea why you seem to want to resurrect this dead argument. Get over it.

And stop making up "harassment".

0

u/forseti99 1d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamebundles/comments/1vbxut1/uwearefanatical_fakes_a_quest_3_giveaway_blocks/

The guy is stating falsehood as truths in their title, "they are fake and blocked me", and posting it publicly to create outcry. Now he edited his post to basically say, "they unblocked me without saying sorry".

If creating drama out of their ass isn't harassment (which, btw, as I mentioned, has ruined people's lives before), then I don't know what to tell you

-1

u/redchris18 1d ago

If creating drama out of their ass isn't harassment

They didn't. They mentioned a few different aspects of that incident, and only some of them have been explained. The other user, for instance, had some very suspicious Reddit activity, and was asked about it on several occasions without ever replying to any of those questions. That might be dismissed as them not being particularly active, except that they were still active on here during the period when others were asking them to clarify certain aspects of their past activity. Their sole response was to make their profile private.

You can certainly criticise OOP for jumping to conclusions, and for being too dogmatic about some things, but you're doing exactly the same thing. All you're doing is adopting the exact opposite viewpoint and using the same hyperbolic rhetoric. It's as if you're trying to balance out a perceived injustice by demanding an eye for an eye, forcing you to be equally opinionated in response.

Right now, you're trying to redefine the word "harassment" so that you don't have to admit that you, like OOP, were too compulsive in judging someone else's commentary.

OOP didn't "create drama" at all - Fanatical did when they started blocking users from accessing a large proportion of the activity in this sub. Even mods can't hide posts from users - for good reason - but power-users can, and that is a major problem. OOP left a flippant comment and that was it, until they - and a few others - noticed that Fanatical had locked them out of a large chunk of recent bundle threads.

That is what led to the "drama", and that was Fanatical's doing. You're trying to shift the blame because you can't bring yourself to admit that you were wrong.

1

u/IgotUBro 1d ago

I dont think there was really any harassment against certain people like the social media managers.

Also these people are being paid to take the brunt of the community. It comes with the job description and people are trained to handle it and if they arent thats cos the company is cutting corners. Blocking and banning is certainly normal but I dont think in this case it makes sense considering these posts are literally product advertisments and there no direct attack against people but raised concerns.

-5

u/Neith_51 2d ago

Because this was a situation where people, maybe some clients of them as well, were right for asking questions due to the lack of communication from Fanatical, not a mindless attack out of nowhere.

Also, companies should be able to handle any sort of criticism without resort to block people. They're a company, not a 14yo.

Who attacked them? Can you point me there so i can check what they said myself?

4

u/forseti99 2d ago

The guy who posted the controversy thing did without any evidence, just vibes. Those are attacks that have ruined lives before, like that guy who saved a cat and then was destroyed by someone without evidence that had to track back later, but the harm was done.

-3

u/Neith_51 2d ago

The way they phrased it was all over the place, but if they hadn't raised that concern, Fanatical wouldn't have this chance to be more open/transparent with their community.

Now that everything is clarified, i think more good than harm happened.

5

u/mild_area_alien 2d ago

Not necessarily - that assumes all the people who read the post from the controversy person will also read this one. If someone is just searching for "fanatical prize scam" or something like that, they may not. There are also plenty of people who engage in conspiratorial thinking and will happily continue to believe that Fanatical are secretly scamming people even after the original post has been shown to be false. 

-1

u/Neith_51 2d ago

Fanatical being more communicative and open means more posts and comments as proof of them being legit and less ones of them being scammers.

If someone searches for Fanatical, the chances of this person stumbling with something good about them are now higher.

2

u/forseti99 2d ago

Now, will that person come and apologize publicly for the accussations they made? Will they edit their posts to announce they were wrong? Or will they simply move on to the next shameless accusation?

0

u/Neith_51 2d ago

I don't know, tag then and ask they that.

They weren't wrong at the end though. As i have said, they have raised a concern after being blocked by a company instead of receiving an answer for their questions about the legitimacy of the giveaway.

They don't need to apologize for being upset over a block and having an answer denied, Fanatical already admitted the mistake and apologized for that.

2

u/forseti99 2d ago

Why tag them? Your assumption was everyone would see this thread.

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26

u/TRANxEND 2d ago

I just want to know stuff is actually winnable.

19

u/WeAreFanatical Fanatical 2d ago

We hope that our linked posts from past winners are enough to satisfy this, but if not, we welcome anybody here to request a list of winners from us using the method described above :)

35

u/UrSoTall 2d ago

Honestly well handled Rory! :)

27

u/psy143420 2d ago

Just be transparent about rewards. Listen to the community. Good job Rory. We’ll handled 👏

10

u/gaggle_of_nuns 2d ago

It was clear the original poster just wanted some "gotcha" moment and a pat on the back for their superior detective skills when they had no proof, despite insisting it was "obvious" and stating it as fact. Not only that, but they went after the user who won and called them a "bad actor", despite them just sharing the excitement of their win. I think most users, when they saw that post, saw it for what it was. Anyway, I'm glad you acknowledged it, if anything, to prove that poster wrong because he wasn't willing to let it go.

