“We will do better going forward, but our actions are going to matter more than any of these words,” Brack said. It was surprising to see the situation being addressed so directly during the event, but it did feel like it was little more than a token apology. “We didn’t live up to the high standards that we really set for ourselves.” “We moved too quickly in our decision-making and then, to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk with all of you,” said Brack.

Allen Brack regarding the Blitzchung controversy. The opening ceremony started with a sombre apology from Blizzard president J.

These are all immensely popular titles to be sure, but did the company manage to redeem itself simply by giving people the games they love? This was perhaps a little too close for comfort, considering that BlizzCon 2019 was less than a month away.īut now that Blizzzcon has come and gone, we've learned about Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, and expansions for both World of Warcraft and Hearthstone. It did not help that the internal situation of the company was shaky at best – approximately 800 employees were laid off at the start of 2019 and reports have surfaced that indicated that corporate decisions at the company have been negatively affecting game development.Īnd then the whole suspension of Hearthstone pro player Blitzchung happened in October, leading to yet another bout of negative publicity for Activision Blizzard. However, after the fiasco that was the Diablo Immortal announcement last year, along with a generally less-than-stellar presentation at BlizzCon 2018, Activision Blizzard really needed to pull out all the stops this year to win back the confidence of their fans.

After all, the company is home to some of the most beloved game franchises, including Diablo and Warcraft. BlizzCon has always been one of the biggest gaming events to look forward to yearly, if for nothing than just to see Activision Blizzard bring out the big guns.

Diablo immortal blizzcon 2019