BlizzCon to make a comeback to live format

Massive gaming hangouts are returning and with them, BlizzCon might make a comeback next year, according to the company’s recent announcement.

Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment, shared a ray of hope to the company’s fans by saying that they want to bring BlizzCon back in 2023 in a recent interview with Los Angeles Times. 

“We previously announced we’re taking a pause on BlizzCon while we reimagine it for the future but do want to return to a live event that enables us to celebrate the community,” Ybarra claimed. “We recently hired a new leader of BlizzCon, April McKee, who is hard at work on that plan.” 

Apart from Ybarra’s statement, there’s no exact information about the location, the size of the venue and the activities of the event. But he made it clear that the company is working in this direction to bring the fans their favorite conference. Moreover, Ybarra shared that he also strives to increase the number of games and major updates for existing projects. 

Previous BlizzCon events

Traditionally, the event hosted by Blizzard Entertainment took place in major venues and included new gaming announcements and updates and esports tournaments in the company’s titles. However, COVID-19 pandemic affected both esports and gaming industries and shut down LAN tournaments and offline conferences like BlizzCon, which was last held in offline mode in 2019.

In 2021, the company already hosted its signature event online titled BlizzConline, however, the team rejected to do the same format in 2022, because video conference apps simply can’t create the same atmosphere of the event and transfer it to people at home.

Any BlizzCon event takes every single one of us to make happen, an entire-company effort, fueled by our desire to share what we create with the community we care about so much. At this time, we feel the energy it would take to put on a show like this is best directed towards supporting our teams and progressing development of our games and experiences. — official statement by Blizzard Entertainment. 

There are probably more reasons for not holding the event this year. With many investigations and lawsuits regarding sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse that Blizzard Entertainment is currently undergoing, it seems like there’s no end to the controversy, while the apathy of the company’s fans continues to increase. 

Thus the management reportedly decided to put all the efforts into fixing internal problems. Moreover, the developer also currently suffers from a major critique of its recently released Diablo Immortal, which is called by fans a “pure cash grab”. In addition, with Overwatch 2 set to go live in October 2022, Blizzard seems to have too much on its plate, focusing on existing projects and troubles. 

 

Header credit: Blizzard Entertainment