It’s Monday, which means “The Innervated” podcast is about to return. Tonight we discuss Hearthstone’s position on the stage of esports prize pools.
Hearthstone has been growing rapidly for the past year and a half and we’re at a point where massive prize pools are given out every month. Blizzard’s creation is constantly one of the top three most watched games on Twitch.tv and its best and most popular players pull viewership numbers in the thousands.
Yet, prize pool-wise, Hearthstone seems to be getting less love from its parent than its Blizzard brothers. StarCraft 2’s and Heroes of the Storm’s world circuits will give away $1.6M and $1.2M in prize money respectively during the course of their World Championship campaigns while Blizzard’s investment in Hearthstone is only around $350,000.
As Viagame’s director of content put it in a tweet, it will happen so that the most watched game will feature the smallest prize pool. Yet how fair is that comparison? Should the Hearthstone World Championship have a prize pool that can measure up to SC2’s and Heroes’?
The larger part of the money in Hearthstone’s pro scene comes from third party investors with Blizzard barely getting involved, but is that the correct way to run a budding game? Will there be a point where third party prize pools start rivaling that of the World Championship and how does that affect the scene? Should Blizzard get involved and better support the scene financially?
And are there other reasons that speak for and against Hearthstone’s comparatively small prize purse?
All that and more when “The Innervated” podcast goes live tonight at 21:00 CEST on Twitch.tv/GosuTV4.
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