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World of Warcraft News - No 2012 Blizzcon
Posted by Suzie Ford on Jan 25, 2012 | 41 comments in our forums
Citing a "jam packed schedule", Blizzard will not be hosting its (usually) annual fan convention, Blizzcon. The convention is the usual host for competitive online tournaments for StarCraft II and Warcraft. In light of the Blizzcon cancellation, these tournaments will be held in late 2012.
We’re excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We're also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players’ hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we’ve decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013.
Read more on the Blizzcon blog.
Guess this shoots Bill Murphy's prediction of a Titan announcement at Blizzcon 2012 in the foot. Perhaps we'll hear more at an alternative convention as has been done in the past.
Panda killed the con. Ooh.
"jam-packed schedule"?
I thought all three of those games were scheduled to release by Q3 this year. Maybe there will be no Blizzcon because there will be nothing to talk about. D3 should be out, Pandas should be out, Swarm should be out. That leaves Titan? Which may not even be close to ready to show.
Ya, I could see Blizzcon 2012 being pretty boring. "jam-packed schedule" is a nice excuse though.
I'm guessing they didn't generate the profit they did from previous years and decided to wait until the buzz is back in the air.
Yeah, the luster is off WOW now, and has moved solidly into a declining phase (happens to every title, they had a legendary run).
I'm guessing the real emphasis is on Titan as they need to get moving on that if their money maker is moving into a long term downward trend.
Much like the Star Wars IP, anything Blizzard related just feels cheap and "plastic". Something has been lost and I can't explain it.
as White Lantern Most of the 3 games coming to us from Blizzard should be out or near out when the blizzcon should happen...
most informations being already handed out... i doubt they got anything to truely Talk about and its fine.... but yea its a poor excuse cleverly Masked ? ... haha anyway..
Lets wait and see what happened with their product lines
Poor excuse but it looks like no Titan mmo announcement.
Honoestly its better then them hosting on and having people pay all that money to go to the convention and then not have any substantial info to give to the fans.
Yeah I guess this is cause they have nothing important to say.
Whatever this Titan MMO is, I doubt we will ever see it.
Maybe their fan base has grown up and started playing decent computer games.
Smart! Now that SC2 has been out a while, and Blizzard is in a decline stage it is smart of them to save their money and focus on Diablo 3, Titan, SC2 expansions, etc. I bet we see a strong showing from Blizzard in 2013.
Naw, some bean-counter at Activision did. Those cons are bloody expensive.
The end is nigh!
It's not the money .... Their profits increased last year from what I read.
guys it's 2012, Bizz knows this....it's the end of my Maya Calander. Why schedule some thing when we all goona be gone?
^^^This
If it took 7 years for the "luster" to be off WoW... that's still pretty impressive no?
Perhaps their busy working on Titan?
Spit out this "Titan" thingie lurking in your head. Even if they announce it tomorrow, still it would take 3+ years to hit the shelves. That's Blizz style. 2015/2016. Nuff said.
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.
They better hope Diablo 3 Lives up to what its supposed to be. If not this will be a very bad year for blizzard. With the downward spiral that WoW is going the panda expansion and the SC2 expansion is pretty much a single player campaign that will last a few days.
If diablo 3 doesnt live up to expectations and have some amazing additions to it, they better have Titan ready to show in full force for 2013 or they wise well cancel that blizzcon too.
I give it to them they have some of the most polished games out there but damn they get boring fast if not done right.
OW MY GAWD i just had my mommy finish the handmade panda costume i would wear are blizzcon to do the panda dance on stage.
Blizzard have just become too slow with releasing their game product, and at the moment everything is a re-hash or re-work of a previous game. The only thing coming soon is more WoW game. Diablo 3 has major problems and could even slip into 2013. As for Bill Murphy's predictions well it is a pretty safe bet that most of them are likely to fail to deliver.
They know it too. The magic is gone. Blizzard doesn't lay golden eggs anymore. They've become *gasp* vulnerable.
BlizzCon 2011 was...interesting.
