BlizzCon 2020 is No Longer Happening

Well, folks, I’d be lying if I were to say I didn’t see this one coming from a mile away. First, E3 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its surrounding restrictions, then Gamescom suffered the same fate, alongside a host of other gaming-related conventions that have been scrapped this year due to the outbreak. It seems the newest addition to that grim list is Blizzard Entertainment’s annual convention that has traditionally taken place during the first weekend of November, known simply as BlizzCon.

A few days ago, Blizzard’s Executive Producer of this event, Saralyn Smith, announced in a post on BlizzCon’s website that due to the implications and uncertainties of the pandemic, Blizzard had ultimately reached the “very difficult decision” to cancel the 2020 iteration of the show. This marks the first year since 2012 that there hasn’t been an annual BlizzCon event to give legions of gamers something to look forward to in early November.

However, it seems that if Blizzard has its way and is able to make a different type of magic happen, all hope is not yet lost. By that, I mean to say that Saralyn Smith asserted in that same blog update that Blizzard is internally “talking about how [they] might be able to channel the BlizzCon spirit and connect with you in some way online,” adding that doing things this way would probably be “far less impacted by the state of health and safety protocols for mass in-person gatherings.”

Smith goes on to say that Blizzard would prefer to arrange and hold such an online event as soon as reasonably possible, “but given that this is new-ish territory and the different factors involved, it will most likely be sometime early next year.” If this blog update is anything to go by, it seems Blizzard remains quite optimistic about the prospect of an online version of BlizzCon in early 2021, despite whatever technical and logistical challenges they may have to face and ultimately overcome in order to pull it off.

I must admit that I’m quite intrigued by the idea of an online-only BlizzCon and what such a prospect might entail, no matter when it takes place. After all, Smith notes in the aforementioned blog post that BlizzCon has long served as “the grandest stage of them all,” to borrow a term from professional wrestling, when it comes to eSports events. That’s an interesting, important point in my opinion.

That leads me to think an online version of the event would likely center around digital competitions to at least some extent. Admittedly, those have never really interested me all that much but I might actually be more likely to tune into official live streams of such events, depending on what might end up taking place.

Regardless of what a virtual BlizzCon might be composed of or when it might occur, all I know with certainty is one thing at this point: I just want the new World of Warcraft expansion to release sometime before December. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of waiting for new in-game content, dang it.