BlizzCon and Our Latest Plans - No BlizzCon This Year

[MoanaLisa]

It makes sense to cancel at this point.

It's mostly a matter of balancing risk versus reward. As well, I'm not aware that they will have a great deal—or anything much—to announce in November so it's a convenient (but nonetheless true) reason to cancel the entire affair. If they do end up with some new things to announce they can stage some small event in a movie theater as they have done before and stream it out to everyone and assuredly it will get covered.

No one really understands what the summer (Northern Hemisphere) will bring to the planet with the ongoing pandemic and it's true that new cases among the unvaccinated—a substantial number of people in the U.S.—are much higher than those that have received the vaccine. In some places the rate of new cases with those that have yet to be vaccinated are near the levels of last winter.

It might be true that Blizzard could require masks but they would never be able to police that and the very last thing they need is to get singled out as a new nexus for the pandemic. So this is entirely predictable and sensible. We won't be getting back to truly normal life for some time yet (if ever).

[Zorachus]

Hopefully this means they’ll actually continue working on a good expansion and get rid of the "systems" from the last three expansions and give us something the fans want after 5+ years of shit

[bledgor]

Hopefully this means they’ll actually continue working on a good expansion and get rid of the "systems" from the last three expansions and give us something the fans want after 5+ years of shit

Meh I could live with renown, gated power progression isnt the worst, as it gives you continuous power past gear but limited and not an infinite grind. Also think they should take the half gain approach, that is when we leave shadowlands we get a new talent tier of all the covenant class abilities and only lose the generic covenant abilities.

Other than that they played with island expeditions but decided not to continue them, just like warfronts. We will see if torghast stays in shadowlands, but I'd rather they attempt new shit rather than only give us the same shit every expansion. Also much prefer this legendary system to ANY legendary system before it.

[Daronokk]

Blizzard has nothing to show, nothing new, nothing exciting, no clear goals, no ambition, no dreams, they just blame Covid and are done with it for this year. What a lame excuse. The company can die for all I care, all the good people left anyway.

[exochaft]

Most like reason there's no Blizzcon right now is there that's only Diablo:Immortal that's close to being done, with probably little to no updates for D4 and OW2.

People are still dying due to COVID in most parts of the planet. While cases may have dropped in your particular corner of it, doesn't mean the "pandemic ran it's course"

The unpleasant reality is that people die everyday, it's just that most people never give it a second thought. Despite the presence of Covid-19, death rates on average didn't change much in the world. Right now in India, the reason the virus is wrecking havoc is because the large portion of the populace in the lower caste are already massively unhealthy... but the sad reality is those people were probably going to die soon anyways. Specifically in the US, the average life expectancy didn't change even with Covid-19 because the median age of death due to Covid-19 is in your late 70's. This is why the deaths in LTC and nursing homes account for the majority of deaths due to Covid-19 in the US: they're generally full of old people with health issues, where the life expectancy of residents is already really low w/o a virus. Millions and millions of people have died from flu in the past, and we've had deadlier years due to virus in recent history than what we're experiencing now. The only difference is everyone is hyper-focusing on the virus and keeping tabs on the body count, where if we never heard of Covid-19 we would probably think we just had a nasty flu season and just moved on. This doesn't diminish that the virus has killed many people, but perspective should be maintained that thousands of people die everyday to things that are not Covid-19 that no one cares about or even thinks about.

Considering the actual statistics, in the US the pandemic has been over for a long time (of viral presence around the world, Covid-19 is currently 4th on the list behind other viruses). Even before vaccines started rolling out, the Los Angeles area had been estimating via studies that they had reached at least 50% population immunity to Covid-19 back at the start of the year. Considering that the vaccines started with the elderly in most areas, that's the most at-risk group in terms of age. Even without vaccines, if you've had the virus, you now have antibodies to fight off the virus that are just as good as vaccines, and natural immunity to Covid has been studied to last anywhere between 17 year to your entire life. If one does even rudimentary research into the actual data, roughly 80% of the hospitalizations of people with Covid in the US were morbidly obese people. In my state, roughly 99% (98.6% last I checked) of the deaths were pre-existing conditions, and the breakdown was that it was almost exclusively morbidly obese people and the eldery who tend to have health issues. Young (or even middle-aged) people in good health have never had anything to fear from the virus, which was known over a year ago. Even asymptomatic spread being an issue has been restudied and reaffirmed to not even be a factor, which the CDC and Fauci have finally admitted despite this being common sense for decades before. Apparently, we also had to redo studies done multiple times over decades about masks to only reaffirm that they don't work to protect/prevent infection of respiratory virus (there's a reason we've never worn masks for any respiratory virus). Only real things we've learned that wasn't known over a year ago is that, unlike SARS 1, Covid (SARS2) does not tend to spread via fomites... for the layman, the virus doesn't spread on surfaces. Also, we've learned that Covid-19 is likely season, reaffirmed by the masks studies showing that the case/infection data and curves are basically the same regardless of mask usage... and the curves following how other respiratory viruses tend to make during the seasons for the region. I suppose a third, still-being-studied, unknown thing being discovered is that influenza has basically disappeared this season due to assumed viral interference caused by Covid-19.

