So is Blizzard Giving up on Heroes of the Storm?

[Deleted]

I still play it occasionally, but I've never felt any incentive to spend any money on it. Not like LoL where I spent roughly 4000€ over 3 years anyway. Some of that has to do with the master skins being better than the others for many heroes imo so I just use those.

[Deleted]

Q2 earnings are in for Blizzard and its a profitable one. 15 million copies of Overwatch sold, $900 million in microtransactions and even a slight uptick in wow player numbers. It all seems golden -well except for SC2 which kind of seems to be withering on the vine a little- but one interesting thing is a complete lack of Heroes of the Storm in their press releases.

Its no secret MOBA's are an oversaturated market and anything not League of DOTA 2 has been dying off and HotS hasn't exactly been a power house -literally the only time i've heard someone mention it was someone after a WoW pet from a cross game promotion. So was the Blizzard ips character roster not enough to keep it growing? I've not played it since beta but i've heard its problems lie more in horrible attempts at running esports events for it rather than the game. Though it begs the question, is this the first actual Blizzard flop?

They have cancelled games before release before, had things like Warlords be met with a large negative reaction from a sizeable portion of its fanbase but i cant think of another retail release by Blizzard thats been such a comparative flop to all its other products to the point its not even worth mentioning in their quarterly reports.

I'm sure there must be some Blizzard dies hards enjoying it for the characters alone, but is this just being silently swept under the rug as the singular failed release by Blizzard?

Or is it just another sign of people being sick of "yet another moba" and sticking to the other blizzard titles with established audiences?

If I play any moba it's HotS. All others are just shit in comparison. Matchmaking is just as terrible everywhere else.

[socialmaker]

I still think that one reason for the poor(er) performance is the fact that Blizzard has an audience that plays most of its games and once it launches Overwatch for example it cuts into the existing HotS playerbase because Overwatch is more fun. Similar with the new Diablo patch or WoW with Demon hunter launch for preorders etc.

I think Blizzard needs to find new people or "steal" them from existing mobas rather than do what it's doing now but if those games are already fun why should you change ?

[Bonsaii]

If I play any moba it's HotS. All others are just shit in comparison. Matchmaking is just as terrible everywhere else.

You're the exception not the rule though. It's a good game, but people would rather play Dota or League. They're just more complete and deep games.

[Fabray]

You're the exception not the rule though. It's a great game, but a lot of people would rather play Dota or League. They're just more complete and deep games IMO.

Fixed that for you.

[Muis]

You're the exception not the rule though. It's a good game, but people would rather play Dota or League. They're just more complete and deep games.

With more deep games, you mean, they have items while we have talents? Or is last hitting still a deep complex mechanism?

[Zelendria]

You're the exception not the rule though. It's a good game, but people would rather play Dota or League. They're just more complete and deep games.

He can't be the exception because I'm the same.
Thousands of hours spent in DOTA2 (Considerably more time than I have spent in HoTS), but while playing no MOBA in favour of OW at the minute, if I was to have a quick game of a MOBA it sure as hell wouldn't be DOTA2 or LoL.
Hard to claim quick when the first 20 minutes is last hitting in the "deep" games.. Yay

I still think that one reason for the poor(er) performance is the fact that Blizzard has an audience that plays most of its games and once it launches Overwatch for example it cuts into the existing HotS playerbase because Overwatch is more fun. Similar with the new Diablo patch or WoW with Demon hunter launch for preorders etc

Pretty much agree with this.
I have actively played everything but HS in even the last 12 months on their catalogue. HoTS was my regular go to until OW. Whereas in my DOTA2 days it was literally the only thing I played on Steam

[Bonsaii]

With more deep games, you mean, they have items while we have talents? Or is last hitting still a deep complex mechanism?

Larger depth of strategy and decision making. Heroes has forced team fights with very few different play styles. I can't speak for league because I don't play it, but the Dota version of the Super Bowl is on, and 105 of 111 heroes have been picked, each with a unique play style and power curve. You can play team fight, split push, death ball, rosh exploitation, and more strategies. In heroes, if you aren't team fighting, you are usually fucking up, which in my experience makes games very snowball oriented.

