Learning from the History of Heroes of the Storm’s Esports Initiatives

Last year, the decision by Blizzard to cancel Heroes of Storm sent shockwaves across the gaming world. It was an announcement that not many gamers saw coming. Blizzard can be considered as one of the best esports brands in the gaming industry. Now, they have gone ahead to release some of the best franchises such as StarCraft.

 If you are into online gaming, you would have heard about names like Blizzard or Betway. If you haven’t, here is the thing. Betway is the leader in online betting, and Blizzard, in esports. If you have tried out Betway, you know how exciting it can be.

So, for Blizzard, what went wrong?

Moreover, up to date, it has awarded the most esports prize money which totals to $17.9 million. However, despite the franchise investing a lot in Heroes of Storm it never seemed to kick up with the audience. The failure of the game can be a point of reference for other future esports games.

What are the challenges that Heroes of Storm has been facing?

One of the most popular genres in esports is Multiplayer Online Battling Arena.  MOBA has been around for quite a while, and it is cropping up in consoles, PCs and mobile games. It consists of two of the biggest games; Dota 2 and League of Legends has already set up a force competition in the genre. However, there are others which are coming up such as Call of Duty and Dirty Bomb.

When blizzard opted to introduce Heroes of the Storm, it was little packed up game which included all the other varieties from its other sports such as World of Wars and StarCraft. One thing about MOBAs is that while you are playing you need to be equipped with a good strategy. And one of the things that made Heroes of Storm stand out was breaking the game down into simple basics. However, even with this strategy the game still did not reach to the impact of other big games which have been released by Blizzard.

The market had already being dominated by the two games League of Nations and Dota 2. Therefore they have already occupied the player bases. Other players who have failed in MOBA include Infinite Crisis which was released by the DC Universe. Dawngate by Electronic Arts was also a failure. So this begs the question did Blizzard enter the MOBA market a bit too late? If they had a better strategy would they have adequately competed with the big names?

However, are some big names which have been jumping in and out of the esports world some of these big brands include TeamLiquid. Therefore new players who are considering to join a sport they should find consistency and learn from the failure of Heroes of Storm.  Moreover, the new players should be patient enough to battle it out with the big names so that they can find new players. Also, the ridiculous amount of money which is being thrown around should be put into consideration.