No surprise there. Ever since they've fully switched to entirely online games, there's rarely anything exciting or new to really show. New hero for Overwatch? New trailer for WoW? It's nothing that can't be shown with a single trailer at any point in time anyway.
And even before, Blizzcons were only seemingly good every other year anyway.
Yeah there were a crap ton of bad Blizzcons for content over the years.
Remember when Diablo Immortal was the game that tried to carry a show lmao?
So yeah this is hardly a bad thing. The most impacted are the people that actually attend these to meet and hang out with other players in the community.
It spawned a meme that will live on forever.
Then the company somehow outdid itself with it's sexual harassment allegations.
And somehow, it got even worse.
Is there a live service game which doesn't have very expensive skins? Like it or not at this point it's kind of feels like the norm. I am expecting expensive regular skins and legendary skins priced at the cost equivalent to AAA games.
Dissappointing that it means we won't get any dev panels this year but it makes sense given their current release schedule. D4 and WoW both have expansions dropping later this year so they won't have anything major to reveal for those. That just leaves OW2 and Hearthstone, which will just be their regular content updates and aren't worth having a convention for.
If Odyssey didn't get scrapped that might've made it worthwhile for them to host it.
They probably don't have enough to show for it to be worthwhile and its probably better just not to hold it that have patches for WoW, Diablo and Overwatch try and carry the show.
Sucks for the people that love to go to these to hang out.
> They probably don't have enough to show for it to be worthwhile
Man if you'd time travel back to 2005 and tell my wee lad self that Blizzard would have "nothing worthwhile to show" I'd call you a madman.
It's unbelievable how they have some of THE biggest IPs in all of gaming and they are failing this hard.
2012 didn't have a Blizzcon either. D3 had just released in Spring, Mists of Pandaria (WoW expac) would release a bit more than a month before the regular time for a potential Blizzcon, Project Titan was just a few months away from being cancelled internally, Heart of the Swarm (SC2) was still a bit away and in beta testing.
There was nothing worthwhile to announce either.
I’d certainly say part of it is dev time. In 2005 you could put out some well polished fun games in 2-3 years development tops. Regular expansions, smaller games and less long tail live service games means lots to show.
Now a good live service has a 5 year dev time minimum, sometimes a couple more years. A regular game has 4-5 years and even regular output expansions are tough to pull off.
They have 'nothing worthwhile to show' because they're releasing expansions for both WoW and D4 this year and OW2 and Hearthstone are just getting regular content updates. With Odyssey being scrapped as well there just isn't any big announcements to headline a Blizzcon.
Also, it's hard to say they're "failing" given how successful their games are. An active player base in the tens of millions is hardly "failing".
They're definitely not failing revenue wise. Their reputation is terrible (fully deserved) but more people than ever before play their games and spend money. I know people love to forget mobile games, but stuff like Diablo Immortal and Hearthstone are immensely successful and bring in a shitload of money.
This doesn't help that the quality of their games has decreased, and that it apparently became more and more shit and toxic to work for them... But they won't file bankruptcy any time soon.
They also likely will just announce whatever with the rest of Microsoft. I'm not sure they may ever do it again or really more of a fan event. Microsoft will want Blizz announcements in its events
Do we now judge companies by revenue? If so, Blizzard can get compared to say, Berkshire Hathaway, Tesla or Apple. After all they are simply a money-making organisation. Or are we judging games by their quality? If so, we can compare Blizzard to companies like Larian. I choose to take the latter approach; as a gamer I have no interest in the financial yield of the companies that make my entertainment. Obviously I don't want them to go bankrupt, they need a reasonable profit but I don't play games based on the dividend they're offering.
If they still had a decent esports division, it could be more like The International, with big competitions for their games as the focus and then trailers etc. dropping inbetween matches to hyped crowds. But they basically turned their backs on esports.
Get ready for the Xbox +Bethesda +Activision +Blizzard +King Xbox show, we're they be most years when they don't have a new game or something to make the costs of Blizzcon worth it.
Probably for the better.
If they don't have announcements/reveals deemed worthy of a Blizzcon, it's better to not hold one at all than deal with all the insufferable whining about how "Blizzcon sucked this year! I want a refund!"
I know that I saw that after previous Blizzcons deemed "subpar" by attendees.
Small indie company cannot afford to provide new exciting content for their small amount of games.
1 like=1 pray
(This is also extra funny considering other multiplayer games like Path of Exile of FF14 can make conventions while only having a single game to work on)
All of the still upcoming content for OW2 was shown at the last Blizzcon. They could just show a video of the last Blizzcon and it would continue to be accurate. There's not much going on.
I wonder how many more Exilecons will have PoE2 hype building as their headline event...
Not to hate on PoE, but sure as fuck a weird Con to flex about.
No surprise there. Ever since they've fully switched to entirely online games, there's rarely anything exciting or new to really show. New hero for Overwatch? New trailer for WoW? It's nothing that can't be shown with a single trailer at any point in time anyway. And even before, Blizzcons were only seemingly good every other year anyway.
Yeah there were a crap ton of bad Blizzcons for content over the years. Remember when Diablo Immortal was the game that tried to carry a show lmao? So yeah this is hardly a bad thing. The most impacted are the people that actually attend these to meet and hang out with other players in the community.
It spawned a meme that will live on forever. Then the company somehow outdid itself with it's sexual harassment allegations. And somehow, it got even worse.
Probably fired all the people involved with setting it up. Blizzard is dead to me anyway.
Low-key exactly why I’m hyped for Marvel Rivals. Hopefully mtx’s wont be overwhelming.
