BlizzCon, the yearly celebration and convention of all things Blizzard, has been cancelled for 2020 due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
There may be an online something that will be similar to BlizzCon and take place early next year according to the statement. Blizzard will announce their plans once all is figured out.
Blizzard's Executive Producer of BlizzCon, Saralyn Smith, has the following to say.
Quote From Saralyn Smith Hello Blizzard community,
Several weeks ago, I shared an update about our uncertainty around holding BlizzCon this year. Since then, a lot has changed . . . and a lot also hasn’t changed. During this time, we’ve had many discussions about what holding a convention could look like in light of all the health and safety considerations we’d want to make. We’ve also talked about different paths we could take, and how each one could be complicated by fluctuations in national and local health guidelines in the months ahead. Ultimately, after considering our options, we’ve come to the very difficult decision to not have BlizzCon this year.
We’re feeling deeply disappointed about this decision, and imagine many of you will feel the same. I truly love BlizzCon, and I know that’s a sentiment shared by everyone at Blizzard. We will sorely miss connecting with so many of you at the convention and “recharging our geek batteries” this fall.
But we will meet again!
We’re talking about how we might be able to channel the BlizzCon spirit and connect with you in some way online, far less impacted by the state of health and safety protocols for mass in-person gatherings. We’d want to do this as soon as we could, but given that this is new-ish territory and the different factors involved, it will most likely be sometime early next year. BlizzCon is also a stage for big esports events in Blizzard games each year, so we’re also looking into alternatives for supporting some of the high-level competition that would normally take place at the show.
We’ll tell you more about our plans as they develop—but in the meantime, we hope to see you exploring the Shadowlands, hanging out in the Tavern, pushing the payload (do it!), and wherever else in the Blizzard universes you may roam.
Stay safe and stay well,
Saralyn Smith
Whirlwind Barbarian, Executive Producer of BlizzCon
Comments
should probably refute his points instead of just resorting to insults
Because these people have shown themselves to be super receptive to actual facts? Not worth the time to refute people who refuse to use their brains in the first place.
that's not the point. If all you can muster against a stupid argument is "fuck you" then you're no better than the opposition and anybody unfamiliar with the discussion will probably disregard you on account of not presenting an actual argument.
If you're gonna respond, respond with facts and don't just shitpost because your feelings were hurt.
Yes, because internet trolls TRULY deserve other people's emotional and intellectual labor. What an amazing take you've come up with. Lordy.
it'S easy if you can just discredit anyone you disagree with as a troll, isn't it?
Also, if you really think they're just a troll then maybe don't engage them in the first place you mouthbreather?
I didn't, genius - I replied to YOU. Congratulations on branding yourself a troll with your brilliant argumentation. Top notch.
COVID deniers are ALL trolls, just like you, darling.
You sound a bit judgy condescending. Your too wrapped up in the media hype. Look at places suchi as Sweden and Georgia( US state), who lifted restrictions or never had any, their numbers of cases are not exploding. Silicon valley hospitals are ghost towns so much so they have to lay off hospital staff. This is true in so many places. My neighbor is a senior admin for valley medical, the public hospital system in San jose. He said the emergency wards there are empty.
Beyond that ,What makes me sick is a family restaurant that was in business for 40 years in my neighborhood was shutdown permanently because of SIP. So many mom and pop shops, the heart of the middle-class are being destroyed, while Jeff Bezos is raking it in. Where is your compassion for the small businesses owner? But hey as long as it doesn't affect your bottom line, right? I wonder if you would be singing the same tune if your website was forced shut by the govt. Caring and compassion and community building are great things. It starts with understanding those small businesses people who are being destroyed. There are two sides to every argument. Perhaps try to show a little understanding.
You are either ill-informed or willfully ignorant in this case. The reason sweden is not implementing lockdown is the YGL, which makes it illegal for the state to restrict movement. The economic issue cannot be fixed, because the major cause of the depression is stemming international trade, not internal trade.
Every country has closed its borders because doing so is common sense. As much as the loss of native industry harms individuals, recessions like the one the world is seeing now are not caused by "mom and pop" stores going out of business, but by mass drops in the import/export industry.
The lockdown is doing very little to harm the economy. When nobody wants to buy anything, not making anything is not bad business.
Sweden's successes are largely geographical. Stockholm is the largest city by a long shot, and travel into and out of the city is nearly zero now.
As much as personal losses can hurt a community, collapses of big businesses, like amazon, can have domino effects that lead to economic collapse across entire industries.
Your friend at the SCVMC is probably correct, but only because Santa Clara county only has ~ 2600 cases right now. If movement out of LA increases, the cases will increase by a long way.
You claim " recessions like the one the world is seeing now are not caused by "mom and pop" stores going out of business"
Let's get some facts straight. 78 percent of new jobs come from small business and small business accounts for 64% of our gdp. So when they hurt, our economy suffers.https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/03/family-business-statistics.html
Another claim you make about sweden says what they are doing is slowing the spread is by reducing travel. If that's the case why not follow the same model? That's better than destroying the economy. Heck most Asian countries are opened up already and they are doing well. Again they did not sacrifice people's jobs and homes. Common sense practices reduce many illness. This does not apply to autoimmune people or people at risk. They should stay home, but the majority of people are not in that category.
