This year, Activision Blizzard captured the attention of the esports industry due to the ambitious launch of the Overwatch League . While it is probably too early to call the OWL a true success, the league has progressed reasonably well so far. Blizzard has secured several major brand partnerships such as T-Mobile and Sour Patch Kids, as well as an exclusive, $90M broadcast deal with Twitch.

The OWL has been making headlines all year, but another esport run by Blizzard has had less news to report. The game also operates on a league structure, but has no franchise model or revenue sharing systems. While Overwatch looks to pioneer the future of esports, Heroes of the Storm has been fighting to climb out of the past.

Heroes of the What?

Heroes of the Storm is a MOBA in the vein of League of Legends or Dota 2 . In theme, the game is similar to Nintendo’s character mashup fighting game Super Smash Bros. —characters from every Blizzard franchise have turned into MOBA-style heroes.

The game gathered a small but passionate esports fan base during its open beta phase. Esports organizations such as Cloud9 , Evil Geniuses , and Natus Vincere quickly signed teams to compete in various grassroots tournaments and an ESL-run league. Even before the game’s release, Blizzard was actively pushing for the game to be recognized as an esport. In 2015, Blizzard partnered with ESPN to produce an official collegiate tournament series called Heroes of the Dorm, which awards full scholarships to the winning team. In its earliest days, HotS seemed poised for esports success.

However, as the game moved out of beta, Blizzard had not developed a clear structure for the professional HotS esports scene and many of the larger organizations released their teams, leaving the scene for good.

In 2016, Blizzard announced an organized tournament circuit, but it wasn’t until 2017 that Heroes of the Storm got its official, Blizzard-run professional league: the Heroes Global Championship (HGC). The format closely mirrors early versions of the League of Legends Championship Series . In four major regions (North America, Europe, Korea, and China) eight teams compete weekly with the top teams qualifying for playoffs and international events, and the bottom teams battle amateurs in a relegation match. As with Riot Games and the LCS, Blizzard provides a salary to all HGC players.

Someone Sponsor Me

While the HGC has continued to evolve and improve its format, it has consistently struggled in one area: attracting high-level esports organizations. A handful of big names such as Fnatic and Dignitas have remained since the early days, but out of all the major organizations that vacated the scene prior to 2017, only Team Liquid has returned. In 2018, the most high-profile organization to join the HGC was Method, most notable for its famed World of Warcraft raiding team.

Method co-founder Sascha Steffens said the organization had been considering entering Heroes of the Storm since its launch, but had been hesitant due to the risk involved.

“The main reason for us not entering the scene earlier is presumably the very same reason why orgs might decide to leave the HGC. Similar to other esports, HOTS has a problem with top heaviness. Finding a return of investment is difficult if your team fails to qualify for the Mid-Season Brawl or BlizzCon. However, Blizzard has made some good changes and additions to the HGC over the years to combat this issue and we trust them to continue on this path of improvement.”

One of Blizzard’s improvements to the HGC has been the 2018 ownership rules change. When the HGC was formed, ownership of a team’s spot in the league belonged to the majority of the team’s active roster. This meant that if four members of a five-person team retired or were signed by other organizations, the original team was disbanded and that organization would lose their spot in the league. In 2018, Blizzard required all teams to designate an owner who would retain the HGC spot regardless of roster changes, so long as the team could avoid relegation. This change drastically reduced the risk of an esports organization suddenly losing their spot in the HGC due to roster issues.

Unfortunately, these improvements have done little to affect the topheavy nature of the league’s ROI. As a result, some organizations that have not seen championship-level success in the HGC thus far have decided to give up ownership of their spot in the league and leave the Heroes of the Storm scene. In addition to selling their Rocket League team, Gale Force Esports also left the HGC last month.

Get Tricked

The most recent organization to leave the HGC was Tricked Esport, which announced its decision in May. In the Danish organization’s farewell announcement, CEO Morten “Phy” Jensen stated that he hoped “the Blizzard esports team will look into our feedback and change certain stuff for the future so Heroes of the Storm can flourish as an esports title.”

The Esports Observer reached out to Jensen to clarify what “stuff” he would want to see changed about the HGC.

“For us, story is key, our brand has a long story something that we are very proud of and want to build on. I think Blizzard is probably one of the best storytelling companies in all of the gaming industry, so naturally, we thought this was a match made in heaven…

“We were very disappointed how little creative content filled in the HGC… Another big problem for us was the fact that Blizzard did not seem to care if the minor teams made it for player summits, an important meeting before every startup of the season, where everyone makes small video clips and photo shoots. As long they had confirmed dates from Dignitas and Fnatic, the rest of us were forced to either reschedule or don’t come. Out of the two seasons, we never manage to get information in time to get everyone to the player summit.”

Despite his frustrations, Jensen remained hopeful about the potential of HotS as an esport:

“In my perspective they have the best competition structure that we have dealt with, and Tricked have been in both Dota 2 and League of Legends scenes so they just need to adjust their level of commitment. It comes down to if they are satisfied with the size of the competition and the fanbase.”

In March, Spacestation Gaming reached a similar conclusion and made the decision to give up ownership of its HGC spot. Christina “ChrisiFlower” Le, who served as SSG’s Heroes of the Storm team manager, said that while SSG was happy with its players and staff, the organization simply could not justify a continued investment in HotS.

“The Spacestation guys loved us and were crying when they let us go,” she said. “But it was such a huge investment for nothing in return.” Le now manages the same roster, but the team has been unable to find a new organization willing to sign them.

Creating Success in the HGC

While organizations like Tricked and Spacestation have found little success in Heroes of the Storm, others remain encouraged and hopeful about the future. Along with Method, two new organizations have joined the HGC this year: gamification platform Octalysis and Simplicity, a recently-launched esports organization founded by Memphis Grizzlies minority owner Jed Kaplan. Simplicity also has a team in the Overwatch Contenders league.

Ian “Workhorse” Anderson runs a Heroes of the Storm fan content platform called HeroesHearth. In late 2017, he signed a competitive Heroes of the Storm team to represent the HeroesHearth brand. According to Anderson, the experience working with Blizzard’s esports team has been nothing but positive.

“For having such a small team working in Heroes esports, they have a lot on their plates. With limited resources, they have to make a lot happen, which can be challenging. Since entering the league, we have very much been the new kids on the block, so there has been a bit of a learning curve on our end of things. Blizzard’s esports team has gone above and beyond on many fronts to bring us up to speed, which has been immensely helpful. However, we would love to see their team grow to help accommodate the increased bandwidth required to operate a growing league.”

Anderson also noted that HeroesHearth has seen significant traffic growth since sponsoring an esports team. The platform saw over 105K monthly active users last month compared to 30K for the same period in 2017.

HeroesHearth’s esports success is an encouraging sign for the future of Heroes of the Storm esports. It shows that fans of the game are actively seeking out esports content as a result of a brand sponsorship within the professional league.

Big Brother Gets the Cool Toys

A common concern from all interviewed parties was the perceived lack of resources devoted to HotS esports, in favor of the Overwatch League. The OWL has a dedicated tab on Blizzard’s game launcher Battle.net, while the HGC receives little advertisement on the platform. Overwatch has seen multiple new forms of integration with Twitch, but the HGC’s cheer program did not return for the first half of 2018 (a Blizzard representative recently confirmed that the cheer program will return in 2018 before the Mid-Season Brawl). The Heroes of the Storm community has found it frustrating to watch its developer funnel resources into another game.

“I would not go as far as saying they abandoned HotS esports-wise,” said Jensen. “But I think they put their best effort into Overwatch and left HotS with minor gimmicks that did not pay off. No doubt most players in the HGC feel like their league has been pushed aside by Overwatch League.”

In fairness to Blizzard, it makes a great deal of business sense to focus most of the company’s resources on the Overwatch League right now. The OWL is one of the most ambitious esports projects ever devised. The level of investment from Blizzard, the franchise owners, and even Twitch demands that everyone involved do whatever they can to make the OWL a success. At the time, the level of investment in HotS does not warrant the same level of resources.

Looking to the Future

In July 2017, The Esports Observer spoke with Heroes of the Storm esports franchise lead Sam Braithwaite about his goals for the HGC. In that interview, Braithwaite said he did not want a single HGC team left unsponsored in 2018. While the departure of multiple esports organizations has not helped, Braithwaite remains committed to achieving this objective.

“Full sponsorship for all teams continues to be our goal for the HGC. While we’ve seen the departure of some sponsors for various reasons, we’ve also seen several new organizations and sponsors come into the HGC, excited to support Heroes of the Storm esports. We have an open dialog with both established and potential sponsors, and are exploring changes for 2019 that incorporates their feedback in order to build stronger partnerships and enhance the benefits of owning or sponsoring a team in the HGC.”

To accomplish the goal Blizzard set almost a year ago, Braithwaite and his team will have to find a way for teams that don’t win championships to generate value from their spots in the HGC. With the majority of matches still taking place online and viewership still nowhere near the top esports, the league is likely not ready to support an OWL-style franchise model.

However, another developer may be paving the way towards a model that could work for HotS. Earlier this week, Ubisoft unveiled a revenue sharing program for the Rainbow Six Pro League. The Rainbow Six Pilot Program provides teams with a share of revenue from sales of certain in-game items, and also funds the prize pool of the largest tournament of the year. If this model were replicated in the HGC, it would significantly improve the return on investment for teams at the bottom of the league, while also incentivizing and rewarding teams at the top.

In many ways, R6 is a perfect game for HotS to emulate. The game is experiencing explosive esports growth years after its launch. Ubisoft’s shooter is proof that a game can be rewarded for slowly growing a community and stable esports structure.

If Blizzard can produce more content that tells a compelling story for every team and provide strong incentives to esports organizations to join the HGC, the game could very well be the next Rainbow Six.