While BlizzCon itself might only be a weekend-long event for those of us lucky enough to attend in person, Blizzard certainly doesn’t just see it that way. In a presentation at Gamescom, the company’s head of community development, Saralyn Smith, said that Blizzard now sees their annual convention “as a season,” with content due to roll out for more than six weeks ahead of BlizzCon 2018.
The convention takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Los Angeles, and this year will take place on November 2-3. But not content with just the two-day event, Blizzard says that it’s planning to extend its “biggest thank you to the community” to offer rewards and content throughout the autumn.
That starts today, with a four-part series titled the “Best of BlizzCon.” Smith says that’s a celebration showing off some of the highlights of previous shows, with everything from esports to cosplay. That’ll be followed up in September with a new show that’s going to explain this year’s virtual ticket, and will also act as “the start of some of our original programming.”
Smith says there’ll be five series available as part of the virtual ticket, and that one episode of all of those will be available for free. September 12 will also be the reveal of the first in-game item that will be available as part of the ticket, which this time around is a legendary Overwatch skin.
But that’s not all, and there’ll be plenty more to see before BlizzCon – esports begins on October 25, all culminating in the show itself at the beginning of November. Smith says that that’s been growing every year since the first BlizzCon, with more than 35,000 attendees last year. Even more impressively, however, more than 10 million people tuned into the con online, either via virtual tickets or through the esports scene.
What Blizzard might actually have on show at Gamescom is anybody’s guess, but there have been plenty of rumblings around those Diablo teams. Sadly though, you’ll have to wait to find out anything more concrete than that.