Blizzard Pulls the Plug on HotS Esports
Blizzard is shifting developers away from its flagship MOBA Heroes of the Storm (HotS) and canceling its annual esports competitions for 2019. Blizzard’s new president, J. Allen Brack, brought the bad news to fans in a blog post alongside chief development officer Ray Gresko. Blizzard will no longer support HotS esports, and the developers will be shuffled into other ongoing projects, including continued support for titles like Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
Although Heroes of the Storm (or HotS) never reached the popularity of League of Legends or Dota 2, it kept a small, dedicated fanbase with a competitive meta. Blizzard supported the HotS esports through the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm, but those events are not returning next year.
The news comes as a shock to fans, especially after the release of its most recent character, Orphea. Orphea was a HotS original and, unlike every other hero, did not come from another Blizzard title. Fans believed the new character to be a signal of more expansive HotS content, but it seems that’s not the case.
Brack’s blog post reassured fans that the HotS will still receive attention from Blizzard. “We’ll continue actively supporting the game with new heroes, themed events, and other content that our community loves, though the cadence will change. Ultimately, we’re setting up the game for long-term sustainability.”
For casual players, the game will continue as normal. For enfranchised players who love the ranked ladder, the end of the HotS esport scene is a signal to play something else. The cancellation of Heroes of the Dorm, HotS’ collegiate esports program, is incredibly disappointing news for college esports as a whole. Collegiate esports programs are few and far between, and the companies themselves rarely fund them. Heroes of the Dorm was an exception, and players are sad to see it go.
Back at Blizzcon 2018, professional players were told funding would increase for the esports scene in 2019, and Blizzard representatives told content creators that HGC would continue as recently as Thanksgiving 2018. While the blog post says that the decision was not made lightly, it certainly is an extreme shock to the community as a whole. YouTuber Kala, a content creator for the HotS community and a former team coach, uploaded a reaction video lamenting the decision.
He remarks that his entire life was built around being a coach of what is now a “dead game,” and that this goes against information he received from Blizzard. MFPallytime, another content creator, uploaded a similar reaction video with an appropriately sad tone. Liam O’Malley, a pro player, took to Twitter to tell his story. He dropped out of college and put in full-time practice days to make it into the HGC and was going to offlane for the team Endemic in 2019. Now his plans have completely fallen through.
His reaction echoes the rest of the community’s after the HotS esports cancellation: sadness, frustration, and anger.
Brack and Gresko are certainly trying to instill hope in the surviving playerbase after the HotS esports cancellation. This post reminds the community that the remaining developers are not just a skeleton crew and that they are the best of the best at what they do. Large chunks of the HotS development team are “legacy” Blizzard devs that worked on old masterpieces like Diablo II and Warcraft III, which were recently remastered.
You can read the full blog post from Brack and Gresko here.
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