Well, this is gonna be a bummer for anyone who was hoping this year’s BlizzCon would be a blockbuster to turn the company around: Blizzard just announced that it’s canceled in-person BlizzCon, again, thanks to continuing uncertainties over how the pandemic will look by the end of 2021.
“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.”
The good news is that Blizzard is planning another BlizzConline event for early next year, though it doesn’t expressly call it that. And of course, it’s not entirely a bad thing for Blizzard, as its pipeline problems are well-known at this point, though as MMO players, we’re expecting at minimum the WoW expansion reveal and Diablo Immortal itself. Still, I think most folks would rather have the big shebang. Cross your fingers for next year.
