While Blizzard’s free card game Hearthstone proves to be an eSports hit, World of Warcraft struggles to score in this area. Could live-streamed raids change that?
An article on PCGamesN addresses the eSports imbalance between Blizzard’s two games, Hearthstone and World of Warcraft. While 50,000 viewers followed the European qualifiers for Hearthstone from home over the weekend, and the tension among fans in the venue was palpable, the WoW arena tournament happening right next door failed to impress.
This is also the view of Kim Phan, the head of eSports at Blizzard: “Yes, the three-on-three in the arena is quite difficult to watch at the moment. And that is an area we will be looking at,” she says.
Hearthstone developed with eSports in mind – WoW not
Hearthstone has always been designed with the concept of eSports in the background and is now exploding in this area. In contrast, World of Warcraft was conceived long before eSports became such a big deal and was never intended to be an experience that viewers could enjoy.
With Warlords of Draenor, they aim to remove some obstacles for eSports, but some issues are hard to avoid.
Therefore, Phan is considering exploring new paths and also looking at alternatives to arenas: “There are a lot of things in World of Warcraft that people want to watch. We have had good experiences with raids. Some suggest battlegrounds. Ultimately, an eSport is created when people want to watch it. We will take a close look at how we can improve that in World of Warcraft.”
