Blizzard Entertainment’s announcement that Heroes will not be in 2019 Storm esports tournaments has startled the whole gaming community. Pro gamers’ complaints are now rampant on the Internet criticizing Blizzard’s weak effort to communicate.
On Reddit, gamers hold Blizzard’s poor connection with their devoted fans responsible for this decision. This is another bitter lesson for investors, streamers, and around 200 HotS casters as they have to stand and watch their plans come to nothing. Even popular game title’s faith is at the hand of their developers.
What The Gaming Community Thinks
Heroes of the Storm was a decent title with enough positive regards when it was released in 2015. However, as it was meant to be in a field that has already housed strong competitors like League of Legends, this game has failed at building a solid fanbase to establish itself as a leading esports.
As such, few gamers have enough confidence to put their trust on the faith of Heroes of the Storm as the majority of players project that the game will be gone soon enough. This distrust does not make Blizzard’s sudden cancelation of this title less offensive to the gaming community though. What outrages them is nothing more than a lack of warning in advance from the company that Heroes of the Storm Global Championship will not return next year.
To add to this accessibility problems, in BlizzCon 2018, gamers reported that they have confirmation that HGC is in for another year. Plus, Blizzard also took advantage of this event to debut the new Orphea character, so gamers have good reasons to feel that Blizzard has betrayed their trust.
As a result, we now see a wide range of responses from members of the gaming community about Blizzard shocking decision to put an end to HCG tournaments. Liam O’Malley, who, because of joining the Endemic HotS team, has dropped out of college, tweeted that “I’m so sad.” Simplicity team’s captain Justing also expressed his disappointment by saying “LOL what a joke” on his Twitter account. Blizzard’s rush decision is not to fans’ liking and also does not win it anymore advocates soon.
An Argument For Blizzard
Reddit has long been where people come to update news about the gaming community. And on this platform, what is attracting attention at the moment is a shout caster’s Twitch video post that captures him weeping because of Blizzard’s execution of Heroes of the Storm tournaments.
Most of the gamers on Reddit express their sympathy with this Korean caster as they share the same rage at the way Blizzard axes the event without a single heads-up. The commenters also criticize the company’s lack of communication with its fans and blame the merger between it and Activision as the cause for this action.
However, there are some players argue in favor of Blizzard and say that Heroes of the Storm will be doomed anyway. They state that this title’s faith is not so bright in the first place as it is merely a poor imitation of other more established titles in the field. To back this statement, an article from VentureBeat revealed that HGC tournaments are hard pushed to get more than 50,000 Twitch viewers.
No matter the reason, whether Blizzard decides to focus its effort on something more profitable or the failure of the game itself, there is definitely a large number of frustrated gamers.
How Blizzard React
Blizzard is not without action in answer to this anger from the gaming community. Recently it announced that it will continue to show its support with new content, heroes, and themed events. While this move is far from making up for the absence of gaming tournaments, it is a sign showing that Blizzard still wants to keep the game running shortly.
A piece of good news for the game’s fans is that it is possible for a third party to organize a tournament as long as it can manage to get a license from Blizzard. When the likelihood of such an event is still slim, the whole sorry-let-me-make-it-up-to-you effort from the company only shows how risky it can be for any gamers to entrust their future to game developers. A warning to Overwatch players to take things seriously.
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