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Blizzard has announced it will not hold BlizzCon, the publisher’s annual fan convention, this year. “After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024,” Blizzard wrote on its website.
Instead of BlizzCon, Blizzard wrote that it would be holding other, smaller events throughout the year and mentioned participating in other trade shows, such as Gamescom. Additionally, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of World of Warcraft, with Blizzard stating that it’s planning “multiple, global, in-person events” as well as sharing updates for WoW’s 10th expansion, The War Within, and Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred.
Despite this year’s cancellation, Blizzard says the event will return in the future: “While we’re approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years.”
Last year was a busy one for the World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 publisher. It formally closed its acquisition by Microsoft to the tune of $68.7 billion, fought legal battles against said acquisition in the US and the UK, and reorganized the company’s C-suite with CEO Bobby Kotick leaving after more than 30 years at the helm.
Though BlizzCon has been around since 2005, it has been canceled a number of times since then. In 2020, the covid-19 pandemic necessitated BlizzCon’s cancellation with the event returning in an online format. However, in 2022, BlizzCon was canceled again amidst state and federal workplace harassment lawsuits. The event returned once again in 2023.
The cancelation of BlizzCon 2024 comes as another notable video game event, E3, finally gave up the ghost last year and amidst a video game industry grappling with unprecedented layoffs and financial struggles. Earlier this year, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees across Activision Blizzard and Xbox, one of the largest single video game industry layoff events of the last two years.
