Blizzard Entertainment has announced their decision to shut down the Heroes Global Championship, an eSports event related to the popular Heroes of the Storm yesterday and has also confirmed that developers working on the game have been transferred to other projects. “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,” wrote J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment and Ray Gresko, the company’s chief development officer in a post on Blizzard’s official blog. “We’ll continue actively supporting the game with new heroes, themed events, and other content that our community loves, though the cadence will change.”
This comes as a huge blow to the game’s community. The production director for Heroes of the Storm, Kaéo Milker, posted a remorseful message on Blizzard’s message board indicating that there is still a future for the game. “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,” he wrote.
The decision has predictably angered players who were looking forward to competing in the HGC event next year. Blizzard Entertainment traditionally held a Crucible event twice per year in which winning teams could move on to the Heroes Global Championship. The most recent Crucible event occurred in October leaving a lot of players who had earned a chance to compete in the HGC event with nothing to look forward to.
