BlizzCon 2018 Expected To Be The Biggest Yet, Exceeding Last Year's 35K Attendees

BlizzCon 2017 was big; 35,000 people attended, and more than 10 million people from 180 countries tuned in online to watch live. Those are just some of the numbers Blizzard is sharing ahead of BlizzCon 2018, which the company says will be even larger with an expected record attendance.

This year, BlizzCon is promising "new ways to engage" with content online, like interactive polls, and more exclusive content related to Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, StarCraft II, Diablo III, and Heroes of the Storm. The trade floor itself is huge, Blizzard shared, spanning 21 football fields with a giant LED screen in the Overwatch Arena that weighs the same an elephant. The convention (and online content) will also be offered in Spanish and Portuguese this year, in addition to the several other languages, so online attendance may be up too.

It's no wonder BlizzCon is such a big deal, when you look at the overall stats Blizzard is sharing about its community. On Battle.net, there are 37 million active players from more than 200 countries each month, with an average 30K logins per minute and 30 million chat messages per day. The average player has 21 friends on Battle.net, with Koreans having the most at an average 28 friends. On the more random side:

• Players have given more than 7.4 billion commendations in Overwatch to both friends and enemies.
• Murky has been killed almost 390 million times in Heroes of the Storm
• In World of Warcraft, Legion, Dungeon, and Raid bosses have killed players 2.8 billion times, while players have slayed bosses 1.4 billion times.
• 23.3 billion Murloc cards have been laid down in Hearthstone since it launched.
• Necros have more than 10 million skill build combos in Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer.
• Blizzard's community forms get around 1 million posts per month.
• StarCraft II players have raked in more than $25 million in esports prize money since its launch.

You can check out the full infographic below. In other Blizzard news, World of Warcraft's latest expansion Battle for Azeroth has set a sales record, and Diablo 3 is coming to Switch and things are looking good.

Editor's note: The original text said that more than 1 million people tuned in from 180 countries. The correct number is over 10 million. GameSpot regrets the error.