Blizzard goes prime time

BlizzCon is Blizzard’s annual fan event, where players of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo come from around the world to meet in the real world for a two-day celebration of all things Blizzard. It’s been wildly popular ever since starting a few years ago, selling out in a matter of hours whenever tickets are released on Blizzard’s website.  Demand for tickets was so high this year that it brought the site to its knees, with many folks missing out as a result, countless Aussies among them. Local Blizzardians who didn’t score a ticket needn’t worry though, as they’ll be able to virtually attend this real-world celebration of online gaming via Foxtel’s Main Event channel.

This pay-per-play event takes place over two days on October  11 and 12, at fifteen bucks per day. For this amount you’ll see at least eight hours of live footage per day, including the opening ceremony, gaming tournaments, presentations from the developer and at least one shot of an Elf and an Orc making out in the snack bar (we hope). Yes, we did say it’s live, which means the show kicks off at 4:30am both mornings. Thankfully this is around the same time that most World of Warcraft players are finishing up their night’s raiding, perfect timing for these denizens of the dark. If early morning viewing isn’t your thing, you’ll be happy to hear that a replay kicks off at 3pm each day, showing the entire eight hours all over again.

To be honest, we’re not convinced a gaming conference is going to translate into Emmy-award winning television, especially considering it’s all live. Highlights might work, but shots of kids queuing up to play the Diablo III Beta might not be so enthralling.  But we also never thought we’d see our grandparents riding a Raptor mount to their weekly guild raid, yet Blizzard managed to make that a reality. And besides, even if it turns out to be sixteen hours of nerdy kids cheering along a bunch of nerdy Blizzard billionaires on stage, WoW fans will surely shell out the thirty bucks when they learn that subscribers to both days will get an exclusive in-game polar bear mount complete with flag-waving murloc. Yes, we said exclusive mount – here’s a direct link to the ordering page.