BlizzCon 2020 Cancelled
blizzcon.com
blizzcon.com
So I guess it's even more surprising there haven't been any further news since then.
Unless of course, they pivoted the project, to provide a PC version or a different game altogether.
Much of the innovation is around business/networking, with the exception of organized Discord activities (which dont scale well), its tough for me to imagine an alternative to attending a BlizzCon or PAX in person.
The costs involved with a con are obviously a couple orders of magnitude higher than a virtual con, but I don't think the marketing impact is the same at all. Traditional cons are certainly not going away by any means.
Attending a conference from inside a game seems like an interesting hack.
Blizzard lost their way on the day they were purchased by Activision. They've been a hollow shell of their former selves since then. The quality and passion of their older games is gone and everything they pump out is a way to milk money from customers. Everything from releasing individual campaigns for StarCraft 2 as standalone titles, to diablo 3's launch nonsense, to the ridiculous phone diablo nonsense. Not to mention just milking the utter fuck out of WoW for well over a decade.
Step 1: Lose core talent that made your company what it was (Blizzard North, Chris Metzen)
Step 2: Misalign incentives between shareholders and users (Arguably: Destroying the SCBW pro scene, Diablo mobile, RMAH, WarCraft Reforged's journey so far, etc.)
Step 3: Add time
For the younger generations, Riot Games is now to them what Blizzard Entertainment was to me when I was growing up. Hopefully Riot doesn't fall victim to the same issues, or perhaps these issues are inevitable for any company after a certain growth stage.
We don't know much about it, but it seems like it's introducing new heroes, maps, and new abilities for existing heroes. Maybe that's enough to warrant a "2" in the title, but it sure doesn't feel like it at the moment.
I dunno I grew up with blizzard. One of the earliest PC games I remember playing was Warcraft, I still remember being blown away when I seen that box in the computer store. I just devoured the manual the whole way home. I've been addicted to most of their games up through Warcraft 3, I sort of skipped the wow phase. But, all of the sequels i've tried and just the press stuff with blizzard i've kept up with has just left me feeling meh towards them.
The problem with the auction house wasn't really the real money part, it wasn't that much used. The problem was that the best way to get good items was to trade in the not-real-money action house, creating all sorts of unblalance. In the end, they completely killed the game economy, probably for the best.
The lack of depth is to put into perspective. Such things only matter at high level, and many people didn't get that far. Also, many of the people who (rightfully) complained about that came from late Diablo 2, or even Median, and probably don't realize how much has been done since the original game. Like its predecessor, Diablo 3 endgame improved a lot since launch.
Now everyone is on Path of Exile, great game, but way too complex for casual players like myself. Basically Median's brainchild.
It was good times, and I sadly doubt I'll ever find a similar experience ever again.
As for Blizzard falling off my radar, I just can’t shake them. They are still about as good as it gets.
Blizzard lasted a long long time compared to how quickly developers / game companies can rise and fall.
It was good run.