BlizzCon and Our Latest Plans - No BlizzCon This Year

[Dead Moose Fandango]

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

Hey, I can make accusations without backing too! Comic books cause eyes to bleed!

But seriously, according to experts, the heart inflammation is caused by Covid itself, not the vaccine. Don't spread idiotic lies and/or rumors.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html

Look it up.

[Laqweeta]

I feel like nowadays it doesn’t bring enough profit in so they using this excuse

[Pacster]

Can't help it but given the stage of the development of the games that we have ssen lately I think Blizz is darn happy about not having to do a Blizzcon and finding an excuse in Covid. If they had something up their sleeves then they would likely do a BlizzConOnline(from the comments here it seems some obviously did not even understand yet that there will be NO BlizzCon AT ALL this year). They should have learned something from last year and do it better this time(and actually that did not fail because it was online but because they had again nothing noteworthy to show. They thought they gonna get away with it cause online and covid). If they got no real products to show in 2021...well...it would become the 3rd desaster in a row.

Guess they are crossing the fingers that by spring 2022 they gonna have Diablo and Overwatch ready and they are more than graphic updates by then. I would not count on it tho...
Maybe the OW2 recap a few days ago and the negative backlash from fans scared the sh*t out of them.

[Nhiosis]

What a shame. I can't buy Covid as an excuse at this point either myself. Seems like something else is going on internally.

[Samuraijake]

Hey, I can make accusations without backing too! Comic books cause eyes to bleed!

But seriously, according to experts, the heart inflammation is caused by Covid itself, not the vaccine. Don't spread idiotic lies and/or rumors.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html

Look it up.

i did.. now eat shit

https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-investiga...193600193.html

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating reports of heart problems in teenagers and young adults who were vaccinated against COVID-19.

[cuafpr]

this thread just wow... blizz doesn't make money on blizzcon. It's canceled due to lack of time but more so yes COVID, no one knows what the fall/winter will bring, a new strain? new outbreak? Will the convention center be 100% open then? If not a smaller con means higher ticket prices, double/tripple? If the 2022 world wide thing is big enough I suspect that might be it for 2022 as well and 2023 in-person con would now be in Jan/Feb/March vs the fall which I would actually prefer so yes I'm bias there.

[Pacster]

i did.. now eat shit

https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-investiga...193600193.html

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating reports of heart problems in teenagers and young adults who were vaccinated against COVID-19.

Whoever wants to answer on this: DON'T. PLEASE. Get back to topic. This whole thing is not propperly reviewed yet and will need more time. Wait and see what the scientists will figure out during the next weeks.

[Jastall]

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.

Basically this. Normal Blizzcons are probably planned not long after the previous one ends, they would be a bit short on time to host, and it wouldn't be a normal Blizzcon regardless due to them having to account for COVID even if it's a lot less of a problem come November, which they don't know if it'll be. Probably, yes, but they can't count on "probably" when money and PR are on the line.

Now it may also be that they don't have that much to announce and thus can safely sit this year out as well. There's likely several factors to this decision, as with most things this complex. But to pretend COVID had no impact is silly. If Blizzard just had literally nothing to announce they'd pull a 2012 and not host an event at all. The same people are going to pretend the company's dying anyway.

[Feroxxy]

Instead of believing in conspiracies like a big poster did, I see perfect sense in Blizzard's decision because you dont want to start working and preparing on an event that will cost thousands if not ten thousands of dollars only to be denied opening up because of unpredictable Covid rulings and fluctuations. Sad to have yet another Blizzconline because its so "fake", but it is what it is.

[Gadzooks]

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.

This. This is what I was gonna post, these events are massive, and take a full year, if not more, to plan and put together - up until recently nobody could book an event this big in the state of CA with any certainty. It's only recently that they could - and if they hadn't done any work towards hiring the staging, vendors, accommodations and the venue itself until now, there's no way they're pulling a Blizzcon level event out of their asses in 5 months. It's simply not do-able. It also doesn't help that the round of layoffs included members of the Blizzcon team.

