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No BlizzCon in 2012Blizzard just dropped a very unexpected piece of news with a short press release. There will be no BlizzCon in 2012. Instead, there will be a Battle.Net World Championship event in late 2012, to be held somewhere in Asia (most likely in South Korea, but details are not yet available) that will showcase top level eSports competition around Blizzard titles. We are proud to announce the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world. Slated to take place in Asia toward the end of 2012, the Battle.net World Championship will host this year’s StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship tournaments. Blizzard gamers and eSports fans from around the world will be invited to attend and witness some of the most skilled pro players on the planet battle it out for cash and glory. We're excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We're also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players' hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we've decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013. More details about the 2012 Battle.net World Championship and BlizzCon 2013, including specific dates and locations, will be coming in the months ahead. Considering how massive and apparently profitable BlizzCon has been to Blizzard with tickets selling out in minutes, this is very surprising. The only way this really makes sense is if Blizzard decided to aim for the release of all three previously announced titles - Diablo III, WoW: Mists of Pandaria and Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm in 2012. BlizzCon being so large event, it obviously takes considerable time and effort to prepare for and it unavoidably eats up into the development schedules. So, I guess this is still net positive, even if it is something I sure didn't see coming. It could also mean that Blizzard would not have had anything new to show in 2012, so why hold a show without any announcements? I mean, the plan appears to be just to skip a year so that there would be a BlizzCon in 2013. It would also match the speculations that Blizzard would finally unveil their next MMO project in that rough timeframe.
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