So how does this tie into Blizzcon? I wouldn't be surprised if all the staff/presenters had vaccines already if they wanted them, so they have nothing to worry about. The general populace that attends Blizzcon is on the younger end of the age spectrum, so there's no concern of Covid-19 for them. If there are older people in attendance, they've already probably already been vaccinated. Of those attending that aren't vaccinated, a large portion of them have likely already had Covid-19 and have natural immunity to the virus. The only legitimate concern if there were morbidly obese younger people in attendance contracting the virus for the first time. While such people will be in attendance, being surrounded by vaccinated people and people with natural immunity (either T-cell or antibody) reduces the chances significantly of spreading the virus... that's how herd immunity works. All in all, the risk at this point in time is extremely low, and any honest statistical analysis or scientific research would make this apparent.

Due to the above, this is why I think the real reason Blizz is canceling Blizzcon for now is they don't have enough content to release. I'm giving Blizz the benefit of the doubt by assuming they aren't just virtue-signaling, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is also a factor. However, actual science and statistics are not the reason Blizzcon is getting canceled.

[Bane-Thunder-God]

diablo 3 and immortal made everyone not care about that franchise anymore
.

Wow you are super delusional. Watch Diablo 2 Resurrected break PC sales records then watch Diablo 4 do the same thing when that comes too.

[rhorle]

The general populace that attends Blizzcon is on the younger end of the age spectrum

Clearly you have never watched or been to a Blizzcon. The fans of the game that attend are all different ages and everything else. They have done Blizzcon in the past with little new content to share. Most times that is in the years between Blizzard expansions where there isn't much to share about anything at all. You can believe whatever conspiracy you want but it has everything to do with the pandemic and nothing to do with a news drought.

[Jastall]

I'm surprised other people are surprised they aren't doing a in-person BlizzCon this year. Come on people, use your heads.

Have you read this thread? No brain is going on overdrive here.

[Zodiark]

People are still dying due to COVID in most parts of the planet. While cases may have dropped in your particular corner of it, doesn't mean the "pandemic ran it's course"

People like you need to get their heads straight. Seriously. I feel like I'm talking to little kids every time one of your kind open their mouths.

The Covid Pandemic was and is a new variant of the common cold. On the back of many bottles of cleaning products with anti-bacterial properties there is a message which states that this product kills coronavirus. These messages have been printed for decades. Because some time back the common cold virus was properly identified and given the name coronavirus.
Now the Novel-Coronavirus or Covid-19 was a new variant. Mind you we don't have a vaccine for the common cold. However. If you gave everyone the common cold all at once around the world, many people would die because even a small percentage of a large number is a lot of people.
Sadly we are born to die. There was even a show years ago called 1000 ways to die.
We as people think that by careful planning we can minimize death. I say this is not so. Because every day we should be thankful we are alive.
The same ways people died from Covid are the same ways people with the common cold die when complications arise. Especially with pneumonia.
Which was much more worried about years ago back in the day people would yell at their kids to put on a coat or else they will catch pneumonia, which was a real concern. The only difference was that covid was specifically identifiable and looked for by doctors. Throw a cup of paint in a box of mice, most will get hit by a splatter, some will get it in their mouths and die.

Bottom line. Blizzard and the rest of the world are more worried about negative publicity from -God-forbid- someone-got-covid at their event. So they caved. End of story.

- - - Updated - - -

Most like reason there's no Blizzcon right now is there that's only Diablo:Immortal that's close to being done, with probably little to no updates for D4 and OW2.



