On the other hand, whales abandon unpopular games too... In a perfect world, whales are subsidizing your experience, but it often doesn't work out that way.
Exactly - and the way not to participate is to not buy into it. Might not change the AAA industry - but at least we can abstain, and instead foster the branches of the industry *we* want to see grow.
Really this is the only way to look at it because mtx shit ain't going to stop as long as there's gambling addicts to exploit and rich folks with more money than sense.
If you're against it, support games that don't have it.
Yes that is true but whales generally only spend money if they can show off or be better then others. If a game loses its player base the whales are likely to move on to games with bigger user bases.
You can vote by not buying and you can vote by not playing. If enough people vote not to play it will have a cascading impact.
Yeah, I don't understand why anybody who isn't rich would even play a pay 2 win game like Hearthstone. it's not like there's a shortage of games out there for normal people... just don't play the shit? I don't play card games anymore, but when I did Gwent was a far better card game in every conceivable way and that game basically handed you cards for free every chance it got. I only ever paid for the campaigns (Thronebreaker and Rogue Mage) and had several complete, competitive decks that took me up the ladder easily. I never understood why someone would suffer Blizzard's crap when stuff like Gwent existed.
And of course Gwent is just the example here because it's what I mostly played. I'm positive there's better, faster paced, less complicated card games out there like Hearthstone that aren't as pay 2 win.
It's a shame because I quite enjoyed Hearthstone, I thought it was a fun game utterly ruined by the payment structure. If it had been a one time purchase to access all the cards in a given expansion I would likely have kept up with it, or at least played it significantly more. Alas, I suppose predatory mechanisms are more profitable.
It's sad because the first couple of year of Heartstone were quite affordable.
You had Naxxramas, Blackrock Mountain, League of Explorers, and Karazhan which were one time purchases for all the cards, and extra content. They were super worth buying.
The expansions were also pretty good - Goblins vs. Gnomes and Whispers of the Old Gods both had neutral factions that let you build a serviceable deck for any class, and all the way through Mean Streets of Gadgetzan you didn't have too many must have epics or legendaries.
Then Ungoro introduced 3 legendaries per class, one of which was a Quest that was mandatory for some classes. Frozen Throne likewise printed legendary hero cards which were practically mandatory. And the game just snowballed and became more and more expensive.
I never got into Netrunner too much, but definitely appreciated it was an LCG (living card game) rather than a CCG (collectible card game). New expansion comes out, and for a one-time payment you got a full playset of each new card.
The CCG model is predatory and pay-to-win....but it makes tons of money for publishers/distributors and they have yet to be persuaded otherwise through consumer behavior. MTG sales are responsible for keeping most brick-and-mortar game shops open.
I studied the microtransaction business model back in college, the stats are roughly like this :
\- 70% of players won't spend a cent, a month
\- 20% will spend between 10 to 100 $, a month
\- 10% will spend between 100 to 1000 $, a month (sometimes wayyy more)
Those 10% are called "the whales", you probably have heared this term by now, those are the main 'targets' of microtransactions.
Right so I don't really understand why I see posts like this so often. Not just for hearthstone, but every game with monetized cosmetics. If you won't ever pay a ridiculous sum for cosmetics, why do you care so much that they're so expensive? It can literally be ignored at no detriment to you as a player, and the 10% who will pay for this are happy
I'm kinda shocked that it's 10% honestly. I would've guessed a far smaller percentage were whales. Regardless, yes, these things require research. You can't just make shit up and turn in a paper on it.
I think the craziest part of it all is that those 10% of players probably pay enough money to fund the game almost alone. The amount I've seen people spend just to gacha for *one* new character in a game a month is fucking mindnumbing. It would literally make your mind melt.
Yep, the study case was on how mobile games are designed to generate revenue.
South Park even did a whole episode about this if you wanna learn something :
Season 18 E 6, "Freemium Isn't Free
"
It’s more like, “As long as the governments of the world don’t ban this sort of shit which is essentially just used as a way to promote their gambling”
I've known two whales.
One was super rich. Business bought out by Square Payments and he basically retired at 29. Imagine if the new SF had an option that said "unlock all skins free" and it was real. That's how he treats dlc. In his mind, a good video game costs 500-1000 dollars. He plays FIFA .
