Blizzard Cancels Blizzcon 2012

[WMDogma]

Blizzard Cancels Blizzcon 2012

Blizzard has decided to cancel its yearly convention in order to focus on its upcoming projects.

It's the end of days! Well, not entirely, but fans of Starcraft and World of Warcraft are going to have to go a whole extra year without BlizzCon, as Blizzard announced its cancelling this year's convention.

"In light of our jam-packed schedule," Blizzard stated, "We've decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013."

In its place, Blizzard will be hosting the 2012 Battle.net World Championship in Asia towards the end of the year. Gamers worldwide can attend the eSports event, which will feature "some of the most skilled pro players on the planet [battling] it out for cash and glory."

it's not entirely a surprise that Blizzard might be looking to refocus its efforts, especially with Diablo 3, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and the next WoW expansion Mists of Panderia all coming up over the next year or so, on top of any secret projects [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108273-Blizzards-New-MMO-Will-Blow-Peoples-Minds] it may have under wraps.

BlizzCon itself has been a yearly event since 2005, with the one exception of 2006 in which Blizzard decided to hold off on hosting the event. Blizzard has used its convention in the past to announce details about its upcoming projects.

Source: Battle.Net [http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/blog/4338369/2012_Battlenet_World_Championship_Event-1_25_2012#blog]


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[Random Argument Man]

It's going to be a big year for Blizzard. Diablo 3 and Starcraft are going to be big. Mists of Panderia seems less epic that it previous expansions, but the lore of Panderia could make some good twists in the story.

If I recalled, there's a thing called "Sha" that materialize hatred. I wonder what happens if we put two factions that pretty much want to destroy the other on a continent like that...

 

[Agente L]

Another year with me not going to blizzcon. Atleast I won't have to watch it on stream in suffering!

 

[TheDooD]

More like Blizzard doesn't want to be at Blizzcon this year when they say Diablo 3 is delayed AGAIN.

 

[Desworks]

Not too surprising really. Even if they had one this year, they presumably wouldn't have much to talk about after all. By then Diablo 3 will be out, and Mists of Pandaria and Heart of the Swarm will either be out or about to release, so that would just leave Titan to discuss and they probably don't have any news for us on that project yet. All we know about it for sure so far is that it has a project name so far.

Roll around 2013, and they'll have stuff to talk about for Legacy of the Void and possibly Diablo and World of Warcraft expacs, plus the possibility that they'll give Titan an actual name.

 

[Aenir]

Wow...did not see that coming at all.

 

[Hitchmeister]

Well, there's a fair chance Diablo 3, Heart of the Swarm, and Mists of Pandaria will all be released by late October (when BlizzCon usually takes place), So they'd have pretty much nothing to preview. Or rather, anything they did would still be the big 'news' at BlizzCon 2013.

Edit: Sorry, Desworks, for some reason your post didn't show up until I posted mine.

 

[cahtush]

Hopefully they will have better maps for the SC2 tournament this year.
Maps like Daybreak, Dual Sight and Bel-shir beach, not shitty ladder maps and close spawn shattered temple.

 

[TheUsurper]

Blizzcon had to actually be announced before it could be cancelled.

 

[Baresark]

I'm not surprised. It's not worth having one if you have no meaningful forward motion on any of your projects. I still don't understand why anyone pays ridiculous amounts of money to go to a show for a game studio that doesn't know anything about scheduling or release dates or any of that. I would imagine that most of the show was always looking at concept art, which is lame. Oh, and the big musical acts. Also, for some reason I doubt Diablo 3 will be out by the time Blizzcon comes around and they won't want to deal with that fallout. The recent news of reworking a bunch of the game has pretty much ruined that chance. I also remember that game has been "close to releasing" for about 2 years now. They will need a whole new beta phase to work out the reworking.

I don't care for Blizzard though. So this news really doesn't affect me, or surprise me really.

 

[Waaghpowa]

God damn it, and I was planning to go this year.

 

[Skeleon]

Good thing I stopped following Blizzard around after Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne, I might care otherwise.

 

[RJ 17]

I'm not surprised. It's not worth having one if you have no meaningful forward motion on any of your projects. I still don't understand why anyone pays ridiculous amounts of money to go to a show for a game studio that doesn't know anything about scheduling or release dates or any of that. I would imagine that most of the show was always looking at concept art, which is lame. Oh, and the big musical acts. Also, for some reason I doubt Diablo 3 will be out by the time Blizzcon comes around and they won't want to deal with that fallout. The recent news of reworking a bunch of the game has pretty much ruined that chance. I also remember that game has been "close to releasing" for about 2 years now. They will need a whole new beta phase to work out the reworking.

I don't care for Blizzard though. So this news really doesn't affect me, or surprise me really.

In the words of Alexander Anderson a la Hellsing Ultimate: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!" Blizzard has become a lot like Square-Enix in my eyes...they need to work on releasing something GOOD rather than just re-hashing the same crap over and over.

The fact that Mists of Panderia is the next WoW expansion says a lot as to just how much Blizzard can't stop humping that dead horse. They've already killed off all major villains from the WoW series, now they're having to dig far up their asses for ideas to crap out on the table.

 

[IamQ]

More like Blizzard doesn't want to be at Blizzcon this year when they say Diablo 3 is delayed AGAIN.

Delayed from what? They've never said a release date.

 

[Robert Ewing]

This is either the start of something very serious for Blizzard in a negative light, or the start of something extremely epic.

 

[TWEWER]

Good for Blizzard. They're a game company. They should be focusing on making games, not on public relations.

 

[funksobeefy]

Damn, I was already talking my friends into road tripping down there this year. I would love to see some awesome Starcraft 2 action live.