The unpleasant reality is that people die everyday, it's just that most people never give it a second thought. Despite the presence of Covid-19, death rates on average didn't change much in the world. Right now in India, the reason the virus is wrecking havoc is because the large portion of the populace in the lower caste are already massively unhealthy... but the sad reality is those people were probably going to die soon anyways. Specifically in the US, the average life expectancy didn't change even with Covid-19 because the median age of death due to Covid-19 is in your late 70's. This is why the deaths in LTC and nursing homes account for the majority of deaths due to Covid-19 in the US: they're generally full of old people with health issues, where the life expectancy of residents is already really low w/o a virus. Millions and millions of people have died from flu in the past, and we've had deadlier years due to virus in recent history than what we're experiencing now. The only difference is everyone is hyper-focusing on the virus and keeping tabs on the body count, where if we never heard of Covid-19 we would probably think we just had a nasty flu season and just moved on. This doesn't diminish that the virus has killed many people, but perspective should be maintained that thousands of people die everyday to things that are not Covid-19 that no one cares about or even thinks about.

Considering the actual statistics, in the US the pandemic has been over for a long time (of viral presence around the world, Covid-19 is currently 4th on the list behind other viruses). Even before vaccines started rolling out, the Los Angeles area had been estimating via studies that they had reached at least 50% population immunity to Covid-19 back at the start of the year. Considering that the vaccines started with the elderly in most areas, that's the most at-risk group in terms of age. Even without vaccines, if you've had the virus, you now have antibodies to fight off the virus that are just as good as vaccines, and natural immunity to Covid has been studied to last anywhere between 17 year to your entire life. If one does even rudimentary research into the actual data, roughly 80% of the hospitalizations of people with Covid in the US were morbidly obese people. In my state, roughly 99% (98.6% last I checked) of the deaths were pre-existing conditions, and the breakdown was that it was almost exclusively morbidly obese people and the eldery who tend to have health issues. Young (or even middle-aged) people in good health have never had anything to fear from the virus, which was known over a year ago. Even asymptomatic spread being an issue has been restudied and reaffirmed to not even be a factor, which the CDC and Fauci have finally admitted despite this being common sense for decades before. Apparently, we also had to redo studies done multiple times over decades about masks to only reaffirm that they don't work to protect/prevent infection of respiratory virus (there's a reason we've never worn masks for any respiratory virus). Only real things we've learned that wasn't known over a year ago is that, unlike SARS 1, Covid (SARS2) does not tend to spread via fomites... for the layman, the virus doesn't spread on surfaces. Also, we've learned that Covid-19 is likely season, reaffirmed by the masks studies showing that the case/infection data and curves are basically the same regardless of mask usage... and the curves following how other respiratory viruses tend to make during the seasons for the region. I suppose a third, still-being-studied, unknown thing being discovered is that influenza has basically disappeared this season due to assumed viral interference caused by Covid-19.

So how does this tie into Blizzcon? I wouldn't be surprised if all the staff/presenters had vaccines already if they wanted them, so they have nothing to worry about. The general populace that attends Blizzcon is on the younger end of the age spectrum, so there's no concern of Covid-19 for them. If there are older people in attendance, they've already probably already been vaccinated. Of those attending that aren't vaccinated, a large portion of them have likely already had Covid-19 and have natural immunity to the virus. The only legitimate concern if there were morbidly obese younger people in attendance contracting the virus for the first time. While such people will be in attendance, being surrounded by vaccinated people and people with natural immunity (either T-cell or antibody) reduces the chances significantly of spreading the virus... that's how herd immunity works. All in all, the risk at this point in time is extremely low, and any honest statistical analysis or scientific research would make this apparent.

Due to the above, this is why I think the real reason Blizz is canceling Blizzcon for now is they don't have enough content to release. I'm giving Blizz the benefit of the doubt by assuming they aren't just virtue-signaling, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is also a factor. However, actual science and statistics are not the reason Blizzcon is getting canceled.

Honestly this is more or less what I've been saying all along! Bravo good sir for speaking the truth!
I used to say if you have covid come give it to me ! Because if everything I've done in my life isn't enough for me to overcome then I'm meant to die. Which I accept. Which is why I live every day to the best I can so when that time comes I can feel minimal regrets. I'm not changing my life though because the news and media outlets are Fear-Porn mongers who live off the hysteria they create by spreading bad news. It just means more clicks for them and all they care about is advertising dollars. Wake up people!