He can't be the exception because I'm the same.

2 people doing an action is anecdotal and is definitely more oriented to exception. Not a rule. Not sure what heroes unique monthly users are, but I would bet its under 12 million, which is what Dota sees in a month.
League sees more than that, most recent figure I could find was 67 million, feel free to let me know if you find other numbers.

Thousands of hours spent in DOTA2 (Considerably more time than I have spent in HoTS), but while playing no MOBA in favour of OW at the minute, if I was to have a quick game of a MOBA it sure as hell wouldn't be DOTA2 or LoL.
Hard to claim quick when the first 20 minutes is last hitting in the "deep" games.. Yay

If your first 20 minutes are last hitting, you're playing wrong/at low skill levels. Theres a hell of a lot more than that going on than that and you're greatly over simplifying the game. You can play supports and roam. You can play mid lane and have a tough matchup. You can play offlane and try and create havoc (or just iron talon jungle rofl). You can play an aggressive safelane carry designed to activate quickly.
There's a lot you can do.

Heroes was late to the party, trying to take users from existing games which is hard as fuck to do. Then Blizz released overwatch and cannibalized part of those users they already had.

Right now, I have no reason to play heroes. If I want a quick game, I will play overwatch. If I want to play a longer deeper strategy game, I'll play Dota. Heroes has been caught in between, which is unfortunate because I enjoy the concept of heroes. It's just been harmed by Overwatch splitting Blizzards market base.

[Zelendria]

If your first 20 minutes are last hitting, you're playing wrong/at low skill levels. Theres a hell of a lot more than that going on than that and you're greatly over simplifying the game. You can play supports and roam. You can play mid lane and have a tough matchup. You can play offlane and try and create havoc (or just iron talon jungle rofl). You can play an aggressive safelane carry designed to activate quickly.

Are all carries aggressive early heroes? No... Some go much longer than 20 mins to come online.
It's irrespective really. Every game of DOTA2 lasts twice as long as HoTS.

[Deleted]

I quit at the start of season 1, I don't know if I will play it again.

[Bonsaii]

Are all carries aggressive early heroes? No... Some go much longer than 20 mins to come online.
It's irrespective really. Every game of DOTA2 lasts twice as long as HoTS.

You're right, the games are much longer. If I have the time, I'll play Dota. If I don't, I'll play Overwatch. Heroes of the Storm just doesn't fit a time niche well. The audience that HotS hits is very small, and that is a huge issue for them.

And are you forced to play said carries that take that long? You can pick other characters that can be active from level 1.

We're discussing why Heroes has a lower user count and whether or not Blizzard has abandoned the game, and I feel like these are all valid points. I'd love to hear why you disagree though.

[Frozen Death Knight]

You're right, the games are much longer. If I have the time, I'll play Dota. If I don't, I'll play Overwatch. Heroes of the Storm just doesn't fit a time niche well. The audience that HotS hits is very small, and that is a huge issue for them.

And are you forced to play said carries that take that long? You can pick other characters that can be active from level 1.

We're discussing why Heroes has a lower user count and whether or not Blizzard has abandoned the game, and I feel like these are all valid points. I'd love to hear why you disagree though.

You are just using your own personal gaming habits to make blanket statements that do not hold up to scrutiny.

Also, your entire basis for saying that Blizzard has abandoned HotS is relying on your assumption that just because the game has a lower playerbase than Dota 2, HotS is therefore not a profitable game, or has a stable enough population to maintain the game. Neither of those things are true, otherwise the game would not continue to get supported, and the playerbase would have long since been gone from the game.

[Eats Compost]

It's actually possible that HotS is making a loss right now. Blizzard sinks a lot of money into their operations, and it's a mystery to no-one that HotS is nowhere near as popular as they projected it would be. Obviously I couldn't say whether or not it really is unprofitable, but it's possible in a way that makes it a totally different kind of beast than any of Blizzard's other projects.

It'll be interesting to see how that impacts the game itself. Blizzard normally poops money, even with a relatively bad game by their standards (see: Diablo 3 at launch) so HotS (possibly) haemorrhaging money whilst demanding ongoing updates/support would be a rude shock to the involved bean counters. I wouldn't be surprised if there is significant pressure on Blizzard management to ramp up HotS' popularity quickly, or to push down ongoing development costs.

