There are many reasons for the “failure” of Heroes of the Storm. We will name some of them and explain what could have gone better.
A few weeks ago, the developers of Heroes of the Storm announced that several eSports tournaments would no longer take place in the future. Furthermore, the development team has been downsized and it was announced that they would now find a “different rhythm” for releases – apparently slower.
For many players, it is clear: The future of Heroes of the Storm is bleak and Blizzard’s MOBA is practically “dead”. But what did Heroes of the Storm actually fail at? After all, Blizzard united the most popular heroes from all Blizzard universes here and could have drawn great attraction from that alone.
We list some reasons why Heroes of the Storm has failed.
The Saturated Market
The MOBA market has been clearly divided from the beginning. Even though Blizzard, with the Warcraft 3 custom maps, is actually the origin of MOBAs, League of Legends quickly rose to the top as an independent game. DOTA (2) has also secured a large piece of the pie, and so the genre is more or less split between these two giants. While there are smaller representatives, like SMITE, which impresses with an unusual perspective, it’s still just a small light compared to LoL and DOTA.
Additionally, Heroes of the Storm was initially supposed to be just a mod for StarCraft 2 before it switched to its own engine and became an independent project. This took time and gave other MOBAs even more time to bind players to themselves.
Attachment to Other Games
MOBAs are, more than many other games, very good at keeping players permanently engaged. Anyone who purchases cosmetic items with real money and invests thousands of hours into a game has this “achievement” always in mind. It’s hard to part with a game into which you’ve already put €500 or 7000 hours of gameplay. So why would you switch to another game?
This hurdle is large and likely kept many “classic” gamers, for whom gaming is their main pastime, from switching.
Heroes of the Storm was never particularly good at making this switch particularly appealing. The only moments we can remember were the “Mega Bundles,” where 20+ heroes were available for a low price. But that alone was not enough to make someone turn their back on League of Legends or DOTA.
Toxicity in the Community
Anyone who has played a MOBA has certainly been insulted, accused, or otherwise harassed at some point. Games like League of Legends are known for having a rough tone and the chat is often misused for attacks.
This was no different in Heroes of the Storm. Although HotS also had its own reporting system to report disruptive players, who were subjected to increasingly harsher penalties over time, it rarely felt like the system helped. Players often felt that their report just vanished into the void and had no effect.
Many players had the thought: Is it even worth reporting? Why should I still put up with the game if I’m just insulted and harshly confronted?
The Miserable Matchmaking
Another point is the matchmaking of Heroes of the Storm. While in the various leagues, such as the Hero League or Team League, the matchmaking became solid over the years, that is not the case in “Quick Play”. However, this is the mode where most of the “casual” players hang out, who don’t want to play highly competitively and just for “fun”.
But exactly these players rarely find fun. Because matchmaking that ranks players by skill doesn’t seem to exist here. The frequency of matches where one side wins with three, four, or five times as many kills or has a level lead of four or five levels is far too high.
This leads many players to feel like they can’t win a match at all, which quickly eats away at their frustration tolerance.
We addressed this in our article: Heroes of the Storm is most fun when you don’t play it.
The Uninteresting Loot Boxes
The major update “Heroes of the Storm 2.0” brought a lot of cosmetic items to the game, with which characters can be customized. Spray logos, voicelines, skins, mounts, banner symbols, announcer skins, and much more were now in loot boxes that could be purchased with real money or earned in-game.
The rate at which loot boxes are unlocked is low. Additionally, the contents are often boring. With all the cosmetic items, there are extremely many things that are simply uninteresting and dull, even when playing the associated hero.
Furthermore, there’s the fact that loot boxes come in different qualities. The “common” loot box has a high chance of containing only common items – in other games, that would be “gray trash,” and that’s exactly how it feels.
But not only the “gray trash” is the problem, but also the fact that you keep receiving it over and over again. Duplicates are the rule. If you get chat emojis for Chromie three times in 10 loot boxes, even though you don’t play that character at all, you won’t want to continue. The 5 “shards” you receive for duplicates don’t offer any consolation.
Overwatch has solved this better. Here, after a few months, the loot boxes were modified so that duplicates are a rarity and you really feel like getting “something new” in each box. That is not the case with Heroes of the Storm.
The loot boxes are boring and counterproductive for all players who want a specific skin. “In the past,” almost all skins could be purchased with real money. Anyone wanting to be “Winter Veil Jaina” knew exactly how much money they had to put on the table.
Time and again, Reddit users noted: “Now that I can’t deliberately buy what I want, I don’t spend any money on HotS anymore.”
A mixed system would have probably been the best solution. Players would still earn loot boxes, but could also deliberately buy coveted skins with real money.
Thus, only a small part of the player base was satisfied.
The “The Game is Dead” Spiral
The last reason for the failure is still ongoing and is likely “self-inflicted”. The way Blizzard announced that the Heroes of the Storm team would shrink and development would slow down directly led to the conclusion: “The game is dead”.
This mood spread rapidly among players, and there are several videos on YouTube from larger streamers uninstalling their game. This also affects many “normal” players who would have otherwise simply continued to play diligently.
The negative mood, however, persists, and even under every comment asking “How do I get better with hero X?” there are reactions questioning: “Why do you want to invest time in a dead game?”
This spiral continues to turn, driving away more and more players who join this view – and that, even though a new hero has already been announced.
These were our reasons for the failure of Heroes of the Storm. What do you think, why was HotS unable to establish itself in the market? What were the shortcomings of the developers and which circumstances could they perhaps do nothing about? Let’s discuss it in the comments!