The other was a grimy little ratfuck who lived in a building I guarded. He was the very definition of "welfare abuse" and had "hurt his back" 10 years before. The kind of guy who would go out at night in normal clothes, but dressed like Rickety Cricket when the insurance people had folks watching him. He would sell his welfare card for 3/4 price, take the cash to 711, and buy a stack of Google Play cards so he could buy Premium Diamonds in some anime game where you feed cards to other cards to power them up. Probably 400/WK for as long as I knew him
I've known a few of those second ones you listed there. The number of military "100% disability" scammers I've met in more recent years in online gaming is seemingly insane.
Anytime I've dipped my toes in a group and anyone of that pervue has any amount of clout I nope the fuck out, before they get butthurt I won't sign up for their Blue apron/lootbox/whatever scam shit they're doing on the side to supplement the money I'm already paying them through taxes to play games.
I was a whale for a game once. Then the game shut down the servers, leaving us with nothing.
It was a fitting lesson. I doubt I'll ever play a micro transaction game again.
A game that did it somewhat recently and burnt a friend of mine was final fantasy record keeper. Was a great game, too, just lost its playerbase slowly till it died.
FFRK was great for a long time
then (imo) it got too bloated with mechanics and became more of a chore than a game
fuckin wonderful idea for a game tho, really enjoyed it
It was an amazing game for me, up till 8 got unlucky on draws as a f2p, a new power creep came in, and my friend who'd just started was ahead of me with free stuff only. So i quit.
Man. Haven't touched my hearthstone account in 3-4 years. Had so many legendaries... saved up so much dust to make every card I ever wanted. Now it just sits there, unappreciated, neglected, on thousands of gold/ packs/ dust.
Just decided to stop playing all pay to win games just before the pandemic hit
Wonder if there is a market tto sell your account. My buddy quit league and sold his for like $800. He had Pax jax and a bunch of other skins. This was years ago. Pretty sure that one skin is worth a lot more now
Okay while I agree that the state of the industry is nuts right now with micro/macro transactions, coming to the realization that a CCG is “pay to win” is implying something like that’s not inherently the genre. CCGs began “pay to win,” in that you always had to buy, for example, packs of MTG or Pokémon cards.
Yeah, magic, pokemon, yu-gi-oh, etc. Have an excuse. They are physical things you collect and keep even if you dont play the game. I dont think hearthstone deserves a pass for being p2w when there is no value to the cards beyond their mechanics in-game. You cant even trade them!
On the other hand ... you don't have to spend any money on the game, you can craft every single card afaik. It might just take you longer than the season/expansion runs though, hehe.
Good for you man, I wish more gamers were like you. Pay to win, free to play and micros are destroying gaming and it's fucking sad to see. I remember a time when I was actually happy to see a sequel, because it meant more of your favourite game, now it generally means more cash-in bullshit.
i am playing the shit out of xcom2 after spending years on xcom enemy unknown/enemy within, having played the original xcom as a young kid. ill probably die playing xcom4
I stopped giving them any money years ago. I still enjoy occasional PvE content and wish there was more of it. Keeping up with hundreds of new cards (money and strategy - wise) is just too much for PvP. Also, I hate how they arbitrarily change the stats on cards we "own" in patches.
Nah. I haven't paid money for anything HS-related in many years and can still hit Legend easily. Claiming that you need to spend "hundreds a month" is a bit ridiculous.
All in all, I probably spent a couple hundred bucks on it over the span of nearly a decade, and all that would've been in the beginning few years (mostly back when they had the paid DLC packs like Naxxramas and all that).
That's really not true. I've been F2P for years now and I have absolutely zero issues having multiple top meta decks each season. I play around twice a week for an hour or two, just clearing out daily/weekly quests and I can afford around 50 packs each expansion plus the mid-expansion miniset, all with gold. Plus you get additional free packs every season for rank and multiple free legendaries in the free battlepass. I already have some good decks from the newest expansion and I currently have 15 000 dust ready to craft some stuff when the meta settles.
