The Nintendo NY store Twitter account just announced the cancellation of a large Blizzard launch event.
Please be aware that the previously announced Overwatch launch event scheduled for Wednesday, 10/16 at NintendoNYC has been cancelled by Blizzard. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
— Nintendo NY (@NintendoNYC) October 15, 2019
The event was intended to celebrate the release of Overwatch Legendary Edition on Nintendo Switch. The official event was supposed to take place on Oct. 16 in Nintendo’s Manhattan store over the course of an hour.
A second portion of the event was to require reservations and run later in the evening. Although reservations were free, some Overwatch players excitedly rushed to make them. Blizzard advertised the first 150 fans would have a meet-and-greet session with the game’s voice actors. It was never specified which voice actors would be attending, but fans speculated Anjali Bhimani (the voice actress for Symmetra) would be attending as she quickly liked a fan’s reply. Very little information was given outside of Nintendo’s first two tweets initially announcing the event.
No other public launch events were being planned for the release.
Why did Blizzard cancel their big Overwatch launch?
Blizzard has yet to specify any reason for the cancellation of the Overwatch launch event at Nintendo NY. The sudden announcement brought up many questions, however, especially in regards to the recent Hong Kong controversy. Is Blizzard choosing to avoid interacting with the community? Would they rather cancel events instead of risking uncomfortable dialogue between players and staff? Is it a potential safety concern with the venue, a lack of interested participants registering online, or something else? There are more reasons why Blizzard could have canceled the event, such as logistics problems of voice actors and staff being able to attend, but these seem less likely for a well-oiled machine like Activision Blizzard.
Do you think other Blizzard events are running the risk of being canceled? Or do you think an event like BlizzCon is simply too enormous to cancel?
For anyone who is still interested, Overwatch will be playable on Nintendo Switch starting today.
