World of Warcraft : BlizzCon Overview

As many of you who were following my blog over the weekend know, I was at BlizzCon again this year. For those of you who followed those daily reports, no fear, there will be stuff here I didn't talk about there. For those of you, who didn't, feel free to head over and check those entries out as well. Most of it will be covered here, but you never know.

First of all, I'll get all bias out of the way. I absolutely love BlizzCon. And no, it isn't because I'm a WoW fanboy, I don't even currently play WoW. Nor am I really a fanboy of any of their other games. I love the Diablo series, but come on; it's been years and years since I've played D2. Nope, none of that is the reason. I love BlizzCon because as a Community Manager, and one who has worked both IN the industry and in the press covering the industry, I recognize BlizzCon as THE standard when it comes to running a community appreciation event. I've been to most of them; DAoC's Roundtables, SOE's Fan Faires, etc, none of them even come remotely close to BlizzCon. In my opinion one of the most important things a company can do to show appreciation to their community is have a great live event with fun activities, tournaments, great swag and devs accessible to the community. Blizzard does all of this in spades with BlizzCon. So if you're in the industry and in a community relations role in said industry, and aren't attending BlizzCon to take notes when it rolls around, you're doing your community a great disservice.