HotS is being cancelled, will WoW be next?

Community General Discussion
103

That’s not true, and there are new Diablo IPs in development besides a mobile game lmfao.

3 Likes
104

I don’t know if it is true or not, it is one of the only articles about it. I don’t work for Blizzard so I have no idea… and neither do you.

The main take-away from it though; the part I can see as being true, is that they are reducing costs company wide. And HoTs “reduction” indicates exactly that.

And it looks like YongYea just made a video about it.

105

My guess is that most of the team will be moving to work to their unannounced RTS project. All the big names in RTS of Blizzard moved either to HotS back in 2014-2016, or to this new RTS game.
Let’s hope it does not disappoint, I’d say this new RTS game is one of their last chances to keeping their consumers loyal.

106

The optimist in me wants to believe that this is a sign that Blizzard is realizing that stubbornly forcing e-sports into their video game design isn’t the approach their consumers want.

The reality is they’re just shifting developers to mobile to focus on Asian markets. The potential for high return on low investment with mobile games means talent in other parts of Blizzard will be cannibalized to feed those projects.

3 Likes
107

This is what I’m thinking, they’re investing as little as possible on WoW and letting the game die out as slowly as possible so that they can invest as much as possible in profitable mobile games for the Chinese market.

1 Like
108

Ultima Online (1997) and Everquest (1999) are both still around, WoW isn’t going anywhere.

Even if it comes to a point to where Activision starts dumping Blizzard titles due to profitability reasons, we will likely see another developer take ownership of WoW long before it ever completely shuts down.

109

This is a difference without a distinction. When you stop investing in a game’s development, even if it’s just a significant reduction, and you cancel a significant purpose of why you founded the game to begin with (eSports to challenge LoL and DOTA), the game has moved into a maintenance mode. I am sure it will still receive content updates and be playable for months and years to come. But its population will wind down and dwindle until it becomes just a novelty, on par with Diablo 2’s battlenet mode.

2 Likes
110

Chances are the stuff that will be doled out, are things that have already been created and will be staggered out on a yearly basis. I think this is probably true, and the game devs will give just enough content so the fans of the game will intentionally get bored and leave the game over time instead of all at once, and all this to protect the Blizzard brand.

1 Like
111

“Never?” SC2 WCS has paid out millions.

112

I have never given any real time to mobas, but I have played both HoTS and LOL and they seemed exactly the same to me. Can someone tell me why LOL is the standard and HoTS never really took off?

113

No, not even close. Not a chance in heck will WoW be cancelled. It is quite obvious that WoW does not get the full support it used to though. Too many things go wrong, not the same polish of yore.

114

If people did that, these forums, and most other platforms would be empty :stuck_out_tongue:

115

To the OP: No.

116

lol No, WoW won’t be next. It would be like closing all Wal-Marts out of no where in comparison

117

Well, LoL (and DOTA 2) came out before HoTs, which helps a lot.

They are different in some ways. League games take longer on average, and experience is individual - which makes it easier for a single person to ‘carry’ their team. HoTs has shared experience which means the entire team gets levels at the same time. Blizzard wanted to make it more about a team than an individual, but it also makes it harder for a single exceptional player to ‘carry’.

As for why HoTs didn’t take off, there are probably a lot of reasons - it got off to a shaky launch. But the main reason is probably that LoL and DOTA 2 already dominated the MOBA space and HoTs was always seen as a ‘MOBA lite’ compared to them.

1 Like
118

I personally glad Blizzard failed to sue Valve over the name of “DOTA”.

Casual dumbed down game like HotS doesn’t deserve to use the title.

119

HotS is being cancelled,

Are you sure? before you throw stones about arrogant developers you might want to check your “facts.”

VG 24/7 reported:
Blizzard has announced a restructuring of the Heroes of the Storm development team.

Some members of the Heroes of the Storm team are being reassigned to other projects, Blizzard said in an announcement.

Blizzard is also not going to bring back the game’s two esports series next year. Those being the Heroes Global Championship, and Heroes of the Dorm series. This sounds an awful lot like entering maintenance mode, a stage that most live service games inevitably reach.

For its part, Blizzard said that work continues on new content such as new characters, and events. The cadence of these updates, however, will be slower than it is today.

1 Like
120

No tournaments means waning support. Pros will leave. Eventually the base will lose interest and before you know it, the server closes.

Was a good try, but that MOBA market is a harsh one when it’s over saturated.

1 Like
121

Come on. They are taking developers off it. That means you’ll be getting nothing but what they already have in the pipeline and they plan to let it fade away.

HotS isn’t making money so they are abandoning it.

The real question is: Is WoW next or will they reinvest in it?

122

The only cool thing about HoTS was the mount for wow…

Sorry blizz but that game just was not fun … Ugh

1 Like