Yesterday, we announced a difficult decision—the HGC will not be returning in 2019 and we’ll be transitioning some Heroes of the Storm developers to our other game teams. While our extended Blizzard family working on World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and our unannounced projects will be getting an influx of much-needed, extremely talented Heroes devs to help them achieve their goals, it also means that we’ll need to change the cadence of support for Heroes going forward.
So, I’m sad. I’m sad because I love this team and this game that we’ve built together, with all of you, and this past year has been such a great one for Heroes of the Storm. The HGC had its best year yet and I was so looking forward to the 2019 season. On the game side, we’ve had a steady stream of some of the most sought-after heroes, amazing themed events, and impactful reworks. We also made meaningful progress on improving core systems and features across the game. We truly hit our stride in 2018, so I’m disappointed that some of the exciting plans we had for 2019 will have to change.
But all is not lost. The team that remains dedicated to Heroes of the Storm is a veritable Who’s Who of developers who have been driving every facet of the game from the very beginning—from people you know and have seen speak publicly about the game for years, to those who have poured their hearts into it from behind the scenes. In short, we’re continuing to develop the game with an incredible team that has the experience and passion required to support Heroes of the Storm well into the future.
The Heroes of the Storm team and I also have a unique opportunity to rethink things and reprioritize. Because now more than ever, our charge is to focus on taking care of you, our players, and to channel all our energy into keeping the game dynamic and fun. This means we’re still committed to regular hero reworks, themed events, and even new heroes. We’re setting our sights on the new goals and timelines for what we want to do with the game from here on out and we’re eager to share those plans as soon as they’re finalized.
So, I’m also excited. I’m excited for my teammates to bring their hard-won experience from making this game to the other teams at Blizzard to help their games be even better. And I’m especially excited for Heroes of the Storm to continue evolving with a renewed focus and purity of purpose.
Thank you for joining us on the journey so far, and please bear with us through these changes. Your feedback is as critical as ever, and continues to guide our priorities and decisions while helping us be better along the way.
Thank you,
Kaéo
- basically what I wrote on US forums
You literally killed the entire pro scene over night, what do you think will happen? People got burned, the company acted very unprofessional, no one will ever trust you at this point or want to do business with you.
I’m under the impression you have lots of unreleased stuff prepared for us and are planning to milk it out over the next 12 months or less, before you finally pull the plug and are now minimizing the damage from the cruel PR you just pulled off on us.
I always kept saying how I am surprised by the work you managed to do with such a small team and low budget, and waited for every new patch in anticipation like a kid. It was my favorite out of all your games, because of the tight and relatively small community around the game, opinions you wanted to share had a wide reach and it allowed for such a great discussion.
But now Blizzard spit on their fanbase and the competitive scene and I’m done with supporting this morally gray practice of theirs.
Tell me, you expect WC3 reforged to be extremely profitable or will a 20 year old game include lootboxes and MTX bs? The fanbase is no doubt smaller than of HOTS so is it just another cash grab?
The incompetence over how D3 was handled, how WOW is being handled (deleting beta forums btw Kappa), and you didn’t even have the decency to take HOTS behind the shed not to kill it infront of the crying children.
Again, HOTS team was very passionate and best, with unrivaled communication to fans compared to other departments. I’ve never seen such great twitter, reddit and especially forum engagement ever. If anyone is getting axed because of budget cuts, consider a promotion for them and fire the numbers people instead, those that lack passion and the ones that led us to this point.
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined HD 1080P. Also I’m done with Blizzard at this point. You’ve completely dropped your values.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html
REMEMBER THESE? You think you do, but you don’t.
You just snapped the fingers and there it is. But except removing people that deserve to be suspended from the game, like the community has been begging you to, you removed content creators, pros and people who are passionate about it. This will only make the game worse for few that remain.
I hope the company learns a valuable lesson out of this, and that the community punishes it properly this time by voting with their wallets for once.
No doubt that silly WOW mount you just released last night had earned you more than enough already to finance all of HOTS and HGC for another year, but will end up in some idiot's pocket as a bonus for cutting costs. All while some 200 hardworking young men are left without a job on Christmas. Such a PR disaster this is.