They're unlikely to abandon it (they'd lose so much face!) but there are probably some stressed-out managers and devs scratching their heads about how to turn it around.

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You are just using your own personal gaming habits to make blanket statements that do not hold up to scrutiny.

To be fair, I think he's right. HotS' big thing was that it was going to be the accessible MOBA, but it still carries some weight from time constraints, and some other games (Overwatch being the big one) came along and totally trounced it in the accessibility category.

I used to play HoTS, and I started playing that because it was more convenient for me to do that than DotA 2 (despite sorta liking Dota 2 more). But then Overwatch came along, and it totally pushed HotS out of my routine. Obviously they're in different genres and it's hard to make any direct quality comparison, but Overwatch is a REALLY good game that can be played even when you have a very small amount of time, without needing to grind and unlock characters or anything. It nailed HotS' own target audience pretty hard.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

It's actually possible that HotS is making a loss right now. Blizzard sinks a lot of money into their operations, and it's a mystery to no-one that HotS is nowhere near as popular as they projected it would be. Obviously I couldn't say whether or not it really is unprofitable, but it's possible in a way that makes it a totally different kind of beast than any of Blizzard's other projects.

It'll be interesting to see how that impacts the game itself. Blizzard normally poops money, even with a relatively bad game by their standards (see: Diablo 3 at launch) so HotS (possibly) haemorrhaging money whilst demanding ongoing updates/support would be a rude shock to the involved bean counters. I wouldn't be surprised if there is significant pressure on Blizzard management to ramp up HotS' popularity quickly, or to push down ongoing development costs.

They're unlikely to abandon it (they'd lose so much face!) but there are probably some stressed-out managers and devs scratching their heads about how to turn it around.

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To be fair, I think he's right. HotS' big thing was that it was going to be the accessible MOBA, but it still carries some weight from time constraints, and some other games (Overwatch being the big one) came along and totally trounced it in the accessibility category.

I used to play HoTS, and I started playing that because it was more convenient for me to do that than DotA 2 (despite sorta liking Dota 2 more). But then Overwatch came along, and it totally pushed HotS out of my routine. Obviously they're in different genres and it's hard to make any direct quality comparison, but Overwatch is a REALLY good game that can be played even when you have a very small amount of time, without needing to grind and unlock characters or anything. It nailed HotS' own target audience pretty hard.

The main problem with your opinion: All of it is based entirely upon speculation and anecdotal evidence. In vernacular, you're spewing bullshit.

[Eats Compost]

The main problem with your opinion: All of it is based entirely upon speculation and anecdotal evidence. In vernacular, you're spewing bullshit.

It seems a bit silly to act like we don't know anything. None of us have specific numbers, but we know from all kinds of context clues and second-hand numbers (streams, etc) that HotS is not the runaway success that anyone - both Blizzard and the general audience - would have liked, or perhaps even expected. If you back yourself into a position where you need official figures that'll never get released, then it's impossible to discuss this topic at all.

The idea of Blizzard "abandoning" HotS is definitely hyperbole, but it's very possible that it's (again, by Blizzard standards) struggling. it's not really some back-room chop-job from a smaller developer that can afford to have a niche audience. And if you're that guy who has to convince a more senior guy that resources should go towards your project, you don't want to project to be the one with a ROI one fifth of Hearthstone's.

[Frozen Death Knight]

To be fair, I think he's right. HotS' big thing was that it was going to be the accessible MOBA, but it still carries some weight from time constraints, and some other games (Overwatch being the big one) came along and totally trounced it in the accessibility category.

I used to play HoTS, and I started playing that because it was more convenient for me to do that than DotA 2 (despite sorta liking Dota 2 more). But then Overwatch came along, and it totally pushed HotS out of my routine. Obviously they're in different genres and it's hard to make any direct quality comparison, but Overwatch is a REALLY good game that can be played even when you have a very small amount of time, without needing to grind and unlock characters or anything. It nailed HotS' own target audience pretty hard.