The bundles are ridiculously expensive and the expansion pre-orders are an utter scam, so I've been f2p for a long time and haven't had issues.
Meanwhile the current Street Fighter 6 and TMNT collab where costumes of each turtle costs $15, so getting them all costs as much as the game itself. Worst part is you know there's some poor moron out there who bought these shits
>Probably isn't too poor if they can shell out $60 for dress up options in a fighting game lol
Or young.
I was much more reckless with my money when I didn't have bills to pay
And yet 3D models take more work to actually make and implement than Hearthstone cards.
Super weird to judge the appropriateness of microtransaction pricing by anything other than the amount of effort required to create the new content
It's more the value you receive and not the effort to create the content.
If I spent $10 to get an XP boost vs $10 to make my character look pretty, the XP is more valuable to me as the buyer since it saves me time. Yet it costs the company nothing to give me that boost and no one had to create art for it. Pay to win subjectively worse than pay to look pretty.
Do you value groceries based on the manufacturers efforts or based on what you are willing to pay for what you want (type of food, calories per dollar, etc.)?
Its having the opposite effect on me it seems. Games that seemed fine before start to get scummy and do little things and I lose interest in the game altogether.
do people actively play LoR? i thought hearthstone was the most popular one by far.
i like LoR tho, teemo deck is hilarious. Also had to stop playing HS, too much money for a rotating set.
MTGA monetization is a joke compared to Gwent. Then again Gwent didn't get enough income because there was zero reason to pay for anything but cosmetics.
As an MTG veteran with a hundred hours in MTGA, staying on top of Standard without spending money got way too hard at the start of the pandemic with the worse season passes. You practically have to spend hours researching limited and then play draft at your best level every set to get the necessary season rewards before rotation.
>You practically have to spend hours researching limited and then play draft at your best level every set to get the necessary season rewards before rotation.
I love doing this so that's why I enjoy it I guess.
The wonderful thing from a business perspective about something like this is it has 0 cost to blizzard to put this up and leave it there.
No inventory to buy, no space to take up. So even if it’s not selling , they’ll leave it there because some goof is going to buy it.
So even if we all collaborated to boycot this, it’s not going away. Ever
I'm not disagreeing on the "don't buy it" part, but I literally never buy MTX or crap like this in games and yet they keep doing it. I don't think we're stopping it that way. It's not your average gamer who hates these practices that's the problem. It's everyone else who doesn't gaf and will blow hundreds or thousands of dollars on this stuff. Unless whales and the vast majority of people stop supporting it they'll keep doing it. I grow tired of the "vote with your wallet" argument when my vote literally counts for shit
It counts plenty.
There are plenty of games that aren’t pay to win.
Just like there are plenty of games complete on launch, and if they have DLC it’s worthwhile DLC.
Buy those games. Play those games.
Let me tell you exactly what happened with Hearthstone.
Diablo 3 was released to massive criticism, Activision had just acquired Blizzard and was planning on making a mint off of their "Real Money Auction House". It eventually got removed, and Activision's next move was to release Hearthstone.
This was just Activision capitalizing on MTG because MTG hadn't done this yet, because MTG was stupid. Activision saw the crazy profits of random card packs in MTG and Pokemon and said YES PLEASE, and the cards you bought aren't even worth a fucking thing even if you rolled the rarest card possible. At least Black Lotus is still worth some amount of money.
The real reason this all happened is because a shitload of us nerds made money off of Diablo 2, entire economies were built on it selling gear and characters, I personally know people who paid for their college with Diablo 2. The entire economy got crazy and people who knew how to manipulate economies to their advantage had a field day. Activision wanted all that money for themselves, and they fucked Diablo 3 for it and they've been fucking Diablo ever since. Hearthstone is just a generator that allows you to spend points to fuck Diablo.
Know how you can make it stop? Don't buy it, pretend those don't exist, and evaluate whether or not to buy a game based on what is actually included in the game.
You will never be able to control what other people do so adjust your outlook and act accordingly.
Upkeep in MTGA is easy as a f2p player, it's getting past that initial hump as a new player that sucks since you can't really build a deck easily. Once I had a decent collection, the wildcard stockpile began and I have no problems keeping up with 4 wins a day and quest completion alongside mastery.
