The North American eSports organization is to leave the Hearthstone scene after sustained problems with player obligations.
RJ Epperson, co-owner of the Hearthstone team and marketing platform Hearthlytics has announced his company will cease all activities, release its signed players and reshift its focus in eSports. In his published statement, RJ cited difficulties in acquiring and maintaining long-term financial sponsors as a major factor behind the decision.
In order to increase salaries, team members were incentivized to do outside-game and uncompetitive related work on top of their monthly stipend (i.e. paying them for creating content, winning tournaments, and promoting the team/sponsors). Players were allegedly unhappy with the quantity and nature of the sponsor-related tasks, causing upsets in the company meeting its quota.
From RJ’s statement:
“The unfortunate truth is we should have consulted the team on what they're open to doing prior to recruiting sponsors that want to actively work with us and our players. This lead us down a long path of us trying to get the players incentivized and it not working because all they really wanted to focus on was playing the game and being the best.”
Whilst Hearthlytics has no immediate future plans, RJ is looking to move the company into another game (possibly a team-based title) and to undergo rebranding. Whilst there may have been unique mistakes in Hearthlytic’s recruitment and monetary model, this news demonstrates the higher degree of difficulty in running a successful eSports organization around a single player game like Hearthstone.
