Blizzard has introduced it won’t maintain BlizzCon, the writer’s annual fan conference, this 12 months. “After cautious consideration over the past 12 months, we at Blizzard have made the choice to not maintain BlizzCon in 2024,” Blizzard wrote on its web site.

As an alternative of BlizzCon, Blizzard wrote that it might be holding different, smaller occasions all year long and talked about collaborating in different commerce reveals, comparable to Gamescom. Moreover, 2024 marks the thirtieth anniversary of World of Warcraft, with Blizzard stating that it’s planning “a number of, international, in-person occasions” in addition to sharing updates for WoW’s tenth growth, The Conflict Inside, and Diablo IV’s first growth, Vessel of Hatred.

Regardless of this 12 months’s cancellation, Blizzard says the occasion will return sooner or later: “Whereas we’re approaching this 12 months otherwise and as we’ve explored completely different occasion codecs up to now, relaxation assured that we’re simply as excited as ever to deliver BlizzCon again in future years.”

The cancelation of BlizzCon 2024 comes as one other notable online game occasion, E3, lastly gave up the ghost final 12 months and amidst a online game trade grappling with unprecedented layoffs and monetary struggles. Earlier this 12 months, Microsoft laid off 1,900 staff throughout Activision Blizzard and Xbox, one of many largest single online game trade layoff occasions of the final two years.