[MasterOfNone]

Not gonna quote the entirety of your verbal diarrhea, but you don't suppose there are visitors from other states, or even countries to these Blizzcon events? Just because California has decided to open up things now, and many are getting vaccinated, doesn't mean everyone has been vaccinated, and likely won't be before November of this year...

There is no real need to have Blizzcon in person, when Blizzcon Online works just fine. And actually reaches a far wider audience, since even people who can't attend "in person" can take part in Blizzcon.

He proved the other post wrong so you move the goal post. You clever dickens you /sarcasm.

[Hothgor]

People are still dying due to COVID in most parts of the planet. While cases may have dropped in your particular corner of it, doesn't mean the "pandemic ran it's course"

I must have missed the Pandemic being over when we had our highest daily average case rates in January and February of this year...

[Sensa1]

Most like reason there's no Blizzcon right now is there that's only Diablo:Immortal that's close to being done, with probably little to no updates for D4 and OW2.



The unpleasant reality is that people die everyday, it's just that most people never give it a second thought. Despite the presence of Covid-19, death rates on average didn't change much in the world. Right now in India, the reason the virus is wrecking havoc is because the large portion of the populace in the lower caste are already massively unhealthy... but the sad reality is those people were probably going to die soon anyways. Specifically in the US, the average life expectancy didn't change even with Covid-19 because the median age of death due to Covid-19 is in your late 70's. This is why the deaths in LTC and nursing homes account for the majority of deaths due to Covid-19 in the US: they're generally full of old people with health issues, where the life expectancy of residents is already really low w/o a virus. Millions and millions of people have died from flu in the past, and we've had deadlier years due to virus in recent history than what we're experiencing now. The only difference is everyone is hyper-focusing on the virus and keeping tabs on the body count, where if we never heard of Covid-19 we would probably think we just had a nasty flu season and just moved on. This doesn't diminish that the virus has killed many people, but perspective should be maintained that thousands of people die everyday to things that are not Covid-19 that no one cares about or even thinks about.

Considering the actual statistics, in the US the pandemic has been over for a long time (of viral presence around the world, Covid-19 is currently 4th on the list behind other viruses). Even before vaccines started rolling out, the Los Angeles area had been estimating via studies that they had reached at least 50% population immunity to Covid-19 back at the start of the year. Considering that the vaccines started with the elderly in most areas, that's the most at-risk group in terms of age. Even without vaccines, if you've had the virus, you now have antibodies to fight off the virus that are just as good as vaccines, and natural immunity to Covid has been studied to last anywhere between 17 year to your entire life. If one does even rudimentary research into the actual data, roughly 80% of the hospitalizations of people with Covid in the US were morbidly obese people. In my state, roughly 99% (98.6% last I checked) of the deaths were pre-existing conditions, and the breakdown was that it was almost exclusively morbidly obese people and the eldery who tend to have health issues. Young (or even middle-aged) people in good health have never had anything to fear from the virus, which was known over a year ago. Even asymptomatic spread being an issue has been restudied and reaffirmed to not even be a factor, which the CDC and Fauci have finally admitted despite this being common sense for decades before. Apparently, we also had to redo studies done multiple times over decades about masks to only reaffirm that they don't work to protect/prevent infection of respiratory virus (there's a reason we've never worn masks for any respiratory virus). Only real things we've learned that wasn't known over a year ago is that, unlike SARS 1, Covid (SARS2) does not tend to spread via fomites... for the layman, the virus doesn't spread on surfaces. Also, we've learned that Covid-19 is likely season, reaffirmed by the masks studies showing that the case/infection data and curves are basically the same regardless of mask usage... and the curves following how other respiratory viruses tend to make during the seasons for the region. I suppose a third, still-being-studied, unknown thing being discovered is that influenza has basically disappeared this season due to assumed viral interference caused by Covid-19.

So how does this tie into Blizzcon? I wouldn't be surprised if all the staff/presenters had vaccines already if they wanted them, so they have nothing to worry about. The general populace that attends Blizzcon is on the younger end of the age spectrum, so there's no concern of Covid-19 for them. If there are older people in attendance, they've already probably already been vaccinated. Of those attending that aren't vaccinated, a large portion of them have likely already had Covid-19 and have natural immunity to the virus. The only legitimate concern if there were morbidly obese younger people in attendance contracting the virus for the first time. While such people will be in attendance, being surrounded by vaccinated people and people with natural immunity (either T-cell or antibody) reduces the chances significantly of spreading the virus... that's how herd immunity works. All in all, the risk at this point in time is extremely low, and any honest statistical analysis or scientific research would make this apparent.

