Not every new MOBA game has managed to make it big on the market. Some games take off and become huge, others kind of fizzle out. In the case of Heroes of the Storm, it wasn't one of the games that managed to break out, and now Blizzard is making some major behind-the-scenes changes for the game.
Over on the official Blizzard Entertainment website, the CEO and CDO, J. Allen Brack and Ray Gresko, made a post outlining the state of development for the free-to-play MOBA, Heroes of the Storm.
The news isn't good for anyone who was a diehard fan of the game, as the duo explained that there will be a withdrawal of support, and that they came to some hard decisions to move some of the development team members over to other projects, including some unannounced projects that are in the developmental pipeline.
It's not mentioned how many developers are being moved off of Heroes of the Storm to work on other games like Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and whatever new games are coming out, but I presume some of them are moving over to work on supporting games like Diablo: Immortal, which is the next big entry in the Diablo universe for mobile devices.
It's not all bad news, though. Blizzard's head honchos noted that the remaining members of the team will continue to support Heroes of the Storm with themed events, community content, and new heroes. However, there's no details on the frequency of these updates or how much of them will continue to be made present for the community.
What we do know is that the eSports community will take the brunt of the changes. Heroes of the Storm will no longer have its major eSports events hosted by Blizzard Entertainment.
The company announced that the Heroes Global Championship and the Heroes of the Dorm competitions will no longer return for the 2019 season. Blizzard felt it should prioritize other eSports endeavors instead, likely given that Overwatch still has a healthy eSports scene, so the company is going to keep focusing on those events instead, along with cultivating the Hearthstone scene.
Most people see the writing on the wall and recognize that this means that Heroes of the Storm likely won't be around for much longer, despite being one of the best MOBA games out there.
The game combined all of Blizzard's franchises into one, featuring playable heroes from games like Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch. It started off strong but just couldn't quite maintain its momentum.
Other MOBAs like Dota 2 and League of Legends continued to dominate the scene in terms of market saturation and eSports engagement. Blizzard likely figured it better to cut its losses with Heroes of the Storm instead of investing money and time into trying to find a way to make the game more competitive and recognized on the market. Nevertheless, Blizzard promises that there are still long term goals for the MOBA, so it's not necessarily going away for good.
