Interview With Peter Barrow

Founder of Heroes Lounge

How was Heroes Lounge put together?

Heroes Lounge was created part through frustration, and part through jealousy. Frustration in part from playing games in Hero League against opponents that were much better, and with teammates that were uncooperative. Jealousy because I saw professional players playing the game in an entirely different way than how I got to play. I then put Heroes Lounge together first as a website, in my spare time, then decided while I had the website I might as well open up a league for people to play. Far more teams joined for that first season that I thought, and we went from there.

So the league blew up beyond your expectations and you are now going into a third season bigger than ever. What do you attribute your success to?

I think Heroes Lounge filled a gap that Heroes of the Storm desperately needed. The game, simply, seems to be designed to be played in a cooperative, communicative team. This is very difficult to do if you don't already have a group of four other friends to play with. I think a lot of people were looking for a place to have both the opportunity to play the game like this and find others that had the same motivation. Chair League existed in NA beforehand, but there wasn't anything really like that in Europe when Heroes Lounge came up.

Now that the HGC Open Division has started, what do you see as the major difference between that and Heroes Lounge? What makes Heroes Lounge stand out?

When the HGC Open Division was announced, I was of course very excited. To a certain extent, I think both Heroes Lounge and the Open Division work well together. Several teams from Heroes Lounge have gone to compete in the HGC amateur division as well.



Heroes Lounge, other than of course providing more regular competitive games, has also grown into an extremely positive community. Participants join games with each other, can scrim one another, and if they fancy, can even decide to give casting a go. The Open Division gives the high level competitive aspect for aspiring teams, while Heroes Lounge welcomes players of all abilities into a community to help each other improve.

Moving onto the teams themselves, No Trick Ponies won the first season and Fat#5 won the second one. Who do you think will take Season 3?

That's a very hard question to answer, as there are so many to choose from. I'll always have a soft spot for No Trick Ponies, as they not only won the first season but have stuck by Heroes Lounge since the very beginning. FAT#5, on the other hand, are relatively new, but watching a team of free agents come together and work so well as a team has been inspiring.



In terms of the teams I like to keep watching, Don Our Fedoras and Team Solid always provide entertainment. They are extremely close in ability and have a nice rivalry going. They faced each other in the playoff tie-breakers, I believe, in a fantastic set. mYinsanity have also grown a lot over the past season, and I'm really excited to see what they can produce coming into Season 3. It's really hard to choose just one.

Last week, KendricSwissh announced he would make a team with viewers to compete in the third season. How do you think this exposure will affect Heroes Lounge moving forward?

It's always nice when streaming celebrities want to get involved. Khaldor, as an example, has been a great supporter since the very beginning and cast some games in both seasons so far. KendricSwissh has now registered a team for Season 3 which is possibly one of the higher MMR teams we have seen in the Lounge so far. He will be streaming his matches on his Twitch account, and I think that will be fantastic for both the community—to be able to watch players like him play in this competitive format—and for the exposure to bring light to anyone who might not have heard of Heroes Lounge and would like to sign up. I think it will be absolutely fantastic.

You recently announced a partnership between Heroes Lounge and mYinsanity. How did this partnership form and what benefits do you see in esport organizations getting involved with the amateur scene?

The partnership formed through a contact made via the mYinsanity Heroes team. They have been actively involved in Season 2 since the beginning, and even one of their players, Nera, has been casting many of the matches for it. When I was looking for some support, they were the first to come forward and put me in touch with the general manager. For me, it's been extremely difficult to keep Heroes Lounge running. It's taken a lot of time, and thankfully we have now a rather large team all volunteering to make it the best it can be. With the involvement of esports organizations such as mYinsaity, it gives us the opportunity to get support from them in terms of exposure, and prizes, which in turn enable to us make Season 3 even better than we could have done without their help.

With the added prizes to Heroes Lounge, some are concerned about vague part of Heroes Lounge ruleset. In a comment on Reddit , you said that there would be stricter guidelines.

We are currently in the process of making the rules more specific, in particular to the rules regarding subs and the extent to which opponents are allowed to accept or reject them, which was at some point an issue in Season 2. I'm not sure I would say that the guidelines will be stricter, but they should certainly be more clear. We may even look into our policy on B-stepping….

Thank you for setting aside time for this interview. Any shoutouts or closing remarks?

Honestly, I would like to thank everyone that has both participated and helped out in Heroes Lounge. There is absolutely no way that I could have done it without their help. The mods, developers, and organisers have helped make Heroes Lounge what it is now, and I'm so happy to see it be the success it is. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, as well.

Heroes Lounge is aamateur league in Europe with open signups for anyone, regardless of rank. The league was initially announced in the summer of 2016, with its first match being played on July 15th, and has quickly grown into the largest amateur league in the European scene.Currently, Heroes Lounge is moving into its third season, aided by a new sponsorship from mYinsanity. We sat down with founder Peter Barrow to discuss the history of the league and how it’s moving forward.