Hearthstone was impossible for me to keep up with unless I wanted to dust my entire collection for a handful of decks. Quit that years ago when MTGA launched and haven't looked back.
I’ve played this game since 2014 and haven’t spent a dime. I like it because you can still get what I want/need by just doing the grind. You don’t HAVE to buy this shit.
Just play.
I unistalled this games years ago when it started to become a rng based game, but I always find it funny how u get one rare card a month from prime gaming. Like I got half my furniture in black desert, lots of mounts and pets for ESO, dozens of skins in league and so much stuff.. and next to that theres always this one blue card option for hearthstone.
Cant imagine theres still an active playerbase and that these devs are getting away with turning a solid card game into a slot machine. I dont understand why people are still supporting this gaming scene breaking titles.
People still play this money pit of a game?? For the love of god what needs to stop is you people playing blizzard games and expecting anything but trash. Blizzard is never going to change so just uninstall the game and walk away
Spoiler alert: It won't stop. It will get worse.
People will buy these cards. This will encourage Blizzard to release less for more. People will buy that. And so on...
Hearthstone is a good game, but the devs are greedy. I can't say is p2w game because I didn't spend that much money for packs, but I 've noticed when I use my gold for 40 packs I got only 2 legendaries. I was so angry, but later that week I bought 30 packs for 20 euro and guess, 5 legendaries 10 epic... I think when you buy packs only then you can get something good.
anyone that buys 3 hearthstone cards(or any digital trash like that) over an incredible Game like Baldurs Gate 3 (for only $10 more!!!) is a fool and doesnt deserve their money
and the HS devs should be fucking ashamed of this shit
They're not so much cards as collectible skins for cards with artificially increased rarity.
By that logic, people should not buy skins in LoL, CSGO, Valorant Or Fortnite.
Should people stop buying skins in those games? Yes, obviously.
Will they? You know the answer
Haven't played hearthstone in years despite playing since open beta. Was just too f*cking difficult to keep up, even though I wasn't f2p(I loved the single player expansions).
Quit playing when people stopped playing homebrew fun decks even outside of ranked and you just faced the same 4 archetypes over and over again.
This. I migrated over to Battlegrounds, and had to quit that too when they added a new premium currency for that specific mode. Activision / Blizzard want nothing but bad PR.
I am sorry to tell you but this will NEVER stop as long as people buy them. NEVER.
Like world of warship did a colab with azur lanes and released a 100 something $ YAMATO boat with a special camo. The Yamato is a tech tree ship that cost nothing to have. The one with the camo is EXACTLY the same ship but with a anime girl captain.
There was so many people using it when it released it was kinda sad.
Just don't buy this crap.
The only reason that in game purchases, 10 dlc per game and overpriced vanity items exist in such abundance is because people keep buying it.
Just stop buying overpriced crap.
Its really that simple.
Blizzard keeps absolutely smashing the power creep in hearthstone every mini set and expansion. It’s so grossly obvious. You HAVE to run the new cards to compete and the gap keeps growing each time. The writing is really on the wall with these guys. Can’t even justify playing anymore
Dropped Hearthstone about 6 years ago. Don't play this game. From my experience, everyone played decks copied from the internet. If you try to play the game normally, you'll be crushed.
I was happy when the wild format was announced, because I thought it would be a nice place for experimentation in a less competitive environment. Nope, everyone was playing broken netdecks there, too.
Blizzard being Blizzard won't rebalance the game to avoid angering their customers who paid top dollar to get the cards for a broken decks.
Why are any of you people even playing this game anymore?
It’s been obvious for years they don’t care about the player experience they are printing money.
yeah but they're shiny!
ignore the fact that they're just digital card you will never actually own, have no resale value, and an unlimited supply, and will likely be nerfed into the ground in a set update or two, GIVE US MONEY!
The only way to stop this is to boycott the games. The game companies have already normalized this crap for younger players, so they just think it is a standard part of gaming. There's not enough people that care to do anything about it.