As for having nothing to show? Maybe. They're behind in pacing, for sure, considering they're still in a x.1 patch this deep into an expansion. They can't drop 10.0 in November if they haven't dropped 9.2 or 9.3 yet, and whatever story points are in it. New expansions, to my memory, have never been announced until the final patch of the current one is in play, or pretty damned close to it. 2020 messed everyone up. I hope Blizzard doesn't use that as a crutch for bad management, I have no idea if that's the case, but they're definitely still very much behind whatever "normal" schedules happened in the past, and it's pretty likely the past schedules will have no bearing on them right now.

Considering how much they're struggling, more dev time towards D4 and whatever the next WoW patch is gonna be, is probably a good thing. They said something online in the beginning of 2022, so they have a stage set to announce anything, if there is anything.

But it's MMO-C, so back to conspiracy and anger and shouting at each other - sorry for trying to have some common sense and being reasonable. You assholes. Better?

[tylenol]

i did.. now eat shit

https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-investiga...193600193.html

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating reports of heart problems in teenagers and young adults who were vaccinated against COVID-19.

“Most cases appear to be mild, and follow-up of cases is ongoing,” the report says. Rates of myocarditis after vaccination haven’t differed from “expected baseline rates” but the ACIP wanted to share the information with healthcare providers, so experts are ready to identify and treat the heart condition should it become an issue for a patient.

One study of 187 patients with COVID-19 that was published in JAMA Cardiology found that nearly 28% of them had a cardiac issue that led to heart dysfunction and arrhythmias, i.e. irregular heart beats.

Ok, so there have been 288,000,000 doses of the 3 vaccines given in the US and we have an article saying they did a study with 187 people and 52 of them had issues, also the article that links to heart problems in the article you linked literally says

"Other people offered hope that it would get better. “I’ve had this too. Had COVID in February and experienced irregular heart rhythms for three months."

so these people had COVID before any vaccine, it's like bloodclots, oh no the vaccines might have a hairs chance of causing bloodclots but you know what has a 20% chance of causing bloodclots? COVID-19...


(quoting is messed up can't be assed to fix)
edit, fixed it

[Beastiel]

Blizzcon was cool when blizzard was a company that had heart, soul and a real connection to their community

Now that blizzard is a soulless corporate entity that just regurgitates generic feel-good "games bring us together" speeches they should probably just stop having it.

[Gadzooks]

Instead of believing in conspiracies like a big poster did, I see perfect sense in Blizzard's decision because you dont want to start working and preparing on an event that will cost thousands if not ten thousands of dollars only to be denied opening up because of unpredictable Covid rulings and fluctuations. Sad to have yet another Blizzconline because its so "fake", but it is what it is.

Add a couple zeros to those costs. Blizzcon is easily a multi-million dollar event.

Tens of thousands is a small to medium sized booth at a large convention, I know, as I've worked for companies that have them.

Blizzon? Taking over the Anaheim Convention Center? For 3 days?

Millions. Easy.

[Barcasaur]

very non-based decision, not like blizzcon would have been worth going too.

[Flame6]

Add a couple zeros to those costs. Blizzcon is easily a multi-million dollar event.

Tens of thousands is a small to medium sized booth at a large convention, I know, as I've worked for companies that have them.

Blizzon? Taking over the Anaheim Convention Center? For 3 days?

Millions. Easy.

Is that different than this?

https://eventup.com/venue/anaheim-convention-center/

"FRI - SAT BUYOUT: $25,000.00"

[Fluttershy]

The covid lockdown schizos are in full force today.

"Its too dangerous to go out and work, please give me welfare so i can watch netflix all day"

[MidnyteTV]

No Blizzcon is better than a crappy Blizzcon. Plus too many right wing idiots aren't getting vaccinated so why risk it?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

very non-based decision, not like blizzcon would have been worth going too.

What exactly is the pH quaility of the decision?

[Rexosaurus]

The covid lockdown schizos are in full force today.

"Its too dangerous to go out and work, please give me welfare so i can watch netflix all day"

Do you really need someone to hold your hand through the process of figuring out that going to work at an office of 30 people that you see every day is different from gathering tens of thousands of people from across the country in an enclosed space?

[Kiwijello]

So, they couldn't figure out how to make more money out of it with no content to offer?