OMG!
what are the Blizcon girls gonna do this year for money?!
....oh i know, keep their stripper jobs.
Absolutely impressive, I doubt we will ever see its equal in the MMORPG space again. And yes, I agree, they are now focused on Titan for sure.
Guess that's supposed to happen when you take 10+ years for every title plus 2 years for every ridiculous small addon (aka "when it's ready") -you run out of stuff to present on your own conventions.
Even if Blizzcon was every 3 years they still wouldn't have enough news on their own developements to fill 2 days with.
But perhaps it's just Kotick not allowing them to spend any of his money.
I'm sure there are plenty of furry/cosplay conventions going on this year where you can proudly display your mother's creation
It is impressive but you have to remember WoW came along at exactly the right time . Many people had just got broadband for the first time and like myself wanted to play an mmo . In its original design Blizzard got WoW so right and no mmo has managed to offer a persistant world with decent pvp and pve since . Thats not to say they have been bad games but they either have been linear like AoC or pvp orientated while lacking pve like Warhammer or pve orientated with a persitant world like Lotro .
None of them have got all the ingrediants WoW had in its early years in the right measure . Hats off to Blizzard for that . But hats firmly back on for making the game too easy and destroying world pvp in one fowl swoop with thier cross server looking for a group system .
I think the sheen has worn off Blizzard and the announcement of MoP really made a lot of people see which way they wanted to take the game . WoW isn't dead yet but its dieing and it will be a long slow protracted death though .
As for Titan I'm keeping an open mind but I believe Blizzard have pretty much ruined thier reputation as a developer in the eyes of many gamers . That will have an effect on sales . The problem is Blizzard have shown where they take a game even if the original concept is brilliant .
Dont forget blizzcon is just 1 of 2 fan conventions they do each year, Blizzard also have the World wide invitational event, they announced SC2 at that back in 2009? 2008?
This is pretty expected from most people, Blizz is ending a release cycle right now.
It is possible that they plan for MoP and Diablo 3 to be out a couple/few months before Blizzcon would have been held, so without something big on the horizon it didn't make much sense to have the convention.
I think that 2013 Blizzcon may be early next year, and that will be when they start teasing Titan.
Wow, some of you guys are so blinded with hate it's just ridiculous. Hell, if Blizzard donated all of its profits to charity I am pretty sure you will still find a reason to hate them for that.
there was another time they didn't have a Blizzcon, there is no conspiracy lol
i guess the people desperate for blizzard to fail because blizzard somehow ruined their life will keep making up stuff lol.
Blizzard ruined their lives can't you see that hahaha.
they need their hate to feel alive :P
profit hasn't been very good for them lately is the real reason...they take way to long to release anything and that just doesn't fly anymore when other companies can release game back to back and be triple aa titles...death of blizzard is incoming...
A company like Blizzard will never die, they'll just evolve if it ever came to that, which it probably won't.
Blizzard would make a great publisher, don't you think guys?
Guess the shake up is bigger than we though. D3's behind schedule and being semi-overhauled and Titan's won't be ready for the spotlight by October? Activision is having a very positive affect on Blizzard apparently ...
Fanboy it up, but I'd start shorting the stock if I could.
Gaming industry is just like a sea of fish. The big companies eat the small one. If ever blizzard would fail and become small (With I doubt though) some bigger fish be ready to simply swallow the whole thing.
Well, let's summarize Blizzcon 2011:
1. We learned very little we didn't already know about concerning Diablo III and Heart of the Swarm.
2. We get MoP reveal that makes people who see it throw up a little bit in their mouths (speaking from personal experience) and make it so much easier to quit WoW and try other games. The video on Youtube has more than 4 million views and more than 50% of the people who voted thumbed it down.
3. Every Alliance player was dissed at a show they paid $200 to enter or $45 dollars for a virtual ticket. The outlash was so great, the president of the company had to issue an apology.
Overall, I think Blizzcon 2011 was a disastor. That's why they aren't doing 2012.
pandas > belfs
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.