The ceremony itself kicked off with a few grateful words for Blizzard's dedicated player base from the company's president and co-founder Mike Morhaime, who pointed out that the first BlizzCon (in 2005) took three weeks to sell out -- while this year's event took mere hours. Morhaime reminded fans that games from all three of Blizzard's universes -- WarCraft, StarCraft, and Diablo -- would be playable during the convention; after a brief highlight reel from the Paris Invitational that took place earlier this year, he announced tournaments for WarCraft 3 scenario Defense of the Ancients and (more importantly) StarCraft 2.

A brief reminder of Wrath of the Lich King's November 13 release followed, as well as a hi-def presentation of the game's latest cinematic trailer. Morhaime's next announcements concerned the upcoming StarCraft II beta (attendees received beta keys in the aforementioned goodie bag), as well as a new video revealing the also-playable-at-BlizzCon Wizard class from Diablo 3. A few teases of upcoming contests wrapped things up, and Morhaime urged everyone to get out there and enjoy BlizzCon.