{"id":16033,"date":"2020-05-27T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/?p=2571896"},"modified":"2020-05-27T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T16:15:00","slug":"blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A digital replacement may not happen until early 2021.<\/p>\n<div id=\"engadget-post-contents\" class=\"o-article_block pb-15 pb-5@m- o-subtle_divider\" data-ylk=\"sec:postcontents;slk:Blizzard%20has%20canceled%20this%20year%27s%20BlizzCon;elm:link;itc:0;\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+__cell col-8-of-12@tl+\">\n<div class=\"article-text c-gray-1\">\n<p>You can add BlizzCon to the list of major events that won&rsquo;t be happening this year due to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/tag\/covid-19\/\" data-rapid_p=\"1\" data-v9y=\"1\">COVID-19<\/a>&nbsp;pandemic. Although BlizzCon typically happens&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-10-27-overwatch-2-may-debut-at-blizzcon-november-1.html\" data-rapid_p=\"2\" data-v9y=\"1\">in November<\/a>, Blizzard has already made the call to cancel this year&rsquo;s edition.<\/p>\n<p>The publisher&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/blizzcon.com\/en-us\/news\/23371505\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a>&nbsp;in early April that it was exploring its options and trying to determine whether BlizzCon would be feasible. &ldquo;Ultimately, after considering our options, we&rsquo;ve come to the very difficult decision to not have BlizzCon this year,&rdquo; the event&rsquo;s executive producer Saralyn Smith&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/blizzcon.com\/en-us\/news\/23434523\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote<\/a>&nbsp;in a blog post. Blizzard is looking into holding an online replacement of some kind, but that likely won&rsquo;t happen until early 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"o-article_block pb-15 pb-5@m- mt-n35 mt-n25@m mt-n15@s\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+\">\n<div class=\"full-width@tp- grid@tl+__cell col-8-of-12@tl+\">\n<div class=\"article-text c-gray-1 no-review\">\n<p>Along with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-11-01-blizzard-diablo-iv-cinematic-trailer-gameplay.html\">news<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-11-01-blizzard-overwatch-2-blizzcon-gameplay-trailer.html\">updates<\/a>&nbsp;about the publisher&rsquo;s various franchises, a number of esports events usually take place at BlizzCon, including the Overwatch World Cup, the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship (AWC) and major&nbsp;<em>Starcraft II<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Hearthstone<\/em>&nbsp;championships. Smith said Blizzard is &ldquo;looking into alternatives for supporting some of the high-level competition that would normally take place at the show.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2020-03-31-overwatch-league-online-play-covid-19-coronavirus.html\">All regular-season Overwatch League matches<\/a>&nbsp;and the AWC Battle for Azeroth season&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/worldofwarcraft.com\/en-us\/news\/23391281\/the-2020-arena-world-championship-is-changing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">were moved<\/a>&nbsp;to online-only play this year. The&nbsp;<em>Starcraft II&nbsp;<\/em>grand finals, meanwhile, had already been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2020-01-07-starcraft-ii-finals-will-skip-blizzcon-in-favor-of-new-esl-pro.html\">nixed from this year&rsquo;s BlizzCon<\/a>&nbsp;in favor of a new ESL Pro Tour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"tags\">\n<div><strong>See Campaign: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-10-27-overwatch-2-may-debut-at-blizzcon-november-1.html\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-10-27-overwatch-2-may-debut-at-blizzcon-november-1.html<\/a><br \/><b>Contact Information:<\/b><br \/>Kris Holt<\/p>\n<p><b>Tags:<\/b><br \/><a href=\"\"><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/category\/news-category\/wire\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Wire<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/category\/global-regions\/united-states\/\" rel=\"category tag\">United States<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/category\/language\/english\/\" rel=\"category tag\">English<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"image\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"cwdfimg\" \/><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Contact Information:<\/h3>\n<p>Kris Holt<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A digital replacement may not happen until early 2021. You can add BlizzCon to the list of major events that won&rsquo;t be happening this year due to the&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;pandemic. Although BlizzCon typically happens&nbsp;in November, Blizzard has already made the call to cancel this year&rsquo;s edition. The publisher&nbsp;said&nbsp;in early April that it was exploring its options and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\">Continue reading <span>Blizzard has canceled this year&rsquo;s BlizzCon<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-united-states","category-wire"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon - Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon - Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A digital replacement may not happen until early 2021. You can add BlizzCon to the list of major events that won&rsquo;t be happening this year due to the&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;pandemic. Although BlizzCon typically happens&nbsp;in November, Blizzard has already made the call to cancel this year&rsquo;s edition. The publisher&nbsp;said&nbsp;in early April that it was exploring its options and &hellip; Continue reading Blizzard has canceled this year&rsquo;s BlizzCon Continue Reading &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-05-27T16:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sarim Pixako\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarim Pixako\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\",\"name\":\"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon - Business\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-05-27T16:15:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#\/schema\/person\/c2a30f1f67fb81890ad62e1daf092377\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/\",\"name\":\"Business\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#\/schema\/person\/c2a30f1f67fb81890ad62e1daf092377\",\"name\":\"Sarim Pixako\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7f9acce50c9b44bcec82e92168491959d754000e22e22a437856e37c38599249?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7f9acce50c9b44bcec82e92168491959d754000e22e22a437856e37c38599249?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sarim Pixako\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/fc\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/author\/sarim-pixako\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon - Business","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon - Business","og_description":"A digital replacement may not happen until early 2021. You can add BlizzCon to the list of major events that won&rsquo;t be happening this year due to the&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;pandemic. Although BlizzCon typically happens&nbsp;in November, Blizzard has already made the call to cancel this year&rsquo;s edition. The publisher&nbsp;said&nbsp;in early April that it was exploring its options and &hellip; Continue reading Blizzard has canceled this year&rsquo;s BlizzCon Continue Reading &rarr;","og_url":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/","og_site_name":"Business","article_published_time":"2020-05-27T16:15:00+00:00","author":"Sarim Pixako","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sarim Pixako","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/","url":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/","name":"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon - Business","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-05-27T16:15:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#\/schema\/person\/c2a30f1f67fb81890ad62e1daf092377"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/05\/27\/blizzard-has-canceled-this-years-blizzcon\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blizzard has canceled this year\u2019s BlizzCon"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#website","url":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/","name":"Business","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#\/schema\/person\/c2a30f1f67fb81890ad62e1daf092377","name":"Sarim Pixako","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7f9acce50c9b44bcec82e92168491959d754000e22e22a437856e37c38599249?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7f9acce50c9b44bcec82e92168491959d754000e22e22a437856e37c38599249?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sarim Pixako"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/fc"],"url":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/author\/sarim-pixako\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16034,"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16033\/revisions\/16034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}