Due to the above, this is why I think the real reason Blizz is canceling Blizzcon for now is they don't have enough content to release. I'm giving Blizz the benefit of the doubt by assuming they aren't just virtue-signaling, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is also a factor. However, actual science and statistics are not the reason Blizzcon is getting canceled.

There are so many categorically false statements in the above post it's sad.

There have, and continue to be, more deaths than expected in every age category as a result of covid. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...n-young-adults

Covid is also deadly for many in the younger age groups.

https://www.paho.org/en/news/5-5-202...rector-reports

And, the above post also completely ignores those covid cases that lead to long-term health conditions

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heal...cts-of-covid19

There's no point in debating this individual or the other covid denyer in the thread as they quite obliviously aren't interested in the facts to begin with. But covid has led to a significant number of excess deaths and is potentially very deadly for young people.

[Hothgor]

I never said it's over. Someone else did (in this thread). It's actually far from over. Just because infection rates are down (as a result of more and more people getting vaccinated), doesn't mean people aren't still dying from it. But these very sick individuals, calling it a "fake pandemic" are among the problem of why not enough people get vaccinated. People buy into the notion that it's "fake" (Hint: it's not), and so they figure they are safe without getting the vaccines.

You are right, I meant to quote ZazzuPriest in the post above yours.

[SunspotAnims]

I think people are misinterpreting the statement about COVID. It's not that COVID will still be widespread come November, it's that if a full in-person convention were to occur in November, preparation for it should/would have started months ago when the future of COVID was still uncertain. Even now, it's impossible to predict how things will be by then; ideally, infection rates will be negligible, but deciding to have a convention now with the hope that this will be the case has the probability of biting them in the ass.

As for why the alternative event is in 2022? Maybe planning for it has just started. Maybe it is true that they won't have much to share by November but if they had actually nothing then they would've just not held an event in the first place. A few-month delay is negligible in the grand scheme of things and if it results in more substantive announcements then I don't see how it's a bad thing.

Lastly, BlizzConline was free and it was literally three months ago, so what's making people think that the 2022 streams won't also be free? The lack of critical thinking regarding this situation is astonishing.

[SoundOfGuns]

For some reason my trust in Acti/Blizz is so devestated and in shambles, that i got no way but to simply asume that Boby Kotick, the most useless Ass in gaming, simply said "No, won't make enough money.". Not like i care that much about Blizzcon. Its a nice event, that's it. But Blizzards stupidity and atrocious behavior just make my bullshit-senses tingling when they talk about how they tots just don't plan one because they are o-so concerned with quality and security.

Activision would push a toddler into a blender if it made Kotick more money.

[Donald Hellscream]

Makes sense, Imagine them hosting Blizzcon and it turning into a superspreader event, people would be fucking livid, I mean they already are just because they don't like the direction of wow or the company, so imagine if the company was in any way responsible for a superspread.

[SNES-1990]

If it's another group therapy session where the voice actors talk about COVID for an hour then no thanks.

[rhorle]

For some reason my trust in Acti/Blizz is so devestated and in shambles, that i got no way but to simply asume that Boby Kotick, the most useless Ass in gaming, simply said "No, won't make enough money.". Not like i care that much about Blizzcon. Its a nice event, that's it. But Blizzards stupidity and atrocious behavior just make my bullshit-senses tingling when they talk about how they tots just don't plan one because they are o-so concerned with quality and security.

Blizzard has stated numerous times that they don't make a profit from Blizzcon. It isn't being cancelled in order to give the CEO more money. It is being cancelled because there isn't enough time to plan and put everything together for one now that the pandemic seems to be under control in the country. Things take time to do and is isn't a magical snap of the fingers that wills everything into being.

[Samuraijake]

the vaccine is now reported to cause heart inflammation in specifically younger human beings

[Mojo03]

Probably just a better safe then sorry thing. Still unknowns with people flying in from other countries and variants, etc.

I don’t totally blame them. They’d rather wait till it’s 100% back to normal.

All the drama queens can relax.