No Blizzcon for 2012 (and other eSports stuff)

[theckhd]

and really what is blizzcon?
PR hype mnachine, a bunch of sweaty geeks and RTS tournaments

It was a lot more than that. For me, the biggest reason to go was the social aspect. It was a chance to meet some of my current and former guildmates who chose to attend. It was also a chance to meet a bunch of posters from Maintankadin, as well as people I've been blogging and conversing with for a year or more. And it was a chance to run into Ghostcrawler at a party and chat with him for half an hour. So I'm disappointed, even though the reasoning is understandable.

[Treck]

Altho you have to remember blizzcon is a lot more than just the people who attend it, not everyone goes.
Im certain its awesome for those who goes, and were planning on going 2012 aswell but cant now, but for those who see it as a bit unreachable to go there wont really care about there not beeing one.

[PsiVen]

I guess the part I don't get is that why does Blizzcon have to be about an announcement? People enjoy it just for the chance to interact with other people they know. There doesn't need to be an announcement to make it enjoyable and exciting.

Because Blizzcon is nothing more than a giant PR fest to hype their products. They have said previously that they actually lose money by putting these things on and it's basically all in the name of hype and getting the gaming populous pumped up about their releases.

Attendance was down last year from the year before and they're finding these Esport events (GSL/MLG/etc) to be way more profitable especially with their intent on having it in Asia this year proabably in China or as close to Korea as possible for maximum draw.

There's no point to hold a Blizzcon in 2012 when all the games are going to be released by then and have the potential to have an even worse turnout than previous years where there -have- been announcements.

I'm sure they would still draw a crowd, but because they take a loss on the event, it needs to have a marketing purpose or Bobby will have a fit. On top of that, you know people would be disappointed if there wasn't a big reveal.

Not sure what you mean by "attendance was down." They had 26,000 people instead of 27,000 people because they felt it was too crowded the previous year. If they wanted to deck out the entire convention center with its 81,000 capacity, they would easily sell out within 5 minutes instead of 3 seconds.

For all intents and purposes, this announcement is "we're hosting BlizzCon in South Korea this year and calling it something else." I can't feel too cheated by not having it in the US for once.

[fuzzygeek]

Attendance was down last year from the year before and they're finding these Esport events (GSL/MLG/etc) to be way more profitable especially with their intent on having it in Asia this year proabably in China or as close to Korea as possible for maximum draw.

Do you have a cite for this? I'm wondering if you are quoting raw numbers, or percentage of available tickets actually sold. I'd also like to see where you're seeing profitability numbers for Blizzcon versus their esport events.

[valura]

Oh my, the ticket scalpers will cry rivers at the massive loss of $$$ they were looking forward to make...

*rolls on the floor laughing like a maniac*

[Phonic]

I'm disappointed they're not having one, as I've gone for the last 4 years... but it's totally understandable and I think it really makes the 2013 one even more desirable I'll try to make it to the Battle.net tourney, but who knows how they're going to parse out tickets for that and where it's even going to be. I hope Shanghai