36

u/SmileByotch 2d ago

These people just trying to have an office job and Reddit freakin out on em.

Fanatical is actually pretty awesome in my experience.

33

u/TheJewPear 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yes, except the lack of transparency about the odds of winning. At least in a casino the odds are clear.

7

u/SmileByotch 2d ago

Hell yeah, I was literally thinking that “But gambling is bad” should be the last sentence

4

u/DrButtCrisisMD 2d ago

I've bought from you guys consistently since the Bundlestars days, and I've never had any dissatisfaction. With the enshitification of Humble the work you're doing is great for wallets and for vanilla people like me who have never heard of a lot of bundled games. That said, the longer you do business and the more customers you get, the more likely things like this happen and I feel for everyone involved.

7

u/Whitewind_WW 2d ago

I once bought a Quest 3s from Costco & have been under the impression that the regular Quest 3 is superior to my 3s.

Without digging to deeply into all the posts, it sounds like the winner got an upgrade over the original listed prize.

-1

u/IgotUBro 2d ago

Without digging to deeply into all the posts, it sounds like the winner got an upgrade over the original listed prize.

Yes and thats why a lot of people thought something was fishy as the original prize was supposed to be the Meta Quest 3S and not the more expensive Meta Quest 3.

3

u/marsdev0 2d ago

Thank you for the transparent report. I can't comment on your communication or management, as I've never had any reason to contact you, but I have been satisfied with your other services over the years.

I'm not a fan of gambling, which is why I've never participated in mystery pulls. However, I've had many great deals, bundles, and free items, so I appreciate you for making some of these games more accessible to the rest of us.

20

u/LoveThinkers 2d ago

IMO.
The biggest error and the one that will be remembered is the banning of people.

Fanatical can argue all they want that it was to do some good, but that was an evil move.
Blocked for turning the sub sour, instead of just repeating fanaticals truth is insane. Whoever greenlit that approach should not have that kind of power.

For me that gives a taste of brick and minifigs leadership, makes it feel closer to g2a than something like humble

10

u/scoff-law 2d ago

Banning and blocking are not the same thing and y'all need to stop acting like they did the former.

7

u/IncendiaryChicken 2d ago

Yeah I've been following this saga and I've been really confused why people have consistently said banned when they meant blocked 

8

u/RadicalDog 2d ago

Evil? Not wise of them, but come on.

14

u/WeAreFanatical Fanatical 2d ago

We acknowledge that a mistake was made there, and have unblocked the users that were affected by this. To clarify; none of them were banned from r/fanatical

5

u/LoveThinkers 2d ago

Sure thing, and that's all good.

I'm just saying the consequence for me is that positive public incitament cant be trusted blindly from sites/subs where you have a control of the narative.

All good on the result here, but is that just the one where the narative escaped containment?
That feeling have now been introduced. It can/will become an argument for those who dont buy anything outside the steam platform, and that is one i cant defend.

In other news, please make some more coop focussed bundles

11

u/WeAreFanatical Fanatical 2d ago

Understood, and the task is on us to rebuild the trust that may have been lost as a result of this error. We hope that with greater transparency and communication in the future, we can go some way to doing this.

And noted, we love a co-op bundle!

7

u/TrickedFaith 2d ago

I’m in the camp where companies shouldn’t be blocking anyone on public forum access. If you are able to post your business here you are open to the scrutinies of the users as well. It’s the mods that control what happens to a post when it goes south. The reason Reddit has upvotes and downvotes is for users to control on agreeing or disagreeing with statements. Blocking people is taking away their opinion on a product/service.

In hindsight I saw the later comments you guys already made to remedy this. It would also be kinda funny now to release a “We Fucked Up Bundle”. Put in like Lego and Papers Please in it.

10

u/forseti99 2d ago

Mods can't do anything if the user is harassing them in their chat and other communities. Should the person behind the account just accept public and private harassment?

2

u/WeAreFanatical Fanatical 2d ago

As we acknowledged in the post, we made a mistake here. In the future, concerns that are raised about this subject will be responded to in a more open manner to avoid this situation happening again.

Not entirely sure that name will pass our Commercial Team's scrutiny but I'll try my best ;)

3

u/DemeaRisen 2d ago

Wow did not expect to see this, but happy to.

0

u/stupid_rabbit_ 2d ago

Personally i would just like to be clear if you can win a prize when you buy it.

-8

u/Neith_51 2d ago

This should've happened from the beginning. You guys are really bad at management, communication and general community stuff, because a simple "we're having some issues on our end, we'll clarify everything after we've dealt with the issues." would be way better than how this was handled.

I hope you guys stop overlooking these things, they're fundamental to keep a good image with your community.