EPTBlizzard's Senior Esports Manager, Kim Phan, sat down with TL Editor EsportsJohn at IEM Katowice to discuss region locking, the future of Heroes and what's on the horizon for the competitive scene.
Currently working Senior Manager for Esports at Blizzard Entertainment, Kim Phan is a woman with more passion for the gaming scene in her pinky than most of us have throughout our whole bodies. She first entered the scene as a Shoutcaster for Warcraft III and has done everything from interviews to production planning when it comes to Blizzard's Esports scene. She's the backbone of the Esports team, a shining example of where passion and perseverance can lead you if you stick with what you love, and a true delight for Team Liquid to interview.
Can you share any goals or objectives the team has to help promote Heroes as an established Esport, especially when you consider it in comparison to other MOBAs?
I think we want to help build the Esports teams. We want to give more opportunities for them to have spotlights to play. I think a lot of our decisions on how we structured Heroes this year is to try and create more of those opportunities, so we do have three Global Championships that are taking place. Instead of one big moment -- that one World Finals -- at the end of the year, now you have three and that is to help tell the story of these teams. We want people to follow the teams and know who they are. We want people to cheer for their local favorite, and I think the structure was set up this way so that now, at IEM Katowice, you have the Europe Spring Regional; you’re going to see which are the the two best European teams that are going to try and go against all the other teams. I think that played a lot into why we designed the system that way -- giving more opportunities so that teams can be stable.
Recently, many people have commented on the particularly strict region lock for Heroes of the Storm this season, particularly around the player Wiz. What’s the reasoning behind this lock and do you see changes to it at any point in the near future?
I think change can happen, you see us change all the time. We’ve learned a lot from our other games. It’s really important for Heroes that we want to give opportunities to teams and players who are growing within their regions, and I think that played a lot into our decisions. Are you talking about eligibility?
Yes. Eligibility takes six months playing in a region before you can officially enter tournaments. That’s a problem because the seasons are usually just months apart, so players have to be picked up two seasons in advance by teams if they want to play in a different region.
I think it’s because we want to make sure teams are developing and playing together. You see in team games a lot there’s a lot of people hopping around, and so a team that is “this” makeup, and then it changes again, is not the same team anymore. And so I think a part of that is to try and make sure there is stability with the team because once you pick another player -- do they get along? How well do they play? -- and so I would probably say that those were the intentions. If it’s not working out for some reason, or if the community, or if the team and players have strong reactions to that, we’re very receptive to feedback, so I’m not going to say it’s not going to change. Anything can change.
Based on the region lock so far, do you think the regions are growing proportionately? It seems like Heroes has really taken off in China and Europe but is struggling a bit in other regions.
I think it’s hard to compare regions to [other] regions because it’s all different -- different makeup of how many players are playing. [For example] China, already, the infrastructure is different, and it’s also a much bigger country. So we don’t really compare region to region, we typically try to do what we think is best for that specific region. So we’ll look at a region and say, ‘Okay, how can we make this better? What changes can we do to help grow this region?’ Because the goal is still to develop players within those regions, and so that’s where we pay a lot of our attention.
Heroes of the Dorm 2016 has begun, and that’s super exciting! Heroes, in particular, has been great at engaging the collegiate population, and a lot of professional players have grown out of successful HotD teams. Do you see a future where we have a sort of X Games for Esports run by Blizzard?
What part of X Games? What do you mean by X Games?
X Games as in we would see a particular collegiate league that people could join that would be ongoing each year -- not necessarily just Heroes of the Storm, but including all the games Blizzard makes.
I think that’s certainly a possibility. We do have a collegiate program for Hearthstone. We’ve been testing that out -- I won’t say testing, it’s actually going on right now -- as well as [for] StarCraft. [If you mean for all games to be connected instead of separate,] I think it could get there. I think we need to wait and see how it develops. We definitely want to explore if we can duplicate something like this in other regions as well because it works really well in North America, but there’s a lot of opportunity as well to try and test something like that -- but not exactly like that -- in other regions.
Other games have tournaments promoted on their main screens and launching pages -- and I think that’s one of the things we see lacking with Blizzard sometimes. Is there a way that Blizzard can promote more on the landing page, Twitter, etc. to get the events that you’re doing out there?
Yeah, I think we can do more than we’re doing now. We, right now, promote in our launcher. The launcher has the ability for us to promote there. Within the game client, that’s something we’re working with the development team to see if it’s possible because it varies per game. In terms of social media, we just opened up the Esports StarCraft Twitter account, and we have the Heroes one as well, so I think there was a balance that we were trying to strike where, do we promote all of our Esports on StarCraft? Do people want to see that? Is it very specific to an audience? So there was a question on how do we balance that, but now with the Esports Twitter we’re able to promote it a lot more, and so I think the next step is how do we get people to know that these exist, and so we just have to keep sharing that.
Great, that’s from your end. From our end [at Team Liquid], what can we do to promote Heroes as an Esport?
I’m such a huge fan of Team Liquid. I think you have a lot of amazing writers. I think the difficult thing sometimes with Esports is following the stories. What are the stories we’re supposed to be following, especially when there’s a lot of teams that are new? And so what you guys do really well -- I would say keep doing -- is the coverage you do is amazing. We always appreciate that. And then your interviews with the teams and the players and helping the fans connect to them. I think those all are ways to grow Esports. Get people to enjoy not only playing the game but watching the game and following their favorite players and their favorite teams.
Thank you very much! I appreciate you spending the time to do this interview with us.
Thank you, I appreciate it too. I will say that I appreciate how easy it is for people to find information about tournaments, but they have to know that TL exists in the first place, but when they do, all the information is there. It’s just -- how do you make it easy to find? That helps too.
![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CP2CYRNUsAA--dH.jpg:large)
Kim Phan with members of the Twitch.tv crew
Thank you once more to Kim Phan for giving us the opportunity to interview her and gain more perspective on the scene!
