Abandoned by Blizzard - The Tragedy of Heroes of the Storm

The genre that encompasses games such as Dota and League of Legends sprouted from Defense of the Ancients, a fan-developed mod designed within the framework of Warcraft 3. It seemed fitting, then, that Warcraft creator Blizzard Entertainment would announce a multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA, of its own during BlizzCon 2010.

A fully-fledged MOBA, the project bore many names and assumed multiple forms throughout its relatively brief lifecycle. It first appeared manifested as Blizzard DOTA, then adopted the title of Blizzard All-Stars due to a legal dispute, before the developer settled on Heroes of the Storm. But the name arguably mattered little overall, especially since players had made their preferences known by the time Blizzard tried cutting itself a piece of the battle arena pie.

A couple delays and a production overhaul meant Heroes of the Storm wouldn’t arrive until roughly five years after stealing the spotlight at BlizzCon in 2010. When its servers finally came online, Valve and Riot Games had cornered the market with Dota and League of Legends, respectively, leaving barely any room for another property to muscle its way inside. Still, Blizzard made an attempt, and succeeded to some degree.

Heroes of the Storm challenged the familiar design paradigms of battle arenas, which allowed the Warcraft studio to carve out a unique space. Professional and collegiate-level Esports leagues even spawned from the endeavor, yet Heroes never quite reached the heights of its competitors. As a result, the game’s few successes did nothing to stave off its early trip to the graveyard of discontinued online services.

This is the tragedy of Heroes of the Storm.

Intro 0:00
Sponsorship 2:00
Video 3:12

Support the channel by becoming a member:

Subscribe to GVMERS:

Follow GVMERS on Twitter:

Like GVMERS on Facebook:

Join the GVMERS Discord channel:

Subscribe to the GVMERS subreddit:

[kevinloesch]

HotS was and is my favorite MOBA. It is solid and doesn't take itself too seriously. It is pure strategic entertainment

[dc]

The failure of HotS is really indicative of how poorly managed a company Blizzard had become by the late 2010's. If they weren't so goddamned *obsessed* with milking it for esports money, they had a really unique and fun product on their hands. Heroes of the Storm didn't *need* to out-compete League or DotA... because it wasn't trying to *be* League or DotA. It's the same reason DotA doesn't try to out-League League, and League isn't busily trying to ape DotA. They have their own niche markets and playstyles and there's no need to try and take a piece of the other's pie.

It's the typical high-level incompetence and greed that's come to define Blizzard since the Activison merger, a little more each year.

[Donutearthpodcast]

This video hurts. I had the collectors edition box and put so much money into this game. Additionally I used to play this game for hours every day, after this game announced that it was ending its e sport and all that stuff, I don't think I touched another blizzard game since out of frustration with them.

[italolxd]

The worst thing about heroes of the storm is that the game is still played by a lot of players. You will still find a game very fast. I really REALLY hope Microsoft tries to revive it and maybe even use it for their own crossover. Imagine: Minecraft Steve, Diablo, Master Chief and Arthas in one game. That's just the peak of a massive iceberg.

[vaporwave]

As a League veteran of over 10 years I LOVED HOTS and felt that fun was it's main priority over the sweaty "eSports" of other games.

[eriktred]

my favorite online game. low barrier of entry, challenging to master. fast paced and quick matches. Even though it's dev has stopped, I'm still enjoying it.

[SolusBatty]

Me and my friends reinstalled HotS 2 days ago and had so much fun, just like before. I played Dota 1 for years, then League for years and HotS was the best one. It focused on what mattered. This is truly a tragedy.

[TomLehockySVK]

There was also the disaster how they handled the eSports scene - so many people were playing the game for years in preparation for tournaments, and Blizzard in their wisdom (or more accurately zero f*** given) just made a twitter post announcing they have no more plans for an eSport scene. Shame on Blizzard.

[DyoKasparov]

Legit the only moba I liked, nothing else came close to this.

The simplistic yet competitive gameplay, with already known from other games characters

[Tallborn]

Plz Microsoft don't let this game die.

[antoniogiannuzzi]

I would not say it was "too little, too late", I'd say in stead "wanting too much, too soon".

Blizzard's project was to rival or even best the popularity of LOL and DOTA 2 which were some of the most successful games in history, were on the market longer and had reacher character roasters, this in a genere which is developed piece by piece, step by step. I think they could have even achieved that by playing for the long run.

A further problem was Blizzard never ment HOTS as a "main game", but always cast it aside because they feared HOTS could have taken too much SC, Diablo or even worse the highly paying WOW players. So the impression my friends and I always had was Blizzard never wanted to fully commit into the game, but at the same time they wanted it to be one of the most successful games in history. They wanted the moon!

The last problem was, as you sayed, the game kept changing rapidly over the years, year after year changing director and future projects and in the end no game director was in charge of any project and all this changing lead the game into chaos.

The sickest thing of all is that despite all this they had an amazing game in their hands, with a loyal player base and they made good income out of it, but since the game did not match their absurds financial goals they shut it down anyway in 2018 (not technically, but signaling it as a dieing game). That's the crazyest thing of all!

It's like they wanted to win the heavyweight championship closing every match first round, with a hand tied to the back and without much of a sweat.🤯

I belive this whole disaster was caused by "wanting too much, too soon".🪦

[ultimategrungo]

I liked HOTS specifically because it took mechanical risks. No CSing, no fiddly item system, and some real weird champs.

It was so fresh and fun for the genre.

[Stormche]

I always loved HotS. I STILL do, I still play it every now and then it's just as great as it always was. I'm glad that people are still playing it, queues are fast and I rarely see the same players twice. I just wish Blizzard came to their senses on it. It had a small but dedicated dev team, loved by the community for their efforts where most developers receive a ton of criticism.

[Daniel-vxke]

This game deserved so much more, an absolute gem

[Ragelia]

I still love this game. It's my go-to game when I wanna play a MOBA game.

[Oxazepam]

Heroes of the storm was the game I never asked for, but ended up liking the most.

[Tsugandate]

I've played other mobas way more than HotS, but out of all of them, HotS was probably the most fun overall, and maybe the best one in terms of presentation as well. There's so much variety in the gameplay between different maps and characters, and it's quite impressive how they managed to do that despite not having any itemization like other mobas do. I'll miss this game.

[TheAdammantium]

What an odd feeling to see a video about the tragedy of HoTS while waiting for a match to start on said game. The game was indeed released too little too late; but I'm glad it has made itself a home for many players like myself during its tenure and even after it ceased development/support.

[Kramerica]

Man...I've been fearing that this video would become a reality at some point and here it is. Damn, talk about dropping the ball. I've spent countless hours and dollars on this game over it's life span. This one hurts to watch.

[Sta_cotto]

I always wanted this game to succeed, but not in the "dethrone DotA and LoL" way; I loved the art style, all the stories told by the alternative skins and just the sheer fun of the game. I always thought the biggest misstep was trying to force an eSports scene without letting it grow organically.