The talent is real and everlasting at Blizzard, it is the management that repeatedly keeps ****ing up by introducing bad business practices without ever thinking long term. The reason HGC shutdown hurt so much is because Blizzard has a monopoly over the pro-scene. Something like this should have never happened - and who says it won’t happen to Overwatch anytime soon? Technically your game is only as popular as you market it to be, and people are slowly getting tired of it. But you never gave HOTS a fighting chance even though it is superior to its competitors in many ways. F you, company men.
p.s. how deep does the rabbithole go?
https://clips.twitch.tv/CallousSmellyChowderWTRuck
I demand an explanation for this. Blizzard, what is your affiliation with Mr. Gresko and his (former) mobile games company and how is he connected to this disaster? Is this about some mobile game again? I was pretty upset yesterday, I didn’t even login anymore, but this has just reached another level. This explanation (or lack thereof) will determine whether I’ll ever buy any Blizzard game again. I cannot trust you anymore.
I have no idea how they will please the stockholders after this hits the fan, wait, it hit already.
Good JOB, really amazed by you Blizzard … 4 years of gamepley, money spend and so on thrown away and that is just for me … all the youtube channels i am watchin and twitch streams … just got useless … you managed to kill a good game and let down the whole game community in just one post and right on time for the hollidays 
Damn all those pro players, teams and sponsors and all the fans … WHAT AN AMAZING CHRISTMAS GIFT … i guess on the birght side of Blizzad we should wait for HOTS Immoratl
I already see a decline in quality of play in ranked, stomped enemy teams in 4 games in a row.
I’m pretty damn sure the more experienced players just left the game.
I suppose, Great success bravo for Blizzard.
I left HS because it’s pay-to-win, and now after Orphea was released, the first sign of originality in this company, I started having fun, and now, POOF, it’s gone.
I’ll continue to play this game until it’s out of service I suppose but I will stop having as much fun.
Time to start salvaging whatever I can find about Orphea. I seriously love this gal now.
Just close servers already and let this game die with glimpse of dignity.
But!
I want to play with Orphea a little bit longer !
Please daddy !
I’ll clean up Stratholme later !
Calm down, if you just did some elementary web-searching, you’d find that the guy in the twitch clip is actually wrong.
Gresko joined Blizzard Entertainment, this is an excerpt from a press release about Mike Morhaime stepping down as CEO:
Do your research next time. He’s Chief of Development at Blizzard.
And that’s supposed to get us cheered up ?
Blizzard development is slowing down, and will eventually stop.
Lots of people were pulled from HotS. Their claim that they want to release patching updates and content updates separately is now void as well, they will release updates like they used to release them before, bigger packages less frequently, and less content.
This has been actually confirmed in the article here, Ever since BlizCon, Blizzard is showing complete lack of leadership, confidence and spirit. There’s people leaving the company as well.
Announcement of mobile games in a company that was devoted for years to making quality computer games, is a 180 degree turn in their marketing policy, it’s natural that devoted players and supporters leave them.
Stock prices dropped again.
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-paying-staff-to-leave-in-order-to-cut-costs-according-to-reports/
Please explain @Blizzard.
First, when my friend told me about this, i was like wtf… it cant be, Blizzard doesnt do stuff like this, to cut down the budget…
It was true, WTH!! i cant believe it!! I rly liked this game, cause it was different from the rest, team shared experience, towers with limited ammo so it could promote aggressive play and not def all day, lots of maps and my fav heroes from Blizz games. (i admit some i didnt liked and werent what i hoped for… like Alarak, where i like more the SC2 version of him)
Some bad updates/ changes and look where we are now… damn it! You know what happens to a low budget game in general? it slowly dies… I hope this is some out of season bad joke and you announce Hots 2 or something!
The best thing that happened to this game is Orphea.
Why ?
Because a new and unique element showed up and they pretty much lamed up every single hero from franchises they own.
I was kind of waiting when will Destiny 2 characters show up, then I saw Ana’s alt skins, that’s a HUNTER armor, why did no one see that yet ?
I’ll keep watching what they do with this, and I will keep maining Orphea, cuz I really love this brand new hero.
Kaéo we believe in u !!
make H0ts great again!
I hope for heroes, i live for heroes, i love hots!!!
They know that very well dude…
Well is good to remind that…but not need!
The game cant be without problems…our human race always work like that! And its normal.
This and next year would be a lot different and better i hope so…
I too did prepare huge and a lot improved vers. of the game.! In this my topic " Make Heroes of the Storm most epic game in gameing industry this year".
If you are interesing to read it…go a head.
If game was like my versione to now…im 100% sure wouldnt be with many problems.
It scares me that a month ago I predicted all this casually.
I’m losing heart for this game with all those nonsense changes.