Waynoo, the largest gaming café chain in Asia, is set to open the largest esports studio in the United Kingdom at the end of the month in London. According to a press release, the company aims to cater to the hardcore gaming community and casual gamers alike starting on January 29 in their 5330 sq. ft. facility. Inside the studio, features include a 12-station esports “battle area,” a public gaming area, a mobile phone gaming space, numerous consoles connected to a 55-inch television and popular board games.
Less than a month after Activision Blizzard announced they will no longer be supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene, the first replacement professional league will begin signups starting tomorrow. Heroes Lounge, one of the largest Heroes of the Storm amateur sites in the world, has announced that their pro league, Division S, has crowd-funded over $13,700 within the last few weeks in an attempt to create an appealing enough format where former professional players and up-and-comers can showcase their play for cash prizes. Signing up to join the league is a fairly simple process, according to Heroes Lounge.
Once the Heroes of the Storm World Championship concluded at BlizzCon in November, Mandon “Dittri0” Florent went to work creating his own tournament to supersede the Nexus Games event that weren’t returning in 2019. The appeal of the Nexus Games in the past was that it took place during the competitive offseason and pitted amateur teams within the same region against one another for pride and a cash prize. He took to Twitter to seek help from the general population as creating a tournament of this size is not a task he wanted to take on alone and, to his surprise, help arrived. One of those individuals, Arnaud "Ouille" Pontonnier, contributed half of the $2,000 initial prize pool and has worked with Dittri0 to acquire additional funding, a sponsor and has helped overall to organize the event. Currently, the event, which begins tomorrow, has accrued a prize pool over $2500 and has secured a partnership with Razer headsets to be given away to the winners.
Leader of the Angiris Council and Aspect of Valor, Imperius has valiantly led the armies of the High Heavens to innumerous victories over the demons of the Burning Hells. While his methods are exact and severe, there is no greater defender of righteousness in the entirety of creation.
Activision Blizzard’s tumultuous 2018 ended last night with a regulatory filing that announced the firing of the Cheif Financial Officer (CFO) Spencer Neumann. Per the filing, the termination of his employment was “unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures.” He is currently on paid leave, per the company.
Dallas Mavericks’ owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is no stranger to voicing his opinions or working with athletes to achieve a common goal, winning. When he caught wind of a story by Quartz referencing the early retirement ages for professional esports players, he took to Twitter to share the story and give his two cents on why Cuban hasn’t jumped in feet first with the purchase of a League of Legends team yet. While Cuban is no stranger to working extreme hours to get the job done, that doesn't mean that he wants that for all of his players, employees or business partners. With weekly balance changes common in the esports industry, players are required to put in overtime just to keep up with the ever-evolving metas in their respective games. Nate Nanzer, the commissioner of the Overwatch League, chimed in on Cuban's thoughts regarding how overworked esports players are.
In the middle of the night, a Portuguese Heroes of the Storm Twitter account leaked the newest hero set to join the nexus next week. The often requested and short-tempered Archangel of Valor, Imperius, is slated to go live on the Public Test Realm (PTR) starting on Wednesday, according to the tweet. While his role in the nexus is currently unknown, his backstory and attitude are all too familiar to fans of the Diablo franchise. For everyone else who isn’t aware of Imperius’ storyline, here’s a little information to catch you up to speed.
Activision Blizzard announced last week that they are no longer supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene but the community hasn’t. Since the press release that effectively ended the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm circuits released last Thursday, numerous organizations, fans, and community members have voiced their interest in making a new tournament structure or league viable. The hashtag “#saveHotS” began appearing on different social platforms and is now acting as a rallying cry for those who do not want to see the competitive scene of one of their beloved games die altogether.
It’s been five days since Activision-Blizzard made the announcement that the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship (HGC) circuit would be discontinued and developers from the title moved to other, unannounced projects. Although “announcement” is too generous a word. Maybe “slap-in-the-face” is more appropriate considering the disingenuous manner the message was delivered, via an unfeeling press release. The content of the statement itself felt more corporate than personable. To many, it was insulting.
Christmas came early for fans of Blizzard Entertainment's Hearthstone as the team released a blog post in the middle of the night that outlined numerous upcoming balance changes that are slated to go live later today. A few of the five cards that Blizzard deemed problematic have been topics of discussion within the Hearthstone community for years while others have only popped up his past calendar year. Blizzard's developer note regarding the specific changes states: "This balance update is focused on improving the long-term health of both Standard and Wild. We've opted to make these changes earlier in the expansion cycle than we normally consider; we'd like to hear your feedback on the timing of this update, in addition to what you think of all the individual card changes."
