Irvine-based video game maker Blizzard Entertainment Inc. is skipping its BlizzCon fan festival this year.
The company attributed the cancellation of the event—which has been held at the Anaheim Convention Center in the past—to a “jam-packed schedule” this year.
It said it expects a “bigger and better” BlizzCon in 2013.
The company schedule for the rest of this year includes the launch of the new Diablo III and expansions of two existing games, World of Warcraft and StarCraft, which are leading products that drive much of the company’s revenue.
The company said on its website that it is “heavily focused” on getting those games out to its customers as quickly as possible.
eSports Event
Also scheduled for later this year is the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, a global eSports event that is expected to take place in Asia and feature tournaments for competitive gamers.
“Thinking about our year and what we’re trying to get done already without a BlizzCon and having to think pretty hard about what we’d have to announce or demo, it just makes sense to me not to have one,” wrote Micah Whiple, Diablo III community manager under the codename Bashiok, on the official forum of World of Warcraft.
Whiple, also known as Drysc in the gaming world, said that “it’s a bit disappointing because we all really do enjoy being able to ‘open the doors,’… But it is an enormous effort by all employees, including our game designers and artists, not to mention customer support and quality assurance, public relations, our business departments… to make a BlizzCon happen.”
Blizzard is the second-largest among foreign-owned companies in Orange County, according to the Business Journal list, and largest software maker here, with about 1,800 local employees.
2005 Start
The company has held the event in Anaheim since the inaugural show in 2005. It also skipped the event in 2006.
“At that time we were really strong on the idea that BlizzCon isn’t really supposed to be and doesn’t have to be an annual event,” Whiple wrote. “Of course then we have it for five straight years in a row… which obviously built some expectation.”
BlizzCon attendees grew from about 8,000 the first year to 26,000 at last year’s two-day event.
The fest usually draws the most ardent of fans and has been a place for Blizzard to make key yearly announcements.
Previous editions of the event have included previews for upcoming games, demo consoles, question-and-answer sessions between fans and Blizzard employees, costume contests and entertainment with artists such as Tenacious D and the Foo Fighters.
Blizzard is a unit of Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc.
The Blizzard segment saw $297 million in revenue in the third quarter last year, down 38% from the year-earlier figure.
Activision’s fourth quarter and annual results are slated to be announced in February.
