Vote: No BlizzCon 2012.
Posted 27 January 2012 by FluxWe found out this week that 2012 will bring no BlizzCon, for the first year since 2006. Blizzard’s excuse is that they’re super busy trying to release three titles this year, and they pointed to some kind of esports tournament thing instead of their Blizzcon tournaments, but I’ve never watched a second of those, so I lost interest before that part.
Of much more interest is the speculation about the real reason for no BlizzCon 2012. I think it’s pretty simple; they’re super busy, but moreover, they had nothing to debut this year.
Titan‘s obviously not yet ready to reveal. - D3 will be out by October, but it’ll be way too soon to talk about D3X.
- SC2X will be out or just about to launch, with nothing to announce at BlizzCon.
- The next WoW expansion will be in crunch move, and besides, even Blizzard realizes no one really gives a damn about the panda pack.
Add that up and you’ve got no compelling new anything for the show, and Blizzard doesn’t want to put on a show that leaves fans unsatisfied. Plus they’re really busy. Much the same opinion was arrived at in an Ars Technica editorial, though by different means.
All that aside, we know there’s no Blizzcon coming this year. How does that make you feel? Pick the answer that comes closest to your opinion and we’ll see just how cynical you guys are, in aggregate.
How do you feel about no BlizzCon in 2012?
- 3) I'm glad. Make games instead of wasting time on self-congratulating conventions. (50%, 2,083 Votes)
- 2) Meh. There wouldn't have been any D3 info anyway, this year. (26%, 1,094 Votes)
- 1) I'll really miss the show and the new info. (15%, 627 Votes)
- 4) Dunno. Opinions are hard. (9%, 339 Votes)
Total Voters: 4,145
Loading ...Last Vote Results
Last time we asked how you guys felt about the changes to the game systems revealed in Jay Wilson’s big announcement. The results mirror what we’ve seen in comment threads, with quite mixed opinions. Most of you guys are at least mildly supportive of the changes, while wishing they didn’t take so long, but quite a few people think the iteration is an excuse to screw around, or are even more hostile than that.
How do you feel about D3′s dev progress, in light of all the new system changes?
- 2) The new changes are okay, but hurry up. (45%, 2,067 Votes)
- 3) The new changes are stupid over-iterations. Not worth the delays. (27%, 1,257 Votes)
- 4) I don’t care about the details and have been furious at the delays since 2010. (14%, 653 Votes)
- 1) The new changes are awesome and so is the dev progress. (14%, 605 Votes)
Total Voters: 4,584
‘D3 will be out by October’ – where do you get that?
Speculation since the most confirmed time line is “Early 2012″ which I translate to sometime before Q3. So I think based on that it’s safe to assume the game will be out by Oct. Personally I’m holding 12-27-2035 as my expected release date. That way I can’t be let down! …but then again who knows they may miss that date too :(.
so.. d3 release date will be shown on bnet world championship instead of blizzcon?
More dev time for d3 = good.
More esports = good.
No one breaking his leg at the dance contest this year = bad.
D3 wont take that long to be released,. October release date is such an epic troll.
“D3 will be out by October,”
“By” That means at that time it will be out, not it will come out in that month but by that month. Read before reacting.
Honestly, I could have spent the 40 dollars on the virtual ticket better anyways.
A combo number 3 with fried rice, chow mein, egg foo yong, honey garlic boneless pork, and lemon chicken would have been better.
But… but… Don’t you want an epic pandaren murloc mini pet?!
“Don’t you want an epic pandaren murloc mini pet?”
Well, can i eat it?
You can speculate even more. Why have they nothing to debut this year ? Well probably because they are busy getting three titles out. So indeed it’s pretty simple ; they’re super busy, but moreover, they’re super busy.
All I know is, they better damn well go through with that idea they put on the survey from last year’s Blizzcon about having a downloadable version of the demos available to those that buy the virtual ticket.
Where is the: ”Never been to a blizzcon so I could careless” option.
Yeah – the options for this poll seem fairly limited in general. I think it would garner more accurate results to post more “neutral” opinions as options rather than the fairly specific opinions implied here, i.e. I might be glad there’s no Blizzcon, but I don’t think Blizzcon deserves to be insulted for being “self-congratulating”.
After 15 minutes of that “geek is” thing, yes they do.
Well.. I answered I’ll really miss the show and the new info. But since it was not mentioned I have to say that I am really excited for the world championship in it’s place. Also the reason is not that bad, there is no Blizzcon because they are busy with all the awesome releases and cool stuff happening this year.
I’m upset there isn’t a show, we started going two years ago and it’s been a blast both times. We were first in line last year so that was pretty cool. But I understand why, 3 releases in a single year is unheard of by Blizzard so they probably would have a lack of info to give out. I mean I’m sure they could go into details of the unannounced projects but they want to bide their time on that.
I bet the ticket will cost 300 dollars this time…
Blizzcon is great for getting new information on unreleased titles, but no matter how you slice it Blizzcon is a major distraction for everyone involved. Considering the fact that last year’s Blizzcon was followed by the holiday season, I believe a lot valuable dev time was lost in the last 3 months of last year.
Not to forget all the other events Blizzard attends
No big deal on Blizzcon being cancelled. I think Blizz may be… focused? Is that the right word? Is that even possible?
1. No more patches on WoW before Mists of Pandaria.
2. Elimination of systems from D3 instead of reworking so they can hit a “release”
3. No time wasted on demos for Blizzcon.
I agree with Jast in that Blizzcon + beta patches + holiday season helped push D3 right past the end of the year and probably into Q2 2012. The beta patches were the only necessary part of that formula.
I didn’t vote because there needs to be a “**** yeah, esports!” option.
StarCraft is awesome
They had multiple esports tournaments at Blizzcon too you know…
It’s a bit ironic that “Make games instead of wasting time on self-congratulating conventions” is an option, considering that Blizzcon is explicitly held for the fans, not to mention the well publicized fact that it is a perennial financial loss for the company.
You, sir, are wrong, thinking it’s a “loss” for Blizzard.
A financial loss is specifically what I said. And it’s been reported by Blizzard many times that this is the case.
Are you referring to something else? Or have any proof of your claim?
I seriously doubt how much they charge for tickets recoups how much they spend on the event. So technically it is a loss if you think of it that way. But I’m sure it is well worth it for them, press-wise.
There’s no way to check their accounting, but I think they’re cooking the books on it. They count as debits all of the time their devs spend working on blizzcon demos and panels presentations and stuff, which probably does add up to less than the millions they make on ticket an PPV sales.
However, since there’s no way to quantify the vast bonanza of publicity they reap via Blizzcon, it’s not a real balanced equation. A solid weekend+ of nothing but Blizzard news atop every gaming and tech and pop culture site on earth has to be worth millions in publicity.