Dwarf ret pally, 3/7/31.

And very little of it is Blizzard branded bullshit.

This girl thinks she's above average intelligence, misunderstood, can only relate to other outcasts because the common idiot can't see the world as she sees it. This girl hasn't been fucked by a real man.

Blah blah misogyny blah blah "she just needs a good man to sort her out" blah blah watch me swing my big, personality-transforming dick around.

Besides, she seems like the type who's got experience with convention one-night stands. Although, that probably doesn't fit into the whole "real man" thing you were referring to, especially since she hasn't slept with me yet.

http://www.memedepot.com/uploads/0/392_too_old.jpg

I don't think she needs a man, but another fucking hobby or interest wouldn't hurt.

oh did she say something?

Yeah, she was talking about her rack, I think. Specifically, how nice it is.

That's no rack, my friend. That's a push up bra.

Wrong. http://youtu.be/ucIcpASXwaA?t=2m11s

wonderfully wrong

it's a communityyyyyyyyy of faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaans

I think there's a generational rift between "convention" and "trade exhibition" here. A convention is a bunch of fans spontaneously getting together to celebrate the pop culture artifact of their mutual interest. WoW fans are so entirely boring they can't even hold THEIR OWN conventions, they feel miffed by the notion of work. (yet, they all have 535 professions maxed out, so they're okay with PRETENDING to work, just not actually working)

I never understood how it caught on in the first place. Every piece of footage from blizzcon I've ever seen is just hundreds of computers lined up, with people on them who came all this way to play wow somewhere else all day.

Really? Every piece of footage from Blizzcon I've ever seen was of people humiliating themselves.

Ah, sweet memories.

There was a neo-nazi chick on here named panser something or something panser.

Probably too much to hope for.

They earn nothing more than ticket sales, and those fans that do go would buy every game they release anyway.

We didn't exactly cancel it, we just decided not to do it this year.

These things are expensive as hell to put on, we barely break even from the event itself (intangible value of the publicity notwithstanding), and they tie up a not insignificant amount of resources from basically every single department in the company for months, including us drones in support who wind up staffing the things. I love 'em, the fans are about equal parts genuinely fun and trainwreck fun, and they're a great excuse for me to hang out with my cousin and her husband.

All that aside, given that we don't really have anything big ready to announce, I am kind of glad we're taking a breather this year.

There's a girl at my office who has a whiteboard at her desk with "X days til Blizzcon" on it, which does reinforce the dual-edged nature of them. We look forward to it, but it's also a specter hanging over us the rest of the year.

Maybe I'm a normal person but wouldn't it be just as effective to do a panel at SDCC or Pax or whatever, set up a booth, and let the fans mill about themselves? The major complaint this lady seems to be emoting is a lack of vanity pet to "earn".

Blizz fans can, like, have their own convention in absence of the trade show - assuming they have enough money to, like, rent a church basement.

What a whiny bitch. And this from someone who still raids in WoW and has max level crafters in every goddamn skill... I need to move somewhere winters are shorter, don't I?

We do the other stuff too, mainly in Europe and Asia, but there's a strong vein of autonomy running through the company, in that we want to do things our own way. E3 is very much industry-oriented, PAX is very much indie-oriented, Comic Con is so bloated now that it'd be a huge pain in the ass to do much aside from a coming attractions presentation.

So we set about to create something where we could interact with fans directly, do Q&As and in-depth panels (spending an hour talking about the work that goes into a single Diablo cinematic, for example), promote the esports side of things, promote licensed materials, the books, comics, card games, etc., and the participatory fan culture (machinima, costumes, the often tragicomic dance contest). These are things that would be difficult to do at any of the other venues, and so we made BlizzCon. Plus, we get to bring in bands we like for the closing concert. It's very much like throwing a huge party for ourselves and our fans, and it's fortunate we've been in a position to do so as frequently as we have.

Plus we hold it in Anaheim, so the devs and execs don't even have to travel to be there.

The shrine behind her tells me she's probably been to more than a couple of anime conventions.

Most of the text in these comments is from Chalkdust, who works for Blizzard. Quit projecting.

Quick glance over the comments shows that's at all true.