Your source at smallbiztrends cites a paper that does make your claim, but it was published in 2003. The economy has seen a marked drop in the influence of small businesses since then. Even assuming that this data is still accurate, you are misunderstanding my point. Economies suffer when international trade stagnates. Closing borders means more bureaucracy slowing down imports, so trade falls away as it becomes less profitable. Lockdown has little effect on the economy when the base resources for industry are in depleted supply. The USA is a mass exporter of some raw materials, but industry cannot function when foreign raw materials are so expensive. This economic collapse is not being caused by the lockdown, it is caused by the closed borders. The lockdown isn't doing nothing, but industry would not be profitable right now anyway. Implementing the lockdown helps counteract the outbreak and is a logical course of action when the economy is closed down anyway. If you look at the spanish flu of 1918, they had lockdowns then and economies recovered without major problems. (The Great Depression was a more normal, if very extreme, recession unrelated to spanish flu)
Sweden's economy is just as poor off as the rest of europe, because trade with EU states makes up most of its international trade, and Sweden is an export oriented economy. Sweden's major ports are quiet because swedish goods cannot enter the eurozone without buckets of red tape right now. Sweden is not like other countries because Sweden is mostly empty. Low population density is a natural barrier against epidemics, as we are seeing in other countries like the UAE and Russia.
About east-asian countries, they have been, broadly speaking, put through the washer. They have passed the peaks of their outbreaks and are opening their economies again. Your claim that jobs/homes were not sacrificed is false. The response from the PRC was questionable at best, but their neighbouring countries have undergone systems of lockdown harsher than the EU's.
(A slightly disrespectful sidenote?: please cite sources that don't list their sources in images without providing a Ctrl+C-able bit of text to hook. Their source's actual source is hosted at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242469623_Family_Businesses'_Contribution_to_the_US_Economy_A_Closer_Look)
Here is an article about Japan published today, they had no lockdown and just used common sense measures.https://www.yahoo.com/news/japan-avoided-lockdown-telling-everyone-113600195.html
I agree our economy would be going down anyway because of covid but it would not have been such a precipitous drop. Regardless of the age of the previous article small businesses remain the backbone of most economies.
To act like every waiter and waitress and many blue collar worker being unemployed has no effect on the economy is not true. My point with Sweden is to show that people can still live their lives and work and the death toll will not be significantly higher than other European counterparts. This has been proved time and again with other Asian countries such as listed in the article above. I think there has been way too much dear mongering based on little evidence.
Japan did implement a stay at home order in late March though. The stated 'secret' was that Japan has been at the PRC's throat ever since the vietnam insurgency and the south china sea dispute, so they had very little movement of people from the mainland anyway. South Korea is similar, but over their CPC-aligned friend to the north.
I never stated that the unemployment of the labour class was not effecting the economy, my statement was that native labour is only part of the problem. The analogy of bakers needing wheat farmers needing fertiliser plants etc. was my point, that keeping industry open right now is not actually in the best interests of industry because some part of every production chain in a modern globalist economy is overseas, they would either have to price-hike or operate at a loss, and that furloughing labourers provides an unfortunate but fair solution.
Are we literally price tagging a virus pandemic here?
I thought the sensible choice would be to do whatever is possible to stop the virus from spreading. I don't see how half the workforce sneezing and wheezing with massive migraines would be able to do anything for the economy anyway.
Also, if the concern is about the poor SMEs and the all the rich taking a hike away in their rich summer home playing golf, and raking in the cash in the form of tax breaks, then maybe its time to get up, and start telling the government to do their job by taxing the few Jeff Bezos out there and giving subsidies to the suffering majority.
Hey, isn't there an election coming this Nov?
you'd be correct, however....what does any of that have to do with Blizzcon?
Blizzcon is a completely useless event in terms of public service so cancelling it in favour of not contributing to the spread of a disease is pretty sensible. I'm pretty sure the hypothetical staff of Blizzcon has bigger problems at the moment than not being able to get this side-job.
Despite the low fatality rate, there are people ACTUALLY dead from this diseases. People LIVES are gone. Nope, they don't matter cos it's only 0.4% fatality rate and the govs all over the world are stupid to lockdown their country. We should all just live, gather, party and commute as per normal as the diseases is "not deadly" according to you. Those people who died or currently infected by it are just unlucky. They don't matter. Too bad for them. Dead is dead, right?
Y E S
Thank you for nipping this in the bud. It is disgusting that even in times of pandemic, we have ignorant people nonchalantly dismissing people dying because it inconveniences them. Covidiots indeed!
Ah sad news, but it's a sensible choice.
I hope the virtual something can be satisfying enough.
Damn... an event in November. More than 5 months ahead and they've gone and canceled it. That's really rough. Although it's understandable, so they don't have to let down ticket buyers. Usually, tickets are available to purchase in May, but that was delayed because of them deciding whether it is worth the risk, and they went with the safe route. Respects to them.
Oh. thats sad. I always enjoed the atmosphere and the hype "in the Air" even though I only watched it with the Virtual Ticket(Think of me whatever you want, but I had my fun with the Ticked).