The last year has been rough for Blizzard.

Leading into last year we got an announcement that Blizzard CEO and president Mike Morhaime was stepping down. Mike has been with Blizzard since 1991. J. Allen Brack was put in charge of Blizzard, but not as a CEO, just as president. A sign of the closing grip that Activision has over Blizzard. Mike's leaving was painful to a lot of people. He has been charge for almost 30 years and made Blizzard what it was. But he won't be the only founder to leave.  

Last years Blizzcon didn't really go very well. While we got a lot of really cool announcements from Overwatch, to Hearthstone, Warcraft 3: Reforged, and the announced live date for World of Warcraft Classic. There was still a stigma over the event. 

Diablo: Immortals. Diablo took center stage at last years event holding the opening spot to the convention. People were excited for Diablo news and the rumor mill went crazy. People wanted either a Diablo 4 announcement or a Diablo 2 Remastered announcement. 

What we got was Diablo: Immortal and a meme that won't die. If you Google search "Do you guys not have phones" you will find thousands of memes based on this statement. The announcement of it not coming to PC at all got a sea of boos from the crowd.

Later on in the month, Jason Schreier of Koaku put out an article that basically said that Diablo 4 was supposed to have been announced but was pulled last minute and blew the whistle about Activision now being more hands on with Blizzard as a whole and actually wants Blizzard to create more IP's and even yearly sequels to games to generate more revenue along with cost cutting. This cost cutting was seen, and felt, in December when Blizzard announced that it was pulling all esports funding for Heroes of the Storm Global Championship. Leaving hundreds of players and casters with out an esport league and with out jobs. While Heroes of the Storm has still been getting updates, a lot of the team has moved onto other projects with-in Blizzard. Those who couldn't find a project were let go.

Fast forward to February of 2019. Despite record revenue in 2018, Blizzard laid off 800 people -8% of its staff- to start the new year.  

May 2019. Blizzard cancels an FPS game based on the Starcraft universe. This would have been the first Starcraft game in almost 10 years to be released. With this announcement it was also revealed that a number of developers also left the company.   

July 2019. Another founder of Blizzard leaves the company, Frank Pearce. Frank was Chief Development Officer and one of 3 people who co-founded Blizzard back in 1991.

With this announcement. This leaves Allen Adham as the only original member left. 

This leads us to October. 

October 2019. Chinese Hearthstone player "Blitzchung" was banned after showing support - on stream - for Hong Kong protesters during an interview. Blizzard's punishment was swift and completely overblown banning the player for a year and taking all of his winnings. While his punishment was dialed back a week later the effect of this was still there. It even made the U.S government take notice and submit a letter to Activision/Blizzard expressing concern. Today it was revealed that Mitsubishi Motors has pulled their sponsorship's of all Blizzard esports events. This actually happened 2 days after Blizzard banned Blitzchung for his comments as reported by the Daily Beast.

If Blizzard wants to get its fanbase back and to get us to trust them again. This Blizzcon is going to have to be amazing. The leaks suggest it might. 

Overwatch 2 has been leaked several times now, and once by Blizzard them self in artwork released on their store. We are also supposed to get our new hero, Echo, announced.  

Diablo 4 is going to make an appearance, along with a remaster of Diablo 2.

And World of Warcraft is set to have another expansion announced this year. People are also suggesting that Warcraft 3: Reforged is going to be released during Blizzcon this year. 

Blizzard has not announced what game is opening the show just yet, but whatever it is. It's going to have to be huge. 

Blizzard needs to put this last year behind them and get back to doing what needs to be done. Make great games and support your fanbases. Blizzard has been doing this for almost 30 years, and while there have been cracks in the road. They always seemed to bounce back from them. Let's hope they can do it again. 

I will be here tomorrow to deliver all of the new announcements. As a fan of Blizzard and a fan of their games. I am excited.

Blizzcon 2019 starts Friday November 1st at 2 PM EST. 

As always this has been James with Game Fix. Game on everybody!