Your argument assumes that you can't play both Overwatch and HotS (or any other game for that matter), which is complete nonsense. I play both Overwatch and HotS and they fill a certain niche that the other does not. You are just using anecdotal evidence to confirm your own position, which is pretty much the definition of confirmation bias.

Besides, pretty much every Blizzard game ever made has had the idea of being more accessible and convenient to play than its competitors more or less. How exactly is this a solid argument when you could say this about pretty much the vast majority of their catalogue of games?

[Bonsaii]

You are just using your own personal gaming habits to make blanket statements that do not hold up to scrutiny.

Also, your entire basis for saying that Blizzard has abandoned HotS is relying on your assumption that just because the game has a lower playerbase than Dota 2, HotS is therefore not a profitable game, or has a stable enough population to maintain the game. Neither of those things are true, otherwise the game would not continue to get supported, and the playerbase would have long since been gone from the game.

My gaming habits are pretty reinforced as evidence with the user numbers that Dota and League still boast. There was no noticeable loss of users with the release of HotS for either of those games, meaning they're not taking any of the existing moba's userbase. All they've done is shift around current Blizzard users, which splits their userbase among games which raises their server costs. I'm sure they've gotten some minor user acquisition, but who would play Heroes without previously playing a Blizzard game?
Overwatch caused a dip in every steam game except Dota, while League has suffered a small dip to Overwatch. It's unclear if HotS has been affected by Overwatch, but judging by the amount of users in Overwatch so far, its pretty safe to assume its probably pulled some of the userbase for Heroes. Especially considering a large portion of heroes userbase will be the standard "Blizzard Gamer."

I'm not saying Blizzard will abandon the game, or has, it's just not going to be their primary focus, especially with their current product slate.

[Zelendria]

It's actually possible that HotS is making a loss right now. Blizzard sinks a lot of money into their operations, and it's a mystery to no-one that HotS is nowhere near as popular as they projected it would be. Obviously I couldn't say whether or not it really is unprofitable, but it's possible in a way that makes it a totally different kind of beast than any of Blizzard's other projects.

It'll be interesting to see how that impacts the game itself. Blizzard normally poops money, even with a relatively bad game by their standards (see: Diablo 3 at launch) so HotS (possibly) haemorrhaging money whilst demanding ongoing updates/support would be a rude shock to the involved bean counters. I wouldn't be surprised if there is significant pressure on Blizzard management to ramp up HotS' popularity quickly, or to push down ongoing development costs.

They're unlikely to abandon it (they'd lose so much face!) but there are probably some stressed-out managers and devs scratching their heads about how to turn it around.

Losing money.. Lol. It's a MOBA it requires the least amount of work to keep going. They don't have to reinvent the wheel, maps being added are few and far between. Essentially other than adding heroes maybe once per month on average it's the same game it was back in beta.
It has a micro transaction store that must be doing well because I see hordes of people literally every game with bought skins.

To be fair, I think he's right. HotS' big thing was that it was going to be the accessible MOBA, but it still carries some weight from time constraints, and some other games (Overwatch being the big one) came along and totally trounced it in the accessibility category.

I used to play HoTS, and I started playing that because it was more convenient for me to do that than DotA 2 (despite sorta liking Dota 2 more). But then Overwatch came along, and it totally pushed HotS out of my routine. Obviously they're in different genres and it's hard to make any direct quality comparison, but Overwatch is a REALLY good game that can be played even when you have a very small amount of time, without needing to grind and unlock characters or anything. It nailed HotS' own target audience pretty hard.

HoTS is the accessible MOBA. Having played them all a lot, I wouldn't even begin to suggest to someone that's never played a MOBA to pick DOTA2. That's not based on my opinion of which is best, but simply that you spend about the first 200+ games of DOTA2 just rotating through heroes so you have at least some clue what they do.
Then once you take into account the the game length you basically invest everything into playing it. Take 40m as the average game time (That might be wrong given that I haven't played it for maybe 2 years). Just the 200 games learning the absolute basics of all the heroes would take almost 9 weeks at 3hours a night 5 days a week.
HoTS is practically an arcade game in comparison which to the masses wanting to look at playing a MOBA for the first time should be their choice.

