The ever-growing San Diego Comic Con kicks off today, and while Blizzard has no plans for official booths or new info releases, some of their artists will be on hand, and plenty of their employees will no doubt make the 100 mile drive down from Irvine to see some of the sights. As far as official attendees, the only one I’ve seen confirmed is [wiki]Chris Metzen[/wiki], Blizzard’s VP of Creative Development, who is taking part in a Blizzard merchandise panel Thursday afternoon.
Here’s the official description, from the SDCC site:
1:00-2:00 World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft Swag Show— Blizzard Entertainment creative and licensed partners unveil and discuss World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft-inspired products. In attendance: Chris Metzen (Blizzard Entertainment SVP of creative development), Nick Carpenter (Blizzard Entertainment executive art director), Christie Golden (New York Times bestselling author), Hank Kanalz (SVP Digital, DC Comics and World of Warcraft comics editor), Sean Gailey (creative overlord, J!nx Clothing), and Cory Jones (Cryptozoic Entertainment president and chief creative officer). Moderated by Kat Hunter ( host of BlizzCon coverage on DIRECTV). Room 6BCF
Metzen is known as one of the head lore guys at Blizzard, but it doesn’t sound like this panel will cover anything in terms of game story or world fiction. Just toys. Shiny plastic dolls many of us covet to fill the empty space atop our desks and bookshelves.
The [wiki]Diablo Merch[/wiki] article in DiabloWiki is up to date and thorough, and makes clear that there really hasn’t been that much D3 merch for sale yet. We’ve seen a few t-shirts and mousepads and wall calendars, we recently saw the D3 headset and mouse, and there was that huge and expensive Barbarian statue, but that’s it. No wide variety of posters, no other action figures, no comic books, etc.
I’m sure we’ll see a lot of that stuff eventually, and things like comics and additional Diablo Novels are being held up until after the game releases because SPOILERS. But still… moar? Now? Affordable hand-sized plastic monster and character dolls collectibles?