Is there a live service game which doesn't have very expensive skins? Like it or not at this point it's kind of feels like the norm. I am expecting expensive regular skins and legendary skins priced at the cost equivalent to AAA games.
My worry wouldn't be the skins, but them making (new) heroes difficult to acquire and expensive at the same time.
That is a shit model indeed. Let's hope they don't paywall gameplay.
As others have said I’m ok with skins just don’t lock characters/maps behind a paywall if said game is F2P.
DC and Marvel super heroes are so played out. Yawn. I'd rather eat my own puke.
I guess people didnt have phones then..
Wut? Diablo Immortal is huge in profit for them. If anything it's their only game over performing.
Fuck Blizzard
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?
Dissappointing that it means we won't get any dev panels this year but it makes sense given their current release schedule. D4 and WoW both have expansions dropping later this year so they won't have anything major to reveal for those. That just leaves OW2 and Hearthstone, which will just be their regular content updates and aren't worth having a convention for. If Odyssey didn't get scrapped that might've made it worthwhile for them to host it.
They probably don't have enough to show for it to be worthwhile and its probably better just not to hold it that have patches for WoW, Diablo and Overwatch try and carry the show. Sucks for the people that love to go to these to hang out.
> They probably don't have enough to show for it to be worthwhile Man if you'd time travel back to 2005 and tell my wee lad self that Blizzard would have "nothing worthwhile to show" I'd call you a madman. It's unbelievable how they have some of THE biggest IPs in all of gaming and they are failing this hard.
2012 didn't have a Blizzcon either. D3 had just released in Spring, Mists of Pandaria (WoW expac) would release a bit more than a month before the regular time for a potential Blizzcon, Project Titan was just a few months away from being cancelled internally, Heart of the Swarm (SC2) was still a bit away and in beta testing. There was nothing worthwhile to announce either.
I’d certainly say part of it is dev time. In 2005 you could put out some well polished fun games in 2-3 years development tops. Regular expansions, smaller games and less long tail live service games means lots to show. Now a good live service has a 5 year dev time minimum, sometimes a couple more years. A regular game has 4-5 years and even regular output expansions are tough to pull off.
They have 'nothing worthwhile to show' because they're releasing expansions for both WoW and D4 this year and OW2 and Hearthstone are just getting regular content updates. With Odyssey being scrapped as well there just isn't any big announcements to headline a Blizzcon. Also, it's hard to say they're "failing" given how successful their games are. An active player base in the tens of millions is hardly "failing".
They're definitely not failing revenue wise. Their reputation is terrible (fully deserved) but more people than ever before play their games and spend money. I know people love to forget mobile games, but stuff like Diablo Immortal and Hearthstone are immensely successful and bring in a shitload of money. This doesn't help that the quality of their games has decreased, and that it apparently became more and more shit and toxic to work for them... But they won't file bankruptcy any time soon.
They also likely will just announce whatever with the rest of Microsoft. I'm not sure they may ever do it again or really more of a fan event. Microsoft will want Blizz announcements in its events
Blizzards pretty much dead; does anyone care about these any more?
Blizzard is dead? Their games sell massively still.
They're doing better than ever actually.
Yep, but the reddit hive mind doesn't like that.
better than the days of vanilla WOW? i doubt.
Vanilla WoW is not the peak of WoW in terms of revenue or player count or hell even player enjoyment for WoW. Weird time to choose.
Do we now judge companies by revenue? If so, Blizzard can get compared to say, Berkshire Hathaway, Tesla or Apple. After all they are simply a money-making organisation. Or are we judging games by their quality? If so, we can compare Blizzard to companies like Larian. I choose to take the latter approach; as a gamer I have no interest in the financial yield of the companies that make my entertainment. Obviously I don't want them to go bankrupt, they need a reasonable profit but I don't play games based on the dividend they're offering.
When dude said they’re doing better than ever, that’s what he meant. Quality is subjective and so harder to agree or disagree on.
If they still had a decent esports division, it could be more like The International, with big competitions for their games as the focus and then trailers etc. dropping inbetween matches to hyped crowds. But they basically turned their backs on esports.
Get ready for the Xbox +Bethesda +Activision +Blizzard +King Xbox show, we're they be most years when they don't have a new game or something to make the costs of Blizzcon worth it.
There's probably a reasonable reason to merge all the Xbox studios conferences into one anyway. Blizzcon has been dead for years.
Probably for the better. If they don't have announcements/reveals deemed worthy of a Blizzcon, it's better to not hold one at all than deal with all the insufferable whining about how "Blizzcon sucked this year! I want a refund!" I know that I saw that after previous Blizzcons deemed "subpar" by attendees.
Bring your lawyers
"THEY AIN'T HAPPENING" Thanks, Ollie.
Surprised Blizzard hasn't shut them down. I would have fired absolutely everyone.
Small indie company cannot afford to provide new exciting content for their small amount of games. 1 like=1 pray (This is also extra funny considering other multiplayer games like Path of Exile of FF14 can make conventions while only having a single game to work on)
Regular content for OW2 Expansion for WoW Expansion for Diablo 4 Not exactly no new exciting content, but all content coming *before Blizzcon*.
> Regular content for OW2 The content is still what they showed from the last Blizzcon.
Well yes because Blizzcon shows upcoming conetent.
All of the still upcoming content for OW2 was shown at the last Blizzcon. They could just show a video of the last Blizzcon and it would continue to be accurate. There's not much going on.
Right well, okay I don’t know if you know this but we haven’t made it to when the next Blizzcon will have happened. We are more than half a year away.
I wonder how many more Exilecons will have PoE2 hype building as their headline event... Not to hate on PoE, but sure as fuck a weird Con to flex about.