![]() ![]() IGN: The storytelling is super important. ![]() When we have a Worlds event I want people who don’t even play Hearthstone to be like – what happened? Who won? How did they win? Who’s this guy?Ī great example of telling a player's story. Standard and HCT, some people like it, some people prefer Wild … we want a diverse portfolio to hit on the different demographics, we want to continue to level up our storytelling, we also want to create epic experiences.įor me, my ultimate goal, I would love Hearthstone esports events and championships to be a cultural touchstone for gamers. So yeah, when you ask me – what’s in store for Hearthstone? – I think it really is to continue to invest in how we create the narratives of our esport, how we continue to put on more epic experiences for our fans and our viewers at events like Shanghai, and then also, how we create programs that hit on the different demographics of our audience too. I think one of the biggest changes we did this year was we’re partnering with a new production company to really level up how we’re telling the stories of our athletes, and how we are honouring their skill and honouring the challenges they had to come through to get here. This is the year where we’re doing a tonne and we’re learning a tonne, and I think in the years to come it’s about refining, but it’s also about storytelling. ![]() We did our first Wild tournament, with the Wild Open, so this is the year of experimentation. When we have a Worlds event I want people who don't even play Hearthstone to be like â what happened? Who won? I would love Hearthstone esports events and championships to be a cultural touchstone for gamers. You don’t just sit there and watch, it was like long tables at a tavern, and people were eating and drinking and watching and socialising, that’s the Hearthstone vibe we want. In April we ran a really cool collegiate championship, it was one of the first events where we treated the entire Hearthstone esports event like it was a social gathering, as opposed to a strictly Hearthstone viewership experience. ![]() We are doing the collegiate program, and that, actually, is super fun and important. HCT became a tour – we’re going to all these different destinations, we developed HGG to scratch the itch of team Hearthstone, as well as explore the concept of a nation wars theme with Hearthstone. Last year was an important formative year, and this year we’re trying a lot of things, we’ve expanded the portfolio. IGN: What was your mandate coming in? Where do you see the next couple of years going for Hearthstone in terms of esports?Ĭhe Chou: Obviously one of the items on the agenda is just to continue to refine and polish and learn. So here I am, I landed the dream job! I’m loving it! Blizzard is a super unique company in that it’s a big company but it doesn’t feel like a big company in a lot of ways, especially coming from a company like Microsoft or Xbox… So I get instantly hooked and spend a year playing Hearthstone while I was on the road doing my other esports job, and then, last year at some point I was just like – you know what? I love esports, Blizzard is doing cool things with HCT – last year was the first year that HCT was formally given shape, so I watched a tonne of HCT last year - and I just thought, if there’s an opportunity to go and help Blizzard shape this thing and make it bigger and better, I would love to do that. They’re like – no, no, it’s cool, trust me. I’m like – yeah, but I didn’t play World of Warcraft. And so I ran their esports program and… basically started to understand the psychology of the athlete and esports.Īnd it just so happened at the time, it was around 2015, Hearthstone comes out and somebody on my Halo esports team actually introduced it to me – oh, you might like this game. It was at Halo that my passion for esports lit up, because Halo’s had a pretty storied history in esports and when I was there I revived the program, officially, from the publisher perspective. I did that for four years, and then went to Halo, and did that for six years. IGN: Tell me a little about your background and what’s it been like coming into Blizzard and working with the Hearthstone team.Ĭhe Chou: After working in the press, I spent ten years at Microsoft. I caught up with him in Shanghai during the HCT Spring Championship to find out about where this side of Hearthstone is headed. Che Chou is the man responsible for leading Hearthstone esports now, having joined Blizzard late last year after ten years at Xbox and eight years in games journalism before that. ![]()
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