Blizzard have announced that their massive annual convention won’t be happening this year. Instead, they’ll be devoting more time to finishing their many projects. “In light of our jam-packed schedule, we’ve decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013,” Blizzard say in a statement on Battle.net, mentioning that they’re currently “heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players’ hands as soon as possible.”

It’s sad news for fans. Blizzcon is a mad, noisy celebration of some of PC gaming’s biggest series. Blizzcon 2011 brought MMO and esports fans together, and hosted the announcement of World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Having said that, it was obvious from the many developer panels and Q&As, that a lot of time had gone into getting demos and CG trailers ready for the show, time that could have been spent getting games finished.

In the light of the success of the massive Starcraft 2 pro finals at Blizzcon 2011, Blizzard announce that they will be staging the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, described as “a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world.” It’ll host StarCraft 2 and WoW Arena World Championship tournaments in Asia later this year.

Blizzard haven’t announced any release dates for Mists of Pandaria and StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, and a post last week revealed major changes to Diablo 3 that will surely push it further back. Behind the scenes, work will continue on Blizzard’s next big MMO, Project Titan. Are you disappointed by Blizzard’s decision to delay Blizzcon 2012?