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
They cancelled the event LITERALLY the day before it was supposed to happen. Imagine being a journalist or someone traveling to NYC for the event only to find out the day before. You can’t even get a refund on your plane ticket now.
Via IGN:
Blizzard has cancelled a launch event for Overwatch on the Nintendo Switch, just seven days after it first announced the celebration.
The free event was scheduled to take place tomorrow on October 16 at New York’s Nintendo Store. The first 150 fans to sign up were promised meet-and-greets with voice actors from the game, and the only requirement to attend was an active Nintendo account.
So far there’s been no official word on exactly why the plug was pulled, nor has Blizzard made its own statement. However, the original tweet promoting the event was flooded by #BoycottBlizzard and #StandWithHongKokng hashtags, which began following the company’s decision to punish a Hearthstone player for publicly supporting the Hong Kong protests.