Blizzard is "committed to bringing back BlizzCon in 2023"

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Blizzard is taking steps to bring back its big fan event

BlizzCon Online 2021
(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Blizzard plans to bring back BlizzCon, its formerly-annual fan convention, in 2023, according to a new interview with Blizzard president Mike Ybarra.

"We previously announced we’re taking a pause on BlizzCon while we reimagine it for the future but do want to return to a live event that enables us to celebrate the community," Ybarra tells the Los Angeles Times. "We recently hired a new leader of BlizzCon, April McKee, who is hard at work on that plan."

Ybarra concludes by saying that "we are committed to bringing back BlizzCon in 2023."

Ybarra addresses some of the company's efforts to change its culture in the interview, saying that his role is as a "stabilizer" for Blizzard - "It’s really about me getting out of the way and making sure culture here is cultivating in the way we want it and people feel like they belong."

Ybarra also defends Diablo Immortal's controversial microtransactions, saying the devs aimed to "make sure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the whole campaign without any costs."

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.