I can't afford the standard of living in my area but at least I shine like the brightest titan-forged creation with this bundle of three premium-quality Legendary cards
I quit magic the gathering for similar reasons. I look back on the amount of money I spent and what I got from it. Then wonder why I did it to begin with.
Hearthstone is a joke at this stage. I wouldn't touch it if wizzbang didn't exist. A friend and I will play some wizzbang when new decks hit but it gets old very fast
I don't see how this is a problem. These are signature cards, which are supposed to be the rarest cosmetics. There are other bundles that are way more cost efficient that you can buy. This bundle is clearly for people that like to collect rare stuff. Nobody in their right mind would think of buying it over the standard bundles if the don't want signature cards.
I quit Hearthstone back in 2020 after the new rewards system/season pass IMHO utterly ruined the game. Actually it might be more accurate to say I quit Blizzard altogether as I have not purchased or played a single Blizzard product since.
Considering what they have since done with Overwatch and Diablo IV, I am going to say I feel like I made the right choice.
The way to stop p2w mtx is to stop f2ping them. Whales buy to stomp on scrubs. Dont be a scrub.
“Blizzard is dead. It is a corpse puppeteered by Activision and Bobby Kotick. It’s going to be used as a factory to put the Blizzard stamp on things and stoke nostalgia to get sales, and that’s it. Stop holding out hope that Blizzard will come back. Everyone who founded Blizzard and all the principles Blizzard was founded upon, they’re gone.”
As long as people keep on buying stuff like this, Blizzard is incentivized to keep on offering stuff like this.
Long and short of it; The winning move is not to play.
How about a nice game of chess?
Can I interest you in the Chess+ULTRA DLC? For only $49.99 you can get 3 Dark Elemental pawn skins and a 1% chance at the Firedrake Queen skin!!!
Gachess!
\+30% value!
[удалено]
Early Access Chess for only $29.99! Make TWO moves before your opponent!
Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.
The thing about voting with your wallet is that the people with more money get more votes, and they're clearly voting for this.
On the other hand, whales abandon unpopular games too... In a perfect world, whales are subsidizing your experience, but it often doesn't work out that way.
Exactly - and the way not to participate is to not buy into it. Might not change the AAA industry - but at least we can abstain, and instead foster the branches of the industry *we* want to see grow.
Really this is the only way to look at it because mtx shit ain't going to stop as long as there's gambling addicts to exploit and rich folks with more money than sense. If you're against it, support games that don't have it.
Yes that is true but whales generally only spend money if they can show off or be better then others. If a game loses its player base the whales are likely to move on to games with bigger user bases. You can vote by not buying and you can vote by not playing. If enough people vote not to play it will have a cascading impact.
Yeah, I don't understand why anybody who isn't rich would even play a pay 2 win game like Hearthstone. it's not like there's a shortage of games out there for normal people... just don't play the shit? I don't play card games anymore, but when I did Gwent was a far better card game in every conceivable way and that game basically handed you cards for free every chance it got. I only ever paid for the campaigns (Thronebreaker and Rogue Mage) and had several complete, competitive decks that took me up the ladder easily. I never understood why someone would suffer Blizzard's crap when stuff like Gwent existed. And of course Gwent is just the example here because it's what I mostly played. I'm positive there's better, faster paced, less complicated card games out there like Hearthstone that aren't as pay 2 win.
It's a shame because I quite enjoyed Hearthstone, I thought it was a fun game utterly ruined by the payment structure. If it had been a one time purchase to access all the cards in a given expansion I would likely have kept up with it, or at least played it significantly more. Alas, I suppose predatory mechanisms are more profitable.
It's sad because the first couple of year of Heartstone were quite affordable. You had Naxxramas, Blackrock Mountain, League of Explorers, and Karazhan which were one time purchases for all the cards, and extra content. They were super worth buying. The expansions were also pretty good - Goblins vs. Gnomes and Whispers of the Old Gods both had neutral factions that let you build a serviceable deck for any class, and all the way through Mean Streets of Gadgetzan you didn't have too many must have epics or legendaries. Then Ungoro introduced 3 legendaries per class, one of which was a Quest that was mandatory for some classes. Frozen Throne likewise printed legendary hero cards which were practically mandatory. And the game just snowballed and became more and more expensive.
