• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Unknown837

Member
Oct 26, 2017
827
Greetings Blizzard community,


I hope you're all staying safe and well. As guidelines in California around in-person gatherings continue to evolve and the status of the pandemic fluctuates around the globe, the teams across Blizzard have been discussing what this means for one of the events we miss the most: BlizzCon. We know some of you might be wondering about your own plans to potentially cross the country—not to mention oceans—and meet your friends, family, and fellow community members in California, so today, we wanted to give you a heads-up that we've decided we will not be holding BlizzCon this year.


Building an in-person BlizzCon is an epic and complex affair that takes many months of preparation—not just for us, but also for the many talented production partners, esports pros, hosts, entertainers, artists, and other collaborators we team up with locally and globally to put all of the pieces together. The ongoing complexities and uncertainties of the pandemic have impacted our ability to properly move forward on many of these fronts, and ultimately we're now past the point where we'd be able to develop the kind of event we'd want to create for you in November.


But we don't want to let too long go by before we connect with everyone again. So in the meantime, we're planning a global event for the early part of next year, combining an online show along the lines of our recent BlizzConline with smaller in-person gatherings, and we'll share more as our plans come together.


We very much look forward to celebrating with you all again. Until then, we'll see you in Azeroth, Outland, Sanctuary, and all the other worlds we call home.


–Saralyn Smith, Executive Producer of BlizzCon

BlizzCon and Our Latest Plans

An update from Saralyn Smith, executive producer of BlizzCon.
 

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,257
Houston, TX
Makes sense, they'd have to start planning pretty late in the game to get BlizzCon 2021 going. An as they noted, the pandemic brings about a lot of complications for planning as well as uncertainty on when things will get back to something close to normal. Better safe than sorry.

That said, at least they're doing another BlizzConline early next year going by their statement on the topic. And we could have a traditional BlizzCon 2022 that year as well if we continue with this rate of improvement regarding us dealing with COVID.
 
Last edited:

Sheev

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
1,803
Ideally it'd never come back until Blizzard change their stances, but I know a boycott from the masses is unlikely.
 

ToddBonzalez

The Pyramids? That's nothing compared to RDR2
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,530
Good call. Conventions like this should be back in 2022 I reckon.
 

JahIthBer

Member
Jan 27, 2018
10,372
They probably don't have much to show, if they really wanted to, they could just have Blizzcon in Texas or whatever.
 

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,257
Houston, TX
Ideally it'd never come back until Blizzard change their stances, but I know a boycott from the masses is unlikely.
There was actually a big protest at BlizzCon 2019.

At the rate we're going, things will likely get back to something close to normal in 2022, so we'll probably have live gaming events back by then. Hell, we're already starting to get fighting game tournaments back (CEO 2021 will be this December).
 

Mesoian

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
26,380

Well for one, they're not exactly batting 1000 when it comes to live events.

But Blizzard isn't exactly in the best situation right now, their active IP are low, they're hemorrhaging talent and they seem to be taking a backseat to other activision products. It makes sense for the path of Blizzard PR and marketing to stay digital. I know they need to pump the stock and please the shareholders, but...unless there are 4 or 5 HUGE projects that no one outside of activision knows about...why bother?

At the rate we're going, things will likely get back to something close to normal in 2022, so we'll probably have live gaming events back by then. Hell, we're already starting to get fighting game tournaments back (CEO 2021 will be this December).

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that there won't be one due to health or compacity concerns.
 

Acidote

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,958
The news is pretty much "Blizzcon 2021 is cancelled. BlizzConline 2021 is announced."
 

secretanchitman

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,757
Chicago, IL
Makes sense - gives the rest of 2021 to let everyone get vaccinated and hopefully come back in late 2022 for a full in-person event.

Crazy that it's "only" 8-9 months away already!
 

Zero-ELEC

The Wise Ones
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,560
México
tumblr_n2xrdkyKMg1sgl0ajo1_250.gifv
 

Tbm24

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,175
Well for one, they're not exactly batting 1000 when it comes to live events.

But Blizzard isn't exactly in the best situation right now, their active IP are low, they're hemorrhaging talent and they seem to be taking a backseat to other activision products. It makes sense for the path of Blizzard PR and marketing to stay digital. I know they need to pump the stock and please the shareholders, but...unless there are 4 or 5 HUGE projects that no one outside of Activision knows about...why bother?
Blizzcon is a large community event first and foremost. Not strictly a vehicle to just announce new titles.
 

Noppie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,750
Well for one, they're not exactly batting 1000 when it comes to live events.

But Blizzard isn't exactly in the best situation right now, their active IP are low, they're hemorrhaging talent and they seem to be taking a backseat to other activision products. It makes sense for the path of Blizzard PR and marketing to stay digital. I know they need to pump the stock and please the shareholders, but...unless there are 4 or 5 HUGE projects that no one outside of activision knows about...why bother?
Because it makes them money, because it's a great way to keep consumer / fan interactions at a high point, because every year still hundreds of thousands of people tune in, because Blizzard has shown they don't need unknown projects to garner interest in Blizzcon etc. etc.

Your comment mostly feels out of touch, to be honest.
 

Mesoian

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
26,380
Blizzcon is a large community event first and foremost. Not strictly a vehicle to just announce new titles.
Because it makes them money, because it's a great way to keep consumer / fan interactions at a high point, because every year still hundreds of thousands of people tune in, because Blizzard has shown they don't need unknown projects to garner interest in Blizzcon etc. etc.

Your comment mostly feels out of touch, to be honest.


Like I said,

We'll see.
 

QisTopTier

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,708
Uh yeah next year sometime thing is something different. What people mean is this current one. The 2021 normal blizzcon is still flat canceled as of now.

Which makes sense as 2020 stuff got pushed into the feb online event. Which means going forward blizzcon might just be a start of the year thing.
 
Last edited: