Heroes of the Storm Loses Developers and has eSports Events Cancelled
Heroes of the Storm (HotS) is set to undergo a team restructure after it was announced that Blizzard will be moving some of the MOBA's developer team onto other projects. To coincide with this, it was also announced that HotS eSports events will not be returning in 2019.
The announcement, made by Blizzard's president J. Allen Brack and the company's chief development officer, Ray Gresko, stated the company's need to re-evaluate the development processes behind Heroes of the Storm. They also admitted that, over the years, these evaluations were also performed on a number of Blizzard's other franchises, including Diablo II and World of Warcraft.
"Over the past several years, the work of evaluating our development processes and making hard decisions has led to new games and other products that we're proud of.
"We've made the difficult decision to shift some developers from Heroes of the Storm to other teams, and we're excited to see the passion, knowledge, and experience that they'll bring to those projects," said Brack and Gresko.
HGC and Heroes of the Dorm Will Not Return in 2019
In the same post, Blizzard announced that Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm will not be returning in 2019. With over 10 million people reported to have tuned in to this year's Overwatch League finals, the company looks to be trying to expand on some of its other eSports franchises.
The announcement was met with both sadness and anger from fans.
With HotS eSports team, Endemic, pledging to continue to support their HGC players.
The company says that while they recognise that the programs are well loved by their communities, these decision were not made easily and they were made with the future of Blizzard and its long-term sustainability in mind.
Heroes of the Storm will still be receiving new heroes, events, and other content but the company says that the "cadence will change." Blizzard also says that the development team staying with HotS will continue working on the MOBA with the same enthusiasm and creativity as usual.
Activision is slowly ditching Blizzard's franchises. I hate them for it.
I actually don't mind them ditching the eSports events. I'm older than the game streaming trend. I never bothered to watch other people play games. I might as well play the game myself, it's more fun. I enjoy HOTS a lot, but I don't think I'd enjoy watching a match of it.
I mind. It's not about the streaming, it's about the competition. An esports scene drives a lot of people's desire to get better, to climb up the ranks. Games with ranked mode only thrive when it has an active esports scene. This is basically announcing the upcoming death of the game itself.
The game already handles the competitive side of it without needing external events. Warcraft 3's Battle.net, for example, had an in-game ranking system and this is how it encouraged you to climb the ranks. During that era, you had great players rise up the ranks through non-blizzard esport events. All I care about is that they make good memorable games that last. If they're saving up costs by getting rid of esports, I'm the least sour about it. And like I said, it's not like esports events will end. Other people and companies will organise these events, it just doesn't have to come from Blizzard. People still hold Warcraft II competitions to this day if anyone cares.
Last but not least, you might only care about making new memorable games, but the playerbase cares about the game they're currently playing. About the franchise and the unique gameplay elements they love. They will lose what they love.
But yeah, I understand you might not care much for it. That doesn't change how Activision's decisions are hedious.
Yes, but it is not a popular esports. It was never designed as a competitive game, either. It is a campaign-based game that got a battle.net port later on, just for kicks and giggles.
Heroes of the Storm is a competitive game and nothing else. If they take away the company's actual competitive incentive, which is what sets the game apart in the first place, players will start losing interest until it dies.
Competitive games start off dead if there is no esports incentive / competition hype. There are exceptions, but they all offer local hosting alternatives, from Warcraft II to Supreme Commander.
Competitive games are tailored for the high end players. If there are no high end players, the balance team loses track of what it's doing. Gameplay will become broken with no incentive to fix it. People will start losing interest.
The community will see less events as a whole, because sponsorships will become scarse since companies understand Activision-Blizzard is starting to drop support. Blizzard will spend less on the game since it will generate less returns.
HotS will die. Not so slowly.
But Heroes of the Storm was designed as a casual experience, hence why they keep adding heroes and breaking the balance up. It has a competitive aspect, like all Blizzard games, but it was never the focus in the way that Starcraft 2 was.
I was always critical of Blizzard's esports aspirations, because by focusing way too much on competition, they actually lost a good portion of their base who wasn't there for the competition, but rather the good polished gameplay, the story of their games etc.
Starcraft wasn't designed for competition, but because it was so well balanced, Koreans took a knack for it and elevated the game to that of a competitive one. Many still prefer it to Starcraft 2, which had competition as its focus.
In China, Warcraft 3 rages on, and is keeping the community alive. Again, Warcraft 3 wasn't designed with too much competition in place, but the game still remains seriously competitive to this day. Warcraft 2 doesn't have a big scene, but then it's because it came with BNET pretty late and it was a little early for internet gaming.
As far as I can say for HOTS, it's a really well polished game, and quite easy to get into. I got bored of Overwatch a long time ago, but I keep coming back to HOTS because of the amount of enjoyment I get from it.
Ultimately, I want to say that a good game will save itself no matter what. High level competition is an extra, which a minority can enjoy, but for the rest of us, many of us aren't competitive to that level, and don't take it that seriously.
HOTS is already 3 years old, and judging the lifespan of Blizzard games, I'm sure at it'll be here at least 5 more years in, and people will still be playing it. The game is also on the BNET app, and whichever new game that Blizzard releases, HOTS will always be the free option that keeps Blizzard's fanbase engaged. In other words, I don't see HOTS as Blizzard's main title, but rather as an advertisement (since it's free) for their other games.
Hence, I'm not worried for its future.
Heroes of the Storm was designed as a competitive game. Adding heroes and breaking the balance is what usually happens in a competitive game. A competitive game always focuses on the competitive aspect.
Blizzard's esports aspirations were what kept most of their games hyped up for much longer than normal. They never lost players for focusing on it.
Starcraft balanced because they kept updating it for competitive play. Starcraft was not balanced originally. Starcraft I is a better game than Starcraft II for the same reasons Diablo II is a better game than Diablo III: Blizzard shits on Activision.
Warcraft III was designed for competition. BNET Warcraft II was the budget alternative to those who couldn't afford a WC3-capable computer or simply didn't like the new heroes-based gameplay, which is why I don't like WC3 myself.
Ultimately, a good competitive game is completely different from a good story-based campaign game. HOTS is a competitive game, and it will die without major competitive incentive, because the playerbase will not-so-slowly leave as the game dies down.
Blizzard games were great, but Blizzard is no more. Expecting the same results from Activision as from old Blizzard - which they have already proved they're incapable of - isn't rational.
Hence, HOTS should die within one or two years, which is extremely fast compared to other games in it's genre.
Blizzard's esport aspirations really truly began with Starcraft 2. I'm aware Starcraft wasn't balanced in the beginning, and that was done with further patches, same with Warcraft 3, but they didn't have esports in mind when they made Starcraft first. And they certainly didn't have esports in mind when they made Warcraft 3.
Warcraft 3 is still around, mostly because of custom maps, not because of its own competitive melee aspect.
There's one point you're not addressing, and it's your usage of the word competitive. If you mean players fighting each other is competition, then sure, the game is competitive, but I'm clearly not using that word that way. The lack or inclusion of officially sponsored esports event doesn't affect the competition that goes on within the game's online mode. esport events is something for the few, and it's what I keep getting at. As long as people like a game, they will play it competitively no matter what, regardless of esports events.
HOTS will definitely not die in 2 years, because according to Blizzard themselves, they're setting the game up with long term sustainability. They've kept BNET 1.0 servers since the 90s, and I don't see that ever changing.
After I replied to your post, here's what I stumbled on.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/109144/heroes-of-the-storm-isnt-dead-yet-blizzard-details-2019-roadmap
https://www.pcgamer.com/heroes-of-the-storm-amateur-league-announces-new-competitive-division/
Which is what I was saying. Only esports plans are gone, but it's not like they don't have plans to add new heroes, and events, and there's one that's currently going on.
Its a shame but I suspect this was purely driven as a business decision. Lets hope they make some great decisions in the future (Not like Diablo Immortal haha)
They've messed up so much lately. I'm giving up on them.
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