14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard, the developer of the popular Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft free-to-play online card game, is grateful that the title is quite popular as an eSport experience but pledges that it won't drive away newcomers by making it only focused on competitions.
Hearthstone is one of Blizzard's riskiest bets yet, as a small team from inside the large developer has delivered one of the most refreshing online card games in quite a while by not only making it quite balanced but also with a lot of depth, despite the fact that it's free-to-play for anyone to try out on PC, Mac, or iPad.
The experience not only is popular with regular players but it has also taken the eSports scene by storm, with already quite a few big competitions being hosted at various events from around the world.
While Blizzard was certainly aware that Hearthstone could be a very popular experience, it was taken by surprise with just how many people it's drawing in.
"We definitely were surprised. I don't think we anticipated the level of the adoption and the speed of the adoption as it's been picked up over the last.. almost a year now, since we started the closed beta," Hearthstone Production Director Jason Chayes tells GamesIndustry.
The eSports popular, in particular, is quite good as it manages to draw in fans of the scene who are currently busy with other titles, like Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or StarCraft 2.
"The great thing about eSports is that does expose the game to people in the community who might not have seen it otherwise," he adds.
However, while the eSports scene will be followed closely by Blizzard so that the studio can help it grow, this doesn't meant that Hearthstone will become a hardcore experience dedicated just to intense competitions. The team will still dedicate its time to regular players, at least according to Chayes.
"We want to make sure that even as the game continues to evolve and gets more attention from the competitive scene and we have a more established tournament structure that we don't lose sight of the fact that anybody should be able to pick this up on their PC or their iPad and start playing within five minutes and have a great time knowing nothing about what the game is."
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has already seen the rise of quite a few different professional players and it's going to be interesting to see how Blizzard can keep nurturing the scene, especially since its other popular project, StarCraft 2, is dwindling in popularity.
