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The guy must feel súper confused right now
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Blizzard moves devs off Heroes of the Storm, Cancels Heroes eSports
- Thread starter ManaByte
- Start date
The guy must feel súper confused right now
Some clarification here, because I think many people misunderstand the role of eSports from a corporate ROI standpoint.
eSports is not something a game supports; rather, it's a support mechanism for the game.
Blizzard did not support HotS eSports just because they wanted an eSports scene; they supported it because they were making a gamble that the eSports scene would help improve engagement metrics. Blizzard fundamentally believed that HotS was a good game; they believed that by building the appropriate support mechanisms (eSports, HotS 2.0), the game would flourish on its own. They're wrong, because the problem with HotS is its gameplay. It's a fun game, but it's not deep enough to retain players.
I honestly thought Blizzard were content with HOTS being a casual alternative to League & DOTA, but i guess since it's not as big as Fortnite, it has to go.
Activision's greed is shining through quite quickly, with the worst part being the best HOTS devs are probably working on a mobile game that will be DOA because the market is saturated or China will straight up ban it lol.
Do you have data on this? It was known as their worst performer, but community engagement and player count hasn't seem to be hurting at all since 2.0.
Even in the investor calls I don't remember HotS numbers being a public thing.
Not saying you're wrong in the slightest as there is a core reason they are slowing production. I've just never seen this.
No data, just friends at Blizzard, including people on the HotS team.
The problem was that HOTS was nowhere near the viewership numbers of LoL and DOTA2. That's the reason it had to go, not because it couldn't do Fortnite numbers
It needed to be near the other two mobas
I feel bad for people that regularly play the game, but HotS has suffered from irreparable design decisions since its inception. It's crazy how much work was done inside something with massive structural flaws. They have made strides to correct things, and occasionally they will put out some really solid moba characters that are really impressive. Ophelia is more fun than a lot of the new stuff competitors are coming up with. The developers working on these things deserve a better place or project where the work they do can actually shine.
It never was close to them for half a decade & Blizzard kept supporting it anyway, it's clear with new management they are not okay with a Blizzard title being a smaller stream of revenue, everything has to be WoW tier money or get the axe.
Im expecting an announcement that SC2 will be gutted soon also, though that's not really a big deal since it's already EOL, but no more co-op commanders.
I would be very surprised if HotS makes a profit.
Rob Pardo couldn't handle that a mod was more popular than the game he designed so he vetoed MOBA development at Blizzard.
I've known for a while now, I don't know if the public knows, lol.
We've discussed how the 2.0 economy revamp has gotten the hots regulars and whales among us to spend less on the game than when skins were all purchase only.
hots has one of the worst f2p models tbh, w/ heroes not being free and skins you want largely being inaccessible w/ direct moneypurchases, outside of exorbitantly priced bundles, instead having to play the lootbox game as well as using an in game currency to obscure actual costs and increase spending,
hots has one of the worst f2p models tbh, w/ heroes not being free and skins you want largely being inaccessible w/ direct moneypurchases, outside of exorbitantly priced bundles, instead having to play the lootbox game as well as using an in game currency to obscure actual costs and increase spending,
I would think that HOTS would make money that some devs would absolutely kill for, i can't see how it isn't profitable, but it's just not bringing in what the Blizzard trifecta (OW, WoW, HS) are.
Let me reiterate, I would be very surprised if HotS makes a profit.
I've heard from down the grapevine that the game has a very poor d90 retention (players are leaving after 90 days).
MOBAs as a genre make money through high LTVs (lifetime value per average player), which can only occur if you either strongly monetize within a short period of time or players drip money over a long period of time.
Players were not spending in the short term, and they weren't sticking around in the long term. MOBAs in general have been on a downturn, which means that user acquisition costs are rising. If LTV < CPA (cost per acquisition), your game is dead in the water.
Add to that the overstaffing problem, as well as a failed eSports venture, and the result is a project that likely did not turn a profit.
Ah i see, i wonder why they kept investing in it then, i swear i heard it made some good bucks in Korea & people buying heroes/skins etc, but i guess Korea plays it less now & the Western playerbase for HOTS was already small.
My guess is ego and brand commitment.
It'd be a bad look if they abandoned the game early, and I think they genuinely believed they could make it a success. Blizzard aren't in the habit of failing fast--see Titan.
That's wild though it is understandable given that Blizzard did fuck all with it. Valve took in the CS team which is still making them profit and Blizzard could have done so a fucking decade plus ago with DotA. All the LoL and DOTA 2 money could have been Blizzards.
HOTS is a game I would forget existed, come in, play for 6-8 weeks to nab some new heroes and then fall off again. My friends were the same. It's perfectly fine as a casual MOBA, but I would imagine you're right that it isn't turning a profit.
I'd had that suspicion for a while since heroes stopped being discounted for a minute now. Please don't take this the wrong way, but for a F2P game, I felt it was too easy to unlock characters for the game to be profitable. I rarely spent money on it outside of events and even then it was just 30 day stim packs.
I wonder if it would have done better with a OW style monetization system?
That's a shame as I enjoy HotS far more than those two needlessly complex games.
I feel like loot boxes must have actually killed profits for it, and overall I'm sure it has been a bit overdue. Shame. The game IS a lot of fun for me, but the esports league for it was a waste of money. I just hope that this newfound penny pinching doesn't effect SCII or its esports.
I've been playing on and off since the beta, and I always thought it was lowkey weird how an AAA dev like Blizzard kept the lights on HOTS which seemed like a moderate(?) success in an era of "All or Nothing".
Sorry for the fans and the devs, but yeah .. not a surprise.
Sorry for the fans and the devs, but yeah .. not a surprise.
It being a blizzard game is the only reason it lasted this long. It's a really fun game but it never took off like it should've and core issues that prevented it from growing were never addressed.
Wow that's crushing, HotS is legitimately the only MOBA I have ever been able to actually enjoy.
I had so much fun with this game, basically spent an entire summer playing nothing but HotS. The events were fun, the map objectives kept the gameplay fun, as long as you never took the game seriously it was an absolute blast.
I had so much fun with this game, basically spent an entire summer playing nothing but HotS. The events were fun, the map objectives kept the gameplay fun, as long as you never took the game seriously it was an absolute blast.
Can someone describe what are some of the big design/gameplay flaws which have been mentioned before? As someone who very loosely consumes HotS content, I am quite uninformed.
On another note, it will be interesting to see how the esports community will react to it. They will either need to step up and create a grassroots environment where they can thrive or just fall into oblivion. I feel this is harder to do since the community seems to be highly dependent on developers support.
On another note, it will be interesting to see how the esports community will react to it. They will either need to step up and create a grassroots environment where they can thrive or just fall into oblivion. I feel this is harder to do since the community seems to be highly dependent on developers support.
A former pro on twitch said that HOtS needed to be the Smash of MOBA's. Easy to play for casuals but with a higher skill cap for the hardcore/pro level if you put in the work.
Considering all the pros just got fired two weeks before Christmas I gotta imagine they won't play much anymore.
Weren't there reports that Blizzard considered HOTS to be a failure internally? This would follow those lines.
That's a good analogy. They also share the cross-over content.
I'm a bit surprised HotS is apparently not deep enough though. Even with simplified skill tree & item system I had the impression the unique character designs + variety of maps were enough to offer to the competitive audience.
Saw this coming but still disappointed.
I came into Heroes at 2.0 and it was a breath of fresh air. It took the things i hate about mobas and made an excellent team focused game.
Ive played the game nightly and consider it to be in my top 10 all time. Plus the dev team have almost always been really passionate and close with the community.
I feel for all the dev team and players. And I hope for the best. This sucks to see.
I came into Heroes at 2.0 and it was a breath of fresh air. It took the things i hate about mobas and made an excellent team focused game.
Ive played the game nightly and consider it to be in my top 10 all time. Plus the dev team have almost always been really passionate and close with the community.
I feel for all the dev team and players. And I hope for the best. This sucks to see.
It's actually had a significant rise in viewership over the last year, and Korea partially funds it so SC2 will stick around for a while in the esports world.
SC2 remains alive and well, growing significantly in viewership and player activity over the past year.
Wholeheartedly agreed . As I've spent countless of hours playing HoTS with my friends , it was really fun but the lack of depth leave so much to be desired . It's not just about high skill cap heroes but sometimes there are only a predefined things to do like rotating , grouping up for objectives , merc-ing , and then early to late games felt almost the same except for some new talents . I felt like instead of making a "brawler" type MOBA , Blizzard should went all out making HoTS as Dota2 or LOL killer with itemization and focused on balancing around a single map . I always go back to Dota 2 just for the itemization aspects and laning prowess , they make every matches felt different even with the same hero . This cannot be said the same for HoTS .
Not trying to fuel a game comparison here . I enjoyed both Dota 2 and HoTS immensely and think they shouldn't be directly compared but I honestly , HoTS could be much better than it's current state .
The community saw this coming in recent weeks, when there was no announcement about the future of HGC and staple commentators like Gillyweed moved on to other projects. Not that I ever found Heroes all that watchable (playable, yes, and it's the only MOBA I've ever wholeheartedly enjoyed, but I rarely had any reason to watch it when Blizzard themselves tended to book it against the much more spectator-friendly SC2), but this confirms a lot of my fears about the culture shift that was signalled by Mike Morhaime stepping down. It's WoW-era people in charge at Blizzard now, disconnected from the identity of the studio that was the king of RTS when RTS was king, and from which the word Soon meant something special that everyone mocked with affectionate irony. Blizzard has spread itself too thin in chasing quick turnaround times and reliable seasonal income ever since the wild success of Hearthstone, and I say that as someone who greatly admires Hearthstone. I miss the perfectionism, the eternal waits, the long maintenance and support of games far past their prime.
Speaking only for myself, however, the e-sports angle was never a blip on my radar where Heroes was concerned, and I'm far behind all the hero releases anyway, so I don't see this affecting the quality of my experience as a player unless the player base rapidly dies on the vine. It's still a good game that feels quite complete, and I binge on it once every few months. I don't expect this to change at a casual level, even if content updates are few and far between. But if the player base plummets from a lack of confidence in the future of the game, and therefore in their own investment of time and money, everyone will bear the impact of ballooning queue times and ever worse matchmaking.
And you could tell, with how BlizzCon has become a combined finals week for every Blizzard game, that supporting a competitive scene across all of these services was not going to remain viable for long, and that Heroes was naturally the first thing that was likely to be dropped (apart from maybe WoW Arena, which I'm still surprised exists). But I think we're right to be concerned that Blizzard's new approach of chasing too many releases and maintaining too many services at once will only make this worse. I'd be totally fine with them maintaining a sharp focus on a few very well-supported franchises, competitive circuits, or service platforms if I actually expected them to commit to it. But what this heralds is the very opposite: that there isn't much of a reason to have confidence in their commitment to SC:R, SC2, or WC3 Reforged through the lean years when things are on a downturn. Unlike Heroes, the traditional RTS games at least have powerful legacies as prestige titles in a category with no real outside competition, and as others have observed, SC2 has found a nice equilibrium of steady if modest growth. But one has to think that the prevailing attitude at Blizzard, were it in place several years ago, would not have permitted a game like SC2 to reach this point. This company does not command so much brand loyalty because it was ever associated with short-term thinking.
It really is a shame. Heroes of the Storm is such a unique product in its category that for many of the players it managed to reach, it was the only MOBA that ever mattered.
Speaking only for myself, however, the e-sports angle was never a blip on my radar where Heroes was concerned, and I'm far behind all the hero releases anyway, so I don't see this affecting the quality of my experience as a player unless the player base rapidly dies on the vine. It's still a good game that feels quite complete, and I binge on it once every few months. I don't expect this to change at a casual level, even if content updates are few and far between. But if the player base plummets from a lack of confidence in the future of the game, and therefore in their own investment of time and money, everyone will bear the impact of ballooning queue times and ever worse matchmaking.
And you could tell, with how BlizzCon has become a combined finals week for every Blizzard game, that supporting a competitive scene across all of these services was not going to remain viable for long, and that Heroes was naturally the first thing that was likely to be dropped (apart from maybe WoW Arena, which I'm still surprised exists). But I think we're right to be concerned that Blizzard's new approach of chasing too many releases and maintaining too many services at once will only make this worse. I'd be totally fine with them maintaining a sharp focus on a few very well-supported franchises, competitive circuits, or service platforms if I actually expected them to commit to it. But what this heralds is the very opposite: that there isn't much of a reason to have confidence in their commitment to SC:R, SC2, or WC3 Reforged through the lean years when things are on a downturn. Unlike Heroes, the traditional RTS games at least have powerful legacies as prestige titles in a category with no real outside competition, and as others have observed, SC2 has found a nice equilibrium of steady if modest growth. But one has to think that the prevailing attitude at Blizzard, were it in place several years ago, would not have permitted a game like SC2 to reach this point. This company does not command so much brand loyalty because it was ever associated with short-term thinking.
It really is a shame. Heroes of the Storm is such a unique product in its category that for many of the players it managed to reach, it was the only MOBA that ever mattered.
Hahah you think those two are the big ones, but it's actually Arena of Valor 200+ Million
Lol is like ~80-90M
Dota is less than ~10M
Their character designs were okay at best. Their support role design was really bad and boiled down to making every support a heal bot.
I wonder where Gilly and Khaldor will end up, I think she was getting into casting Rocket League this year.
Dota as it exists now and has existed since it's inception would never have flourished under Blizzard's design philosophies, I've seen them nerf, rework and outright remove several things across their games because they were unfriendly to new/casual players, Blizzard would have ruined the game several times over by now, because most everything in Dota is unfriendly to bad/new/casual players.
Dota as it exists now and has existed since it's inception would never have flourished under Blizzard's design philosophies, I've seen them nerf, rework and outright remove several things across their games because they were unfriendly to new/casual players, Blizzard would have ruined the game several times over by now, because most everything in Dota is unfriendly to bad/new/casual players.
That's what a change of leadership and bad results make. They probably want to move devs to their moneymakers (OW seems to be quite understaffed) and new projects.
HOTS is the best MOBA out there in my opinion. It being a crossover of Blizzard franchises is a nice bonus, but for me the real draw is the shorter game times and varied maps with varied objectives. Plus I love the talent system over managing in-game currency and shopping for gear. It's too bad it has never really caught on, but I will continue to play with my friends semi-frequently.
This may be the first steps into "maintenance mode", but as long as they're continuing to support it and add new things, that's fine with me. I don't mind a reduced pace. We'll see once they stop support altogether where the game is at. But it sounds for the next year at least it's still safe, even if we get half the heroes as past years (or whatever).
This may be the first steps into "maintenance mode", but as long as they're continuing to support it and add new things, that's fine with me. I don't mind a reduced pace. We'll see once they stop support altogether where the game is at. But it sounds for the next year at least it's still safe, even if we get half the heroes as past years (or whatever).
How is this game supposed to make money? I've never played it myself, but my brother has been playing it constantly for years, and he tells me that he hasn't spend a single penny on it.