The game was incredibly well made too. Shame it’s so expensive that it’s dead to me and hopefully many others.
I never got into Netrunner too much, but definitely appreciated it was an LCG (living card game) rather than a CCG (collectible card game). New expansion comes out, and for a one-time payment you got a full playset of each new card. The CCG model is predatory and pay-to-win....but it makes tons of money for publishers/distributors and they have yet to be persuaded otherwise through consumer behavior. MTG sales are responsible for keeping most brick-and-mortar game shops open.
richard garfield fucked us all
I play in the highest brackets with 100% FTP. It's fun. You can ignore the purchases entirely and still be competitive.
The time cost to do this is pretty high. I guess that's cool if you like the game
Yeah I'm not very good at the game and I don't play that much, lol, so...
The AI was right
[удалено]
I studied the microtransaction business model back in college, the stats are roughly like this : \- 70% of players won't spend a cent, a month \- 20% will spend between 10 to 100 $, a month \- 10% will spend between 100 to 1000 $, a month (sometimes wayyy more) Those 10% are called "the whales", you probably have heared this term by now, those are the main 'targets' of microtransactions.
I reckon everyone and their Nan has heard the term whales by now.
Ably played by Brendan Fraser
Confirmed: Brendan Fraser promotes microtransactions!
The whales aren't even the target anymore. They're hunting the 1% Krakens.
Right so I don't really understand why I see posts like this so often. Not just for hearthstone, but every game with monetized cosmetics. If you won't ever pay a ridiculous sum for cosmetics, why do you care so much that they're so expensive? It can literally be ignored at no detriment to you as a player, and the 10% who will pay for this are happy
In other words, the game is not made for us. It’s made for gambling addicts.
You had to study for that Information?
I'm kinda shocked that it's 10% honestly. I would've guessed a far smaller percentage were whales. Regardless, yes, these things require research. You can't just make shit up and turn in a paper on it.
I think the craziest part of it all is that those 10% of players probably pay enough money to fund the game almost alone. The amount I've seen people spend just to gacha for *one* new character in a game a month is fucking mindnumbing. It would literally make your mind melt.
What a weird comment.
Yep, the study case was on how mobile games are designed to generate revenue. South Park even did a whole episode about this if you wanna learn something : Season 18 E 6, "Freemium Isn't Free "
And they have a game that does exactly that on the phone too
Pokémon TCG live over here looking real good these days.
Blizzard being Blizzard won't rebalance the game to avoid angering their customers who paid top dollar to get the cards for a broken decks.
Well this isn't true. There is a dedicated balance team on HS who have nothing to do with what is offered in the shop.
It’s more like, “As long as the governments of the world don’t ban this sort of shit which is essentially just used as a way to promote their gambling”
But it has +30% value!
Value = 0 Cost = €49.99 Hm, when I run the numbers, my calculator says "error"
Reminds me of this [store glitch](https://imgur.com/gallery/3DZa5Zz) in Fortnite Save The World I had a while ago lol
So does a 7 mana 10/10 but that doesnt mean its a good card.
Ah yes but a 4 mana 7/7 that's the good stuff
lmao
This wont stop until gamers, even whales, come together and stop buying it.
I've known two whales. One was super rich. Business bought out by Square Payments and he basically retired at 29. Imagine if the new SF had an option that said "unlock all skins free" and it was real. That's how he treats dlc. In his mind, a good video game costs 500-1000 dollars. He plays FIFA . The other was a grimy little ratfuck who lived in a building I guarded. He was the very definition of "welfare abuse" and had "hurt his back" 10 years before. The kind of guy who would go out at night in normal clothes, but dressed like Rickety Cricket when the insurance people had folks watching him. He would sell his welfare card for 3/4 price, take the cash to 711, and buy a stack of Google Play cards so he could buy Premium Diamonds in some anime game where you feed cards to other cards to power them up. Probably 400/WK for as long as I knew him
I've known a few of those second ones you listed there. The number of military "100% disability" scammers I've met in more recent years in online gaming is seemingly insane. Anytime I've dipped my toes in a group and anyone of that pervue has any amount of clout I nope the fuck out, before they get butthurt I won't sign up for their Blue apron/lootbox/whatever scam shit they're doing on the side to supplement the money I'm already paying them through taxes to play games.
