| Description: | I’d originally decided to wait a little with my BlizzCon recap, in hopes of the week-long coverage splurge following the event yielding additional interesting bits of information. Sadly, this has not been the case, with most reporting limiting itself to the “straight-faced release information” or “China commentary” flavors.
The company’s new titles do look great and come with interesting developments of their own. How Blizzard is pretending the last decade of our lives didn’t happen, while simultaneously selling it back to us, for example, or how we’re supposed to pretend Diablo Immortal didn’t happen.
But what I missed and what I really wish Blizzard would start making a part of the event, is the company’s plans for its esports going into the new year.
It seems like ages ago that the developer fired its entire Heroes of the Storm esports circuit overnight. It was only last year, however, after BlizzCon had come and gone without any hint of what was coming. While WCS Winter was announced a week later, it still took Blizzard until February to announce further StarCraft II tournaments. That’s a pretty long time to have to wait to find out whether you still have a job.
All of this has been sort of pushed into the background by Blizzard’s more recent missteps. And there were many, in part, according to president J. Allen Brack, due to the immaturity of his organization. Worryingly, these apparent growing pains included the firings of experienced esports personnel in Activision Blizzard’s massive layoffs, followed by the exits of a bunch more. |
