They held one last year under the shadow of the Microsoft acquisition - granted, it wasn’t official yet, but friggin Phil Spencer showed up bc everyone knew it was going to go through - so I don’t think it’s explicitly Microsoft interfering. This feels more like the realization that, like last year, they don’t have that much exciting content to hype right now. They already milked their 3-part WoW xpac news dry, all they’ve got left is… Diablo season 4 or the seasonal new Overwatch character? Can’t build a convention around that.
Nothing replaces common sense, but I’ve been using ESET for years now and have been really happy. Just the AV mind you, none of the other security suite bs.