Heroes Of The Storm Scaling Back, Devs Moving To Other Projects; Tournaments Canceled
Blizzard’s MOBA Heroes of the Storm is undergoing some big changes. The developer announced today that it is moving some developers on the game to other projects, while the game’s major competitive tournaments are coming to an end.
In a blog post, Blizzard’s J. Allen Brack and Ray Gresko said the developer is making the “tough choice” to move developers from Heroes of the Storm to other projects.
“We need to take some of our talented developers and bring their skills to other projects,” Blizzard said. “As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to shift some developers from Heroes of the Storm to other teams, and we’re excited to see the passion, knowledge, and experience that they’ll bring to those projects.”
Brack and Gresko added that this is nothing new for Blizzard. As part of its ongoing evaluation of its own development processes, it regularly makes “hard decisions” like this that can pay dividends down the road.
“We now have more live games and unannounced projects than at any point in the company’s history,” they said, adding that games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch “would not exist” were in not for Blizzard’s decision to scale back other projects.
Even though Blizzard is scaling back development on Heroes of the Storm, the game will still be “actively” supported with more heroes, special events, and “other” new content. However, Blizzard acknowledged that updates might be slower than in the past. The overall goal is for the game to be available over the “long-term” but Blizzard didn’t put any specific dates on how long it plans to support the game.
Another part of the announcement was around Heroes of the Storm competitive tournaments. Blizzard is shutting down the Heroes Global Championship and Heroes of the Dorm tournament series; they won’t be back in 2019.
“This was another very difficult decision for us to make,” Brack and Gresko said. “The love that the community has for these programs is deeply felt by everyone who works on them, but we ultimately feel this is the right decision versus moving forward in a way that would not meet the standards that players and fans have come to expect.”
It is unclear if there were any layoffs at Blizzard as a result of this news. GameSpot has contacted Blizzard in an attempt to get more details and context around Blizzard’s move to scale back Heroes of the Storm.
An in-depth report from Kotaku claims Blizzard management is trying to cut costs and ship more games. Some said they believe that Blizzard’s culture is changing. Blizzard founder and CEO Mike Morhaime left the company in October.
Heroes of thee Storm was released in 2015. The free-to-play multiplayer game features characters from across Blizzard’s suite of series. A 2.0 edition of the game came out in 2017, containing a number of changes. GameSpot’s Heroes of the Storm review scored the game a 9/10, with writer Tyler Hicks saying the game is a “must-play” for MOBA players and Blizzard enthusiasts.
Source:: Gamestop News
