Blizzard had an event planned for next week to officially unveil WoW Shadowlands. However, the event has been postponed due to the protests in the USA.
What does Blizzard say? In a statement on the Blizzard forums and on Twitter, the developer announced that the reveal event for WoW Shadowlands will be postponed.
The event was originally scheduled for June 9 and was expected to bring a flood of information about the new expansion, but this will not happen now due to the ongoing protests in the USA.
You can find the German Twitter post regarding the postponement here:
Es gibt wichtigere Stimmen als unsere, die derzeit gehört werden sollten. Wir verschieben unseren, für den 9. Juni geplanten, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Livestream und werden in Zukunft weitere Details zu der nächsten Erweiterung mit euch teilen.
— Warcraft_DE (@Warcraft_DE) June 5, 2020
However, the event is not completely canceled. Instead, it will be postponed to a later date. The developer has not yet communicated when this will happen.
With this, Blizzard joins the list of developers and publishers who have decided to postpone their events and announcements due to the protests.
- These include, for example, Sony, which has postponed an event for the PS5
- Epic is also postponing the start of Season 3 of Fortnite to a later date
Fans are divided
The announcement regarding the postponement of the Shadowlands event has been received differently by fans, and it has been discussed in comments on Twitter, Reddit, and in the forums of the fan site WoWheads.
Critics say: Some members of the community accuse Blizzard of hypocrisy and double standards. According to these fans, Blizzard’s statement is a PR stunt.
It’s a shame you couldn’t do the same for the people in Hong Kong.
Twitter user @RoccoLostInHull
In particular, the incident involving Hearthstone pro Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai was mentioned multiple times in posts on Reddit and Twitter. The player had spoken out in favor of the protests in Hong Kong during an interview in a tournament stream.
As a result, Blitzchung and the two casters of the stream were penalized severely by Blizzard. This led to a strong backlash from the community, prompting Blizzard to reduce the punishment.
Supporters say: There are also positive voices in the community. In their comments, these fans state that it is essential to fully focus attention on the protests and they agree with Blizzard’s statement.
Even though Blizzard did not act appropriately in the case of Blitzchung, they apologized on stage during BlizzCon, according to the comments:
It might be a PR stunt. But it’s also possible that they are trying to improve now. If you want people to support the cause you believe in, then don’t attack them when they do something good.
Twitter user @Roguebear1
Although the reveal event has been postponed, the closed alpha of Shadowlands continues, which Cortyn from MeinMMO was able to participate in. Here you can find details that make Shadowlands really great.