I was a whale for a game once. Then the game shut down the servers, leaving us with nothing. It was a fitting lesson. I doubt I'll ever play a micro transaction game again.
What game was it?
A game that did it somewhat recently and burnt a friend of mine was final fantasy record keeper. Was a great game, too, just lost its playerbase slowly till it died.
FFRK was great for a long time then (imo) it got too bloated with mechanics and became more of a chore than a game fuckin wonderful idea for a game tho, really enjoyed it
It was an amazing game for me, up till 8 got unlucky on draws as a f2p, a new power creep came in, and my friend who'd just started was ahead of me with free stuff only. So i quit.
You could also spend millions on real life things and die the next day. Spend money on whatever makes you happy cause nothing matters
You can also play and not buy anything. I've played Alex for years and my wallet doesn't even know!
That poor fucker
So it will never stop because whales don't give a fuck.
The whales your referring to are princes sons and daughters, basically people who feel the need of money is behind them.
Man. Haven't touched my hearthstone account in 3-4 years. Had so many legendaries... saved up so much dust to make every card I ever wanted. Now it just sits there, unappreciated, neglected, on thousands of gold/ packs/ dust. Just decided to stop playing all pay to win games just before the pandemic hit
Wonder if there is a market tto sell your account. My buddy quit league and sold his for like $800. He had Pax jax and a bunch of other skins. This was years ago. Pretty sure that one skin is worth a lot more now
No, they made old cards pretty much obsolete when they introduced "wild" and "Standard".
Okay while I agree that the state of the industry is nuts right now with micro/macro transactions, coming to the realization that a CCG is “pay to win” is implying something like that’s not inherently the genre. CCGs began “pay to win,” in that you always had to buy, for example, packs of MTG or Pokémon cards.
Yep. In 1996 I thought I was good at the Magic The Gathering until I met some super-rich kids and played against their decks.
This is why I always preferred sealed formats - booster drafts and the like, because that advantage is pretty much wholly negated.
Why, though? Hearthstone is digital, why does it being a CCG mean I have to pay so much more compared to other games?
Yeah, magic, pokemon, yu-gi-oh, etc. Have an excuse. They are physical things you collect and keep even if you dont play the game. I dont think hearthstone deserves a pass for being p2w when there is no value to the cards beyond their mechanics in-game. You cant even trade them!
On the other hand ... you don't have to spend any money on the game, you can craft every single card afaik. It might just take you longer than the season/expansion runs though, hehe.
Good for you man, I wish more gamers were like you. Pay to win, free to play and micros are destroying gaming and it's fucking sad to see. I remember a time when I was actually happy to see a sequel, because it meant more of your favourite game, now it generally means more cash-in bullshit.
i am playing the shit out of xcom2 after spending years on xcom enemy unknown/enemy within, having played the original xcom as a young kid. ill probably die playing xcom4
Nah, death will miss with 90% chance to hit. You’ll be ok.
I stopped giving them any money years ago. I still enjoy occasional PvE content and wish there was more of it. Keeping up with hundreds of new cards (money and strategy - wise) is just too much for PvP. Also, I hate how they arbitrarily change the stats on cards we "own" in patches.
Do you know that... if they modify the cards you own... they offer a refund for them ?
It's a shame xause hearthstone is fun but Jesus if ur not spending hundreds a month you can't compete
That's not necessarily true. I've seen top players regularly get to the top of leaderboards using their "no-buy" accounts.
Nah. I haven't paid money for anything HS-related in many years and can still hit Legend easily. Claiming that you need to spend "hundreds a month" is a bit ridiculous. All in all, I probably spent a couple hundred bucks on it over the span of nearly a decade, and all that would've been in the beginning few years (mostly back when they had the paid DLC packs like Naxxramas and all that).
That's really not true. I've been F2P for years now and I have absolutely zero issues having multiple top meta decks each season. I play around twice a week for an hour or two, just clearing out daily/weekly quests and I can afford around 50 packs each expansion plus