Blizzard and Twitch partner up for Heroes of the Storm promotion

Blizzard Entertainment is working with popular livestreaming service Twitch to allow Heroes of the Storm players to connect their accounts for in-game rewards, according to a post on the game's blog.

In anticipation of this weekend's Americas Championship, which will air on Twitch Sept. 19 and 20, the streaming site has introduced Battle.net connectivity. Players will be able to link their Heroes of the Storm and Twitch profiles together, so that they may watch and participate in livestreams using their account for the game.

As an added incentive for players, anyone who logs in to watch the championship through this method will receive an exclusive "Storm Watcher" portrait to be used as a player's display image.

While this is currently the only promotion planned, Blizzard is "considering rolling out similar promotions for our other games," likely to coincide with future competitions.

Online battle arena game Heroes of the Storm has been the focus of several large-scale eSports competitions, such as Road to BlizzCon, which the studio sponsored earlier this year.

Twitch has played a large part in the popularity of the genre, as well, so it should come as no surprise that the pair have teamed up to drum up support for their respective platforms.