pandas > belfs

Originally posted by expresso

Why do people assume the worst? they had no trouble selling tickets last year and sold out.

I would say I find it puzzeling they are not doing Blizzcon, they didn't announce anything at Blizzcon 2010 either so having nothing to announce is not an issue.

Blizzrad do make a lost on these events though so maybe it's just the bean counters being causious.  You all have to rememeber that all these millions blizzard makes do not go to blizzard they go to vivendi who then give blizzard a budget to work with.  Maybe they would rather spend the blizzcon event money on development?

But yeah Blizzcon would have if anything been Titans day..oh well guess we wait a lil longer.

People are assuming the worst because canceling a long-standing event is almost always a bad sign for a company.  This is like when Steve Jobs canceled a scheduled appearance before anyone knew about his medical condition - they didn't know the reason but assumed the worst, and how bad did it turn out to be?  Pretty bad.

The expense is not the issue - it may be a justification, but it's not the issue.  Conventions are always money-losing operations, in any major industry, but companies almost always make up for them in additional sales.  Wildly popular conventions like BlizzCon are about the best possible marketing any company could buy.

I don't know the reason, but I suspect that Blizzard is facing serious trouble related to upcoming releases.  D3 may be in the worst trouble; it already is behind schedule, and there are rumors of a major revamp in process.  That isn't a good sign.  WoW is also slumping at the moment, and the reactions to Mists of Pandaria were . . . mixed.  SC2 expansion is the only one that hasn't been hit by rumors of things going badly - but that is not their biggest ticket item coming up.  Titan is a non-issue, no way are they going to announce a new MMO with a packed release schedule and WoW looking vulnerable for the first time in years.

My suspicion:  Blizzard is in way over its head with its release schedule, and is now in all-hands-on-deck mode trying to fight fires and keep the ship from sinking.  I say this with no hate from me for Blizzard - I hope they get some great games out.  But it's impossible to ignore the warning signs, and the canceling of BlizzCon is a very big one.