Pro players, team owners, streamers and other Heroes of the Storm players vent their sadness and frustration about Blizzard\u2019s choice to scale back development of the game and cancel the Heroes Global Championship (HGC).<\/b>
\nOn Thursday evening, Blizzard Entertainment announced it was scaling back work on Heroes of the Storm, its cross-franchise MOBA, and moving developers from that game to other projects. While Blizzard said it would continue to work on the game and release new content, it was a clear sign that Heroes of the Storm will not be a priority for the company in 2019 and beyond.
For many fans of the game, however, it was the cancellation of the Heroes Global Championship for 2019 that hit hardest. Dropping the HGC \u2014 and the Heroes of the Dorm collegiate circuit \u2014 was a sign of no confidence in Heroes of the Storm as a viable esport.
People who made a living based on Heroes of the Storm, including players, streamers, team owners and commentators, say they feel blindsided and betrayed by the announcement. Some said that Blizzard told them just a few weeks ago that the 2019 Heroes Global Championship was still happening.
YouTube content creator Kala, who has coached teams and created Heroes of the Storm content for years, said in a reaction video that his whole life has been built around the game, which he now sees as irrelevant.
\u201cThere\u2019s so many teams and players that have put their heart and soul into this game and have developed livelihoods around this game, myself included,\u201d Kala said in the emotional video, \u201cand now everything gets pulled out from underneath them. It\u2019s absolutely insane and I\u2019m so fucking tilted about it. Holy crap. I\u2019m so upset. So yeah, I don\u2019t know what to do now. Coach of a game without a competitive scene\u2026
\u201cI was straight-up told by Blizzard employees at BlizzCon \u2026 that the HGC was going to be the same. Funding equal or greater for next year.\u201d
Another longtime Heroes of the Storm content creator, MFPallytime, said he similarly felt left in the dark by Blizzard. In his own video, he said that the people he spoke to within the company believed the Heroes Global Championship was going to go forward with a 2019 season right up until the esports series was officially canceled. Regardless, he feels disillusioned by Blizzard\u2019s decision.
\u201cIf there\u2019s no new people coming to the game, if there\u2019s no new people for me to educate, then my content becomes pretty redundant, and that\u2019s super worrisome,\u201d MFPallytime said. \u201cYou know, the pro teams were even told at BlizzCon that there was going to be equal or more funding for HGC next year. And it\u2019s crazy that they would put a stop to it…
\u201cI have 26 more characters to do for this year\u2019s A-through-Z playthrough, and I\u2019m wondering if there\u2019s even a point to doing it.\u201d
Pro players expressed both anger and disappointment at the cancellation of Heroes of the Storm \u2019s esports plans, including Liam O\u2019Malley, an aspiring player who was set to join the team Endemic next year.
\u201cFor the past [three years] I\u2019ve committed 8-10 hours a day into [ Heroes of the Storm] to improve to make it into the HGC one day,\u201d O\u2019Malley tweeted . \u201cI even dropped out of college to pursue my dream. Finally I did it and was going to be playing for [Endemic] as offlane in 2019. Now I\u2019m told it\u2019s canceled. I\u2019m so sad.\u201d
The captain of Simplicity\u2019s Heroes of the Storm team, Justing, tweeted angrily about the situation, indicating that he was left in the dark as well.
\u201cGood thing I was a team owner and asked repeatedly for information, even signed on for an apartment and I was given zero information regarding my job in 2019,\u201d he wrote. \u201cLOL what a joke.\u201d
Another pro HotS player, Johan Lauber, was far more blunt.
Fuck you, honestly. Working 6 hard months with new fantastic teammates for this shit. Radio silence for weeks. I sent multiple email and all i got back was that they are working on finalizing the details.
Derrie, general manager for team professional gaming organization Method, said in a statement that the team was disappointed in how Blizzard handled the news.
We are troubled by the way the announcement was made; namely the impolitic choice to use social media to share such a message that effectively ended the careers of hundreds of players, content creators, casters, production crews overnight — and broke the hearts of countless fans.
We can confirm with heavy hearts we have disbanded Method HOTS, and issued termination agreements to our team members. We will do our best to support them during their transition into the next phase of their professional journeys.
Meanwhile, some prominent Heroes of the Storm streamers have already moved on, shifting to competing MOBAs League of Legends and Dota 2 .
Within Blizzard, developers on the game expressed their own sadness about the state of Heroes of the Storm, but spun the news as positively as possible. Ka\u00e9o Milker, the game\u2019s production director, posted a lengthy statement on the game\u2019s Battle.net forums. Here\u2019s a portion of Milker\u2019s post:
I\u2019m sad because I love this team and this game that we\u2019ve built together, with all of you, and this past year has been such a great one for Heroes of the Storm. The HGC had its best year yet and I was so looking forward to the 2019 season. On the game side, we\u2019ve had a steady stream of some of the most sought-after heroes, amazing themed events, and impactful reworks. We also made meaningful progress on improving core systems and features across the game. We truly hit our stride in 2018, so I\u2019m disappointed that some of the exciting plans we had for 2019 will have to change.
But all is not lost. The team that remains dedicated to Heroes of the Storm is a veritable Who\u2019s Who of developers who have been driving every facet of the game from the very beginning\u2014from people you know and have seen speak publicly about the game for years, to those who have poured their hearts into it from behind the scenes. In short, we\u2019re continuing to develop the game with an incredible team that has the experience and passion required to support Heroes of the Storm well into the future.
The Heroes of the Storm team and I also have a unique opportunity to rethink things and reprioritize. Because now more than ever, our charge is to focus on taking care of you, our players, and to channel all our energy into keeping the game dynamic and fun. This means we\u2019re still committed to regular hero reworks, themed events, and even new heroes. We\u2019re setting our sights on the new goals and timelines for what we want to do with the game from here on out and we\u2019re eager to share those plans as soon as they\u2019re finalized.
So, I\u2019m also excited. I\u2019m excited for my teammates to bring their hard-won experience from making this game to the other teams at Blizzard to help their games be even better. And I\u2019m especially excited for Heroes of the Storm to continue evolving with a renewed focus and purity of purpose.<\/p>\n