If you were one of several eager convention-goers, hoping to be a part of this year’s BlizzCon, bad news. Blizzard Entertainment has announced that it won’t be hosting its annual event but more surprisingly, it sounds as if the event won’t be making a comeback anytime soon.
“After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024. This decision was not made lightly as BlizzCon remains a very special event for all of us, and we know many of you look forward to it. While we’re approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years.”
Blizzard does go on to mention that it is looking forward to its PVP title Overwatch being one of the titles that’ll be playing at Dreamhack Dallas and Dreamhack Stockholm. On that note, it seems that the game studio will still be having a presence at Gamescom too, but in what capacity, no one knows.
“Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing more details about our launches coming later this year, including World of Warcraft: The War Within and Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. To celebrate these upcoming releases and to bring our communities together in new and special ways, we will soon share some exciting plans for other industry trade shows and conventions like Gamescom. We can’t wait to tell you more about those plans soon. We’re also looking forward to the Overwatch Champions Series’ stops at both Dreamhack Dallas and Dreamhack Stockholm. And we’re thrilled to be planning multiple, global, in-person events to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Warcraft, which will be held in addition to the in-game celebrations across our Warcraft games throughout 2024.”
It’s hard not to say that the departure of BlizzCon this year is symbolic of the growing trend of physical gaming conventions going bust. The most prominent example being E3; the event was cancelled in its entirety, after several partners and key brands – Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo – made the decision not to have a presence at the annual event anymore. As we said then, it’s amazing that it survived as long as it did. Even before and during the height of the pandemic, several titans of the industry were already hosting their own events in the same timeframe as the annual event, albeit with livestream events instead of physical ones.
(Source: Blizzard)