[Raugnaut]

''I am a Blizazrd fanboy, and this game is good because it has Blizzard characters in it. Unlike Lol, which doesn't. I also never played Dota but I can't see why this awesome Blizzard game can't have it's spot among Lol/dota as an esport. People just hate the game for no reason''.

The game is not well designed. The ''mechanics'' (not quite sure what you meant by that) don't make it stand out compared to any other MOBA. The maps all play out the same. Game is boring, with people just running around on mounts until the game tells them to go to objectives. The only reason this game has been relevant at all is because it is made by Blizzard and has Blizzard characters in it. If it were made by any other company nobody would play it after 3 months.

Oh and they added Necromancer which looks like an emo reject from D3 instead of the D2 badass. They added Auriel, an irrelevant character that looks like female Tyrael and still no Baal or Mephisto. GG wp Blizz.

Funny, when you consider..

A) Lol/DoTA have nearly no map differences besides aesthetics. Saying that there is no difference between maps is an outright lie, when each map has a large difference in the win/loss rate of various heroes.
B) Mechanics - Heroes is a fast pace, quick, team version of LoL/DoTA. In LoL/DoTA, you have a 20-30 minute laning phase to boost your carries, followed by 10-15 minutes of hoping to hell that your carries are good enough to actually carry the game. Focus is entirely on one person the entire game, and 60% of the game is doing the EXACT same thing - IF you are carry, you get as many last hits as possible. If you are not carry, you focus on healing the carry, jungling to distract the other team from your carry, or helping the carry get his last hits.
In Heroes, good players are still capable of carrying to an extent on certain heroes, and there will be moments where one player manages to shine (Stealing a boss from the enemy team solo, reversing what was otherwise a complete team wipeout, ect), but the outcome of most games is dependent on your team, rather then a single player - Good for some, bad for others, but it can't be said to be poorly designed.

And finally, don't get me started on some of the pathetic heroes in DoTA/LoL. It seems you are just salty that blizz isn't doing exactly what you want..

As for Heroes overall, I personally think its mainly because the MOBA market is simply overly saturated. If Heroes had been released 3 years earlier, it would be doing much better then currently. For now, its success is entirely dependent on how much effort Blizz will put into it - If Blizz continues to keep at it, it will eventually outlast some of the lesser competition, and maybe place 4th on the overall lists of MOBAs. If they don't, it won't.

[Eats Compost]

Your argument assumes that you can't play both Overwatch and HotS (or any other game for that matter), which is complete nonsense. I play both Overwatch and HotS and they fill a certain niche that the other does not. You are just using anecdotal evidence to confirm your own position, which is pretty much the definition of confirmation bias.

Besides, pretty much every Blizzard game ever made has had the idea of being more accessible and convenient to play than its competitors more or less. How exactly is this a solid argument when you could say this about pretty much the vast majority of their catalogue of games?

I'm not suggesting that a person can't play both, I'm suggesting that time spent playing one will probably bite into time spent playing the other. They're both team multiplayer games, and there's a lot of players who'll be spending most of their time on a single one in any given period. Even if they split it evenly, one is still going to have to cannibalize the other's time, and HotS suffers more from that as a result of an exposure-reliant F2P system.

And yes, all Blizzard games are accessible. But the difference here is that HotS and Overwatch are two titles geared towards competitive team-based multiplayer. Starcraft and Hearthstone hit very different competitive and multiplayer chords, and WoW being an MMO makes it an entirely different beast altogether. No two Blizzard games are in a position to compete as much as HotS and Overwatch, and my anecdotal experience is that people tend to gravitate towards one or the other over time. Sure, they might still play both in some capacity, but I don't see a lot of even splits in time spent.

I don't quite understand what's meant to be controversial about the idea that HotS is (purely in terms of audience numbers and revenue) underperforming. Blizzard made a grab at a genre that was primed to make them a leader, as it always does, but that didn't really happen. Unless that lack of size is also matched by a reduction in resources relative to it, that's going to make a bit of a problem project for Blizzard. There's no comment on the quality of the game there, just an observation that most people would've already made.