Blizzard Entertainment has made it known that the Twitch revenue share integration for Heroes of the Storm, known as HGC Cheer, has made a return.
First launched for the Heroes Global Championship – the professional league for Heroes of the Storm – in 2017, this integration had been missing for much of the 2018 season.
HGC Cheer allows fans and spectators to buy and send Bits on Twitch, actively cheering for their favourite team in the Heroes Global Championship. Cheering Bits allows the Heroes of the Storm community to contribute towards unearthing loot chests, mounts, and exclusive emotes. A portion of the revenue that Twitch receives from selling Bits will go directly to the user’s team of choice. When somebody cheers for a particular team, they “summon a team-themed animated Cheermote to celebrate the moment and amplify their voice in the Twitch chat.”
The announcement from Twitch reveals that this is the platform’s second time partnering with Blizzard on HGC Cheer, which suggests that the initial integration of the revenue sharing model was only a short deal, or, both parties decided to call off the partnership long before reuniting.
Twitch and Blizzard will be introducing more community goals and brand new items for spectators to unlock every few weeks, removing old items as the new ones are brought in. Fans can check the Cheering progress for each of the HGC teams on the Heroes of the Storm channel.
This integration returned for the first time on June 9th and will last throughout the remainder of the 2018 HGC season. This includes the HGC Finals at BlizzCon on October 25-28th.
Esports Insider says: Revenue sharing is a hot topic in esports as of late, and the fact that Blizzard and Twitch are reintroducing HGC Cheer suggests it worked for them on their first attempt. We’re glad to see they’re actively helping to sustain and grow the esports scene around Heroes of the Storm.