Exactly what they did with the moba genre, blizzard was really stupid to let icefrog go to valve.
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Blizzard moves devs off Heroes of the Storm, Cancels Heroes eSports
- Thread starter ManaByte
- Start date
IIRC part of this is tight job market + custom engine. But yeah, given the size of the game, OWL, they need a LOT more people in the trenches, and I would be shocked if that's not where HOTS people are headed (especially the design/balance crew.)
HOTS had a good run, it'll have 5-6 years before it gets sunsetted that's a fairly average run on a MP only game. Just unfortunate because they monetized it to hell and back and the balancing kinda went to shit/was never really a priority in the first place.
I liked the map variance, it made it stand out especially with each one having it's own unique "jungle" aspect to engage with that Riot and Valve definitely won't copy. But it was time. The game has been bleeding players for a while now.
I liked the map variance, it made it stand out especially with each one having it's own unique "jungle" aspect to engage with that Riot and Valve definitely won't copy. But it was time. The game has been bleeding players for a while now.
They need to ship something new, basically. Apart from WoW expansions, what was the last thing they actually released? Overwatch? Obviously OW and HS are still good moneymakers, but they're both mature games facing competition, and playerbases (and revenue) will naturally wilt over time. To add to their woes, the newest WoW expansion has been really badly received, and I wouldn't be surprised if revenues from that game are waaaaay down from Legion.
HotS never really took the MOBA world by storm, and it makes sense that when they're under pressure to ship new product their least popular game is first in line for the chop.
I just hope they can turn things around because when Blizzard get it right, they make utterly fantastic games. There have been a lot of missteps recently though, and there's not really anything major on the horizon. They'd better be cooking up some fantastic stuff behind the scenes.
HotS never really took the MOBA world by storm, and it makes sense that when they're under pressure to ship new product their least popular game is first in line for the chop.
I just hope they can turn things around because when Blizzard get it right, they make utterly fantastic games. There have been a lot of missteps recently though, and there's not really anything major on the horizon. They'd better be cooking up some fantastic stuff behind the scenes.
After Blizzcon, it was obvious hots esport is dead. They were struggling to hit 30k at the world game, something like that. Meanwhile dead game, SC2, was pushing over 100k. If the choice was between this and SC2, they made the correct choice even though SC2 doesn't have mtx sales and such like hots has.
I'm torn on this. I had a love/hate with HotS. It was quite fun to dip into, but it needed like 1 more step of depth for me to really engage with it. I would enjoy playing a character maybe twice before I felt like I saw everything that character had to offer and then i'd get bored of it again. It's a game I loved a lot more in theory than execution despite being a pretty big moba lover. I'm sad to see it heading towards being sunsetted since I still enjoyed dipping into it now and then.
Woopdedoo. Another one bites the dust. Blizzard hasn't been on their A game since '04 in my opinion. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. They brought back the main man responsible for their old input though, so maybe they can turn things around.
Just dont make everything about mobile, Adham.
Guess all the stuff you could buy in game wasn't making them enough money because some money is not the same as all the money.
Probably because game audiences throw an absolute fit if they detect any slowdown in content without an explanation from the development team.
Why...wouldn't they publicly announce this?
Never liked the game only played it whenever they had the Overwatch cross promotion skins and you HAD to play the game to get them in Overwatch.
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Well Smash has more than one game....does this IP have more than 1 game?
New, ordered-to-cut-costs Blizzard just isn't going to have room for a vanity project like HotS. It probably made money, but not enough to keep the accountants from yelling about opportunity costs.
Ah damn, sad to read this since I really like HOTS. 😕
I especially like how they did events, added more lore(fucking staring at you OW), and an original character.
Well shit.
I especially like how they did events, added more lore(fucking staring at you OW), and an original character.
Well shit.
I take it to mean that updates will come less frequently which is completely fine by me. Let the game just be for a while. Just let it rock.
Looks like they lied to players as well.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/they-even-lied-to-hgc-players/9807/6
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/they-even-lied-to-hgc-players/9807/6
Hots just isn't that exciting to watch as an esport to the average person
it has to be highlighted how terribly blizzard treated their professional players w/ this. There's been multiple weeks of complete silence w/r/t the future of the league right before christmas, they didn't get advanced notice and were planning and scrimming under the assumption of still having a job.
They were forming new rosters, holding tryouts, trying to attract sponsors and are now just left unemployed 10 days before christmas. Not to mention blizzard holding a seasonal competition for spots in the league going forward which has now been 6 months of work for squat.
Unless Blizzard has plans for some form of compensation this is truly heartless if not outright cruel.
They were forming new rosters, holding tryouts, trying to attract sponsors and are now just left unemployed 10 days before christmas. Not to mention blizzard holding a seasonal competition for spots in the league going forward which has now been 6 months of work for squat.
Unless Blizzard has plans for some form of compensation this is truly heartless if not outright cruel.
Because they weren't announcing plans for HGC 2019 as they normally would and professional players and teams were starting to speak out about their frustrations. Fan concern was starting to grow, their casters started taking other e-sports positions, etc.
This basically says we're pulling away from the esport but are continuing with the game. Just keep expectations in check as we're pulling some devs too
Holy shit, after they revealed a brand new original character at Blizzcon, I figured they were going to stick with HotS for awhile, that's too bad.
It was fun while I played it.
It was fun while I played it.
On one hand as someone who liked to watch HGC it sucks to see it gone, and it's certainly another bad sign for the direction Blizzard is heading in the future. And I feel super bad for the players and staff left out in the cold by this (particularly the teams who just qualified via the crucible) who have every right to be furious at Blizzard for this, particularly since they were apparently still being told that it was going to happen as recently as a few weeks ago.
On the other hand, I feel like literally any other company in Blizzard's position would have left HotS for dead in both the esports sense and in terms of the game itself around 2016 or so when it was clear that it wasn't going to take off, so I feel like they still deserve some props for not only sticking with it but doubling down in 2017/2018.
On the other hand, I feel like literally any other company in Blizzard's position would have left HotS for dead in both the esports sense and in terms of the game itself around 2016 or so when it was clear that it wasn't going to take off, so I feel like they still deserve some props for not only sticking with it but doubling down in 2017/2018.
HOTS team are absolutely genius to deliver more than 3 heroes per year, unique events and skins , I guess thats the main reason to close the game support and focus on OW like EPIC did with Paragon since for Blizzard, HOTS was starting to waste resources for them
Probably, I mean a LATAM video was launched today
Probably, I mean a LATAM video was launched today
Blizzard comes out of this looking like pure shit. Hasn't been a good past few months for them.
Thats so sad. HotS is such a great moba because it respects your time. Just remove OW shit from Heroes and it's golden.
Said this many times, but if HotS was run by any other developer, it would've been shut down years ago. The project was set up to fail by Blizzard leadership from the beginning. They managed to beat those odds, but then squandered their massive install base by designing a game with no tail end, resulting in massive churn and no long term retention. It's really a wonder Blizzard has poured so much resources into the project, and I think that can mostly be chalked up to company ego. Now that they've (once again) blown a ridiculous amount of money and resources into a failed project, we shouldn't be surprised that company leadership is pulling support.
This I agree with. Any other company would have pulled he plug ages ago. Luckily for fans of hots, blizzard had seemingly infinite money to support this game but times are tough and they did what had to be done. I'm sad but I knew it was coming. Blizz will keep the servers up and still support it with skins and stuff so not the end of the ride quite yet.
Yeah I agree. The game was released too late in the already-settled MOBA scene to ever be relevant. The competitive esports scene seemed forced and not at all natural.
It was only ever a matter of time before this happened.
