With Juked now three months into open beta, we decided to catch up with co-founder ChanManV. He walked us through the creation of Juked, how they manage to stay in touch with all the esports scenes, and what the future holds for the platform.
And just like that, 2019 has nearly come to an end. Over the past 12 months, Blizzard Entertainment has continued to allow the Heroes of the Storm development team to churn out new content (albeit at a slower cadence than usual) and the community has had to adjust as well. Based on how 2018 came to an end, it could be much worse. In December of last year, President of Blizzard, J. Allen Brack, issued a statement declaring the Heroes of the Storm competitive scene would no longer be supported by the game's publisher and that developers would be reassigned to titles in the works and others that were deemed more important to the long-term health of the company.
On Thursday afternoon, members of the Heroes of the Storm development team took to the game's official subReddit (/r/heroesofthestorm) to answer questions players had and talk about the future of the title itself. For those who want to read the full thread, the "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) can be found here. With over 1,000 questions and comments in the thread, it can be difficult to keep track of everything that was said. Luckily, InvenGlobal has highlighted a few of the most noteworthy responses below to save readers from having to scroll through the replies for the juicy ones.
Amy Walker, who voices Blizzard's Elise Starseeker, was interviewed by Inven Global's Nick D'Orazio at the 2019 World Cyber Games in Xi'an, China to give her thoughts on the new Elise card, provide insight on the work of a voice actor, and reminisce on some of her favorite characters she's voiced.
Turns out Slasher has a lot to say when not constrained by 240 characters and our 3rd episode was filled with a variety of topics. From competitive Tetris money matches to Slasher calling us delusional (!) we had loads of fun talking to one of the most outspoken minds in esports about how rapidly things are changing within the industry and what we might expect in the future.
In many communities, the term esports have come to mean something decidedly negative. Esports is now synonymous with corporate take over, censorship, political correctness and the worst charge of all, a lack of authenticity.
The Heroes of the Storm team ended 2018 by announcing that Activision Blizzard would no longer be supporting the competitive circuit and moving developers off the title and onto other projects within the company. 2019 is not off to a much better start. Late Thursday night, Kevin Michael Johnson, also known as “Cloaken” within the gaming industry, announced that he will be transition off the Heroes of the Storm team and onto other projects.