I have little sympathy for anyone at blizcon finding out blizz is making a game not targeted at exactly them.
They’re at fucking blizcon, they’re having the time of their lives. I say this as someone who desperately wanted to go to that con back when I was in the, tons of time and energy but no money phase of life.
They’re getting peeks at the new hearthstone expansion, checking out whatever they’re doing with wow (new expansion?) checking out the pvp tournaments, they’ve gotten the in game bliz swag you get for attending that can only be gotten that way. They’re hanging out with the only other people in the world who “get it”. In other words, they’ve gotten their money’s worth.
I have little sympathy for their collective freak out.
But that’s my point… if you’re going to BlizzCon, you’re the “hardcore of the hardcore.” You’ve paid tons of money and waited online for hours for an announcement, and what you get is a mobile game?
I have no problem with Blizzard making this game. I just think that whoever decided to announce it at BlizzCon and as one of the “key” announcements badly miscalculated. This was neither the venue nor the target audience for the game.
If you go through all that trouble so you can sit in a room to hear an announcement live that you could have heard on Twitch or read online for effectively free, then you deserve what you get. What you get is a valuable lesson that Blizzcon is a worthless “convention” that is actually just an advertisement. Imagine going through all that trouble to attend an advertisement in person when people like me are putting in so much effort to block all ads.
There is difference between being disappointed and bummed out and Internet Overreaction that has happened. It’s totally understandable why long term series fans would be disappointed and I think it’s fair to say that Blizzard’s handling of the announcement was not the best. But there are lots of people going way beyond that, from reasonable displeasment into ridiculous rage Internet Bullshit, which can lead to not fun things like harassment of people involved with the game or even those who defend it.
In addition, apparently Blizzard had told people to not get their hopes up and said the Diablo announcement won’t be what most people expect, basically telling without directly saying that it wouldn’t be Diablo 4. So it’s not like there were no warnings. But I guess these days trying to be subtle is waste of time and effort.
I agree. The amount of Internet rage is a complete overreaction, but that doesn’t mean that being somewhat angry isn’t a valid response. I can understand the anger and disappointment without condoning the level of it. What I don’t get are the people who don’t understand why this was a terrible announcement to make at BlizzCon.
This, I’m going to have to disagree with. Never trust marketing people. Blizzard could be like “It’s totally not Diablo 4” wink wink. Apparently they’ve been hyping up some big Diablo announcement for a while now.
We get it. You don’t like something, so it must be “worthless.”
What is good about attending Blizzcon in person? Obviously there are benefits for Blizzard employees, competitors, partners, and such, but for a fan? What specific benefits does a fan receive by being there in person? What specific activities can a fan participate in there that they couldn’t otherwise? What specifically happens there that makes it worthwhile for even the biggest fan to pay the price in time and money to attend Blizzcon?
I can think of any other than attending some major eSports competitions live and in person. But Blizzard has actually removed a lot of their biggest eSports stuff from Blizzcon. Hearthstone World Championships is not at Blizzcon anymore. Overwatch World Championships not at Blizzcon anymore. This year it was just Starcraft, which was great, but worth the price to be there in person vs. watching on Twitch?
I know some people for which Blizzcon was their PAX. The people I know are WOW players that have had accounts with active subscriptions since the beginning. They also, being single-minded WOW people, don’t think much of this Diablo announcement. They mostly seemed irritated that they no-longer server beer in the convention center or something. But outside of those people and some other specifics (e-sports?) it is very largely an advertisement venue. So are most conventions, but most conventions the convention itself has more vendors.
The ven diagram of people in this situation is kinda hard to lay out. It’s like there are both gamergaters and bloggers just frothing at the mouth to fight each other. Meanwhile most of the people I actually know are like, “That’s some obviously bad PR handling by Blizzard, but unsurprising.”
I’ve never been but I’ve seen the videos. There’s the wow themed dance contest, the cosplay contest, the ETC (eltie tauren chieftan) concert, a series of other wow themed concerts, panels hosted by famous guilds in the game. Meet the actual Leeroy Jenkins, etc etc etc. There’s a lot to do if your entire life is this one game.
Though perhaps the biggest draw, if I had to guess, is the fact that wow (moreso in the past than in the present) is an inherently social game. You meet and make friends with people from all over the world. Blizzcon may be the only time every year you get to meet, and hang out with the people you have known only as a faceless voice for years.
You can hang out with people outside the convention. If a convention doesn’t have actual things TO DO, I’ll either lobbycon, or not attend at all. That even goes for PAX or MAGFest as well. A convention needs to give you a reason to be inside. What does your badge get you that you can’t get if you are stuck outside? Blizzcon is not like other good conventions that have things to do. It’s like PAX, but it’s not even just the Expo Hall (like E3). It’s just one booth in the Expo Hall, and that’s it.
Also, you can buy the same worthless merch online.
A sporting event is worth attending in person. I paid a lot go to a hockey game last night. How is an announcement worth attending in person? Nobody pays to attend sports teams press conferences in person, nor would they. We let reporters attend and just read the news later. Imagine if teams started having their press conferences in the arena and charged for admission! It would be a laughing stock.
Concerts and cosplay contest are good. But unless you are in the cosplay contest, I guess you can just watch it online. Same for the panels. Unlike other conventions Blizzcon streams EVERYTHING. You just buy that virtual ticket and stay at home.
You do realize that you just stated that going in sports game is valuable without giving any actual reason. You just said it is. Not the strongest argument.
Fact is, reason and logic doesn’t matter, if someone wants to go to Blizzard on for any or no reason, then it has value for that person.
Don’t bother. Scott just doesn’t get it. He’s incapable of understanding why someone would do something that he doesn’t like. The type of social camaraderie that you’re describing is completely alien to him.
I mean, you say that but scrym are on record saying magfest is their ‘freinds all come to the one con’, con. I imagine he can relate on that dimension. Wow friends are just friends. Scott has friends.
A sporting event is a performance. You are witnessing athletic feats of skill, strength, prowess. It’s just as equally valuable to spectate as any other artistic performance such as a concert, a play, or circus.
Unlike a lecture, which may or may not be valuable to attend, a press conference is an advertisement. Even if it is educational it can not be trusted because it serves a corporate for profit interest. Even if it is worth paying attention to, it is not worth paying or traveling to attend in person. Nothing is lost by having it relayed to you via the media, or simply reading the press release.
Yes, but you could get together at any place on earth. If MAGFest did not have concerts and games and a big arcade, we wouldn’t go. We would just get together at some house somewhere. We get together at MAGFest because we can do specific things there together that we can not do anywhere else.
Does Blizzcon even have a LAN so the people can at least play WoW? Not that they couldn’t do that literally anywhere else.
This is why the people I know go. It’s their annual group meet-up. It’s also a big part of their cultural identity. In a lot of ways it’s like people that go to sporting events for “secondary” reasons instead of just to specifically watch the event. They go to be “among their people/culture/etc”. Growing up around St Louis that was a huge factor with Hockey and Baseball where there were plenty of people that wanted to go to games… a lot for the surrounding spectacle.