From Blizzards marketing perspective it was to promote games. From Blizzards perspective un general it was a celebration of they games they made with the fans who play them who showed up. From a fans perspective it was an opportunity to go to an event of similar people who share a passion for the same things they did and to enjoy a social event.
You only cared about the expat reveals. You don't speak for everyone.
They haven't done one properly since Mists of Pandaria, IMO. I still remember how much stuff they had to show off at that BlizzCon. They showed off the cinematic, the Pandaren, the Wandering Isle, large swathes of Pandaria, a number of dungeons, tons of concept art, and all of it with their amazing music. It feels like every BlizzCon expansion preview they've had after has had less and less since then.
What would they show anyway? The new Overwatch patch they call Overwatch 2? Or an announcement that they are still working on Diablo 4? WoW is dead, nobody cares about that anyway and there is nothing else.
I read this as: "Our development contract with our third party vendor ends in December and we are reevaluating the newly proposed contract and weighing other third party vendors. Because of this, our engineering timelines have been moved to "least risky" to "most risky" in terms of completing our cycles. As we can't say with a degree of confidence what you can expect from Blizzard in the coming quarters, we'd rather wait till we're better prepared with a better timeline of expectations."
I think this is better for the company and fans overall.
BlizzCon came when Blizzard was on a strong upswing and there was a lot of momentum behind that. Also a lot of pressure. Blizzard is a games company, they're not an expo company. As in, putting on their own 2-day event with thousands of attendees. They did it, but it was clearly stressful for staff and reportedly not at all profitable for the company. Attending existing expositions is way easier than putting on one of your own.
And over time as they felt they had to keep the BlizzCon train going, that led to more pressure behind the scenes as staff had to prepare for the event -- and then attend it, and stay around people, some of which were abusers, in a non-work environment. A hotel even. I'm sure they also had to deal with grabby, pushy, or unhappy fans at various points throughout the event. Plus, where initial BlizzCons were in-person, they quickly became streamed as well, adding additional staff and technical hurdles and headaches.
Just do your announcements and event online like the last fully-streamed "Con" and call it good. The fans would rather you put your energy into making better games and fixing problems with existing ones, instead of having to put staff on projects for BlizzCon (panels, displays, activities, vendor partnerships, etc.). Online allows you to control your Q&A and narrative as you no doubt need to right now.
Blizzard realized its running out of old content to rerelease.
What would they announce anyways? More censorship? The new feature of removing skimpy transmogs? I know they said they wouldnt but we know pretty well where this is going.
English is not my main language so grammar errors might happen.
They probably were going to announce Cole Cassidy at this Blizconline, but since he came out ahead of time they had nothing new to announce and cancelled the whole thing.
What on earth are you talking about? You can't just pull a bunch of random nonsense out of thin air and think that counts as evidence or proof. This is nothing - just a list of random shit they MIGHT want to talk about. But if we scrape away the surface, all you have really said is : "they could announce the next expansion for wow, and, um, maybe sc3?". Yeah, and they COULD announce that they are working on a frogger MMO, and a racing game based on electric scooters. They COULD do these things, but there is no evidence for ANY of these things.
You said they DO have things to feature at blizzcons, then produced a bunch of airy fairy, baseless nonsense.
And let me help you out a bit - if you think they have new IPs to announce, a trailer ready to go for the next expansion, SC3, AND other things to talk about, but chose to cancel blizzcons......then I have a bridge to sell you.
And still when you created it your looking at the dull old backgrounds.
Amazing.
Honestly, I doubt there will ever be a physical Blizzcon again. The online versions are even more of a cash grab at a fraction of the cost. Plus you have complete control over the questions, no risk of adverse fan reactions, and can reshoot each announcement until you get it right.
LMFAO. Like hell they will admit it. They didn't even have the humility to admit that their SL systems was a colossal failure from launch. Instead they used the story narrative as an excuse.
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Blizz is a huge KEKW right now. I stopped playing all their games since Feb. They couldn't even make a new game since OW in 2016.
Dude no offense but you seem really really naive. You believe everything businesses tell you. You’re calling others stupid for “not knowing how to read” when they simply are disbelieving Blizzard. I’ve seen you this entire thread defend everything about Blizzard. I don’t know if you work for them or what, but no one should believe businesses that have a known track record for bullshit. And that’s modern Blizzard. The old generation are gone and what’s left is the people who have ran the game down over the last years. I mean damn dude. You really shouldn’t put pure faith in a 100% for profit business. Especially not one with this track record.
First lesson I’d say is learn just because they say something will be released a certain time doesn’t mean it will be.
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This is what I mean. You think announcing patches is a huge deal. It isn’t. You just took the goal post from major announcements and moved it to regularly scheduled patches. Come on man.
OW2 is dead. Heroes is not only dead but murdered. D3 is dead. D2R was not bad but doesn't have anywhere to go. D4 has gotten worse with every reveal since the awesome announcement. WoW has been actively gutted despite already being empty of story or content. SC2 is long dead for nothing. What could they possibly announce? Slutmogs being removed? There'll never be another Blizzcon unless, of all things, Activision saves Blizzard from itself in the most unlikely of all outcomes.
Paladin Bash has spoken.
^ Basically this.
It was much more of a community thing in 2005 when it started. I went in 2009. I actually met Rob Pardo in line to get a beer and he was super cool to talk to. I highly doubt the devs even still walk around and talk to random people at the recent ones.
Now it's basically a corporate PR/marketing event masquerading as a community event they simultaneously use as an opportunity to make money off the whales and addicts.
I'm sure it's insanely more profitable and all around easier to do online, plus they have much more control over the narrative. No more "Don't you guys have phones" moments.