Blizzard is launching Overwatch: Legendary Edition for Nintendo Switch today as the popular PvP shooter makes its way to the console for the first time. To celebrate, Blizzard was planning a launch for the game at the Nintendo Store in New York City where guests would be able to meet the voice actors from the game. This morning, suddenly Blizzard cancelled the event without any reason why.
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The cancellation came just a few hours before the event was meant to kick off. The Nintendo NY account tweeted in reply to the initial invitation stating it was simply cancelled by Blizzard.
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 sudden cancellation comes as no surprise after reports from digital rights group Fight for the Future announced its Games for Freedom campaign which is said to kick off during BlizzCon 2019. The group is calling for Blizzard umbrella protests during the show.
It was a good idea to stay away from hosting any public events for the time being and cancelling the Overwatch Switch edition launch was a wise decision. The event would doubt be seen as an opportunity for a staged protest against the company.
All this comes after Blizzard banned Hearthstone player Blitzchung after he expressed his support for the Hong Kong protests during a post-match interview. Blizzard banned the player and took away his $10,000 winnings. The company then released a statement revealing the ban would be reduced from 12 months to 6 months further aggravating the gaming community after Blizzard failed to take responsibility for the unreasonable actions.
It will be interesting to see how BlizzCon 2019 goes down amidst all this unfortunate drama. The event takes place from 1 – 3 November 2019.