When Activision Blizzard announced on Thursday that they would no longer support competitive Heroes of the Storm at the amateur, collegiate or professional level going forward, a can of worms was opened. A decision based solely in the name of saving money and dedicating resources to more profitable ventures within the company, the backlash from the Blizzard community has been harsh, a feeling of betrayal and worry over the future of the title.
On Thursday afternoon, Blizzard Entertainment's new President, J. Allen Brack, made his first big move since the recent resignation of the long-time figurehead, Mike Morhaime. In an official statement, Brack announced that the company would no longer support the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene at the professional, collegiate or amateur level going forward.
Last Tuesday, the “best Heroes of the Storm player in North America” abruptly announced his retirement from the competitive scene after spending the last four years making a name for himself. Fan “Fan” Yang, a member of the first Heroes of the Storm World Championship team for Cloud9 issued a statement through his current team, Tempo Storm, regarding his decision to step down. His full statement can be found here. When Fan was approached by InvenGlobal to talk about his decision to move on from competing in the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) in 2019, he opened up a bit more.
As Christmas approaches, those who work in and follow the competitive Heroes of the Storm professional circuit called the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) are hoping Santa comes early with some much-needed information. With the 2019 professional circuit yet to be announced, amid reports that Blizzard is experiencing budget cuts, imaginations are running wild that the game many call home will be without a competitive scene come the new year. Blizzard has yet to issue a public statement regarding the future of the HGC as well as notify players behind closed doors as to whether they will have a job in the upcoming months, according to sources. Prior to this past week, the majority of the players and talent have sat back and remained patient for an update. Over the weekend, something changed.
Jake “SolidJake” Kulinski’s involvement in the Heroes of the Storm scene pre-dates the release of the full game being available to the general public. Between masterminding what is arguably the most popular Heroes’ podcast, TownHall Heroes, to casting the amateur Open Division scene and launching a community funded tournament with a $10,000 prize pool, Bloodlust, SolidJake has seen and done it all. While the list of accolades continues further in Blizzard games and the fighting game community (FGC), SolidJake has accomplished all that he has despite failing to look out for ‘numero uno’...himself. As long as his wife and her family’s business is taken care of, as long as the Blizzard community is taken care of, as long as the players and talent around him are taken care of, Jake is fine operating at a loss and putting himself at risk. The consummate ‘fall guy’ as it were. That’s not to say he hasn’t had opportunities to put himself first and selfishly look to further his career in the entertainment business; it has to be on his terms after everyone else around him is first taken care of.
The abomination hero, Stitches, has been a frontline pest since the earlier Heroes of the Storm days back in 2014. Hooking opponents, spreading putrid bile and consuming opponents has been his signature tricks and when the development team felt his kit needed to be reworked, they opted not to remove what made him...him. When the dust settled after being tweaked, the new Stitches will be more than a "hook bot" who, in-between his Hook's cooldown, will have more to do on the battlefield.
When the task of reworking Stitches was handed to the development team and Crawford, they had a pretty good idea where to start and the issues he currently experienced. This was not the overhaul that Sylvannas recently experienced as his fundamental kit was made well enough back in the day that he just needed more things to do when waiting for his 16-second cooldown to expire on his Hook ability.
When the opportunity to rework one of Blizzard’s most famous or infamous characters (depending on who you’re asking), Sylvanas, was placed on the plate of Jackson, his mind immediately went to work. A high-level player himself, Jackson knew the task of turning a hero into an assassin was no easy task and the pressure was on. Unlike the rework Stitches recently received, this was not just tweaking a few abilities and having her play the same but have some quality of life adjustments. This was an overhaul and in preparation for this rework, changes were made back in April.
The Queen of the Forsaken, Sylvanas, who was introduced into Heroes of the Storm back in 2015 is next in line to receive a rework of her basic abilities and talents. Previously, the banshee relied on applying map pressure through the use of her trait which disables enemy fortifications and minions. But the development team wanted to take her kit in a different direction, one more focused on teamfighting.
As December approaches, professional Heroes of the Storm players are unsure if they will have a job in 2019. Since 2016, Blizzard Entertainment has run the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) circuit each year, pitting the best of the best from around the world against one another over the course of a calendar year with the finale being the World Championship event held at BlizzCon. With nearly $5 million awarded in prizes during the 2017 year and a lot of mouths to feed in the process, the survival of HGC, in its current format or otherwise, is paramount for those that rely on it for steady income. As it stands, HGC has not been announced to return in 2019 yet. No statements, press releases or announcements have been issued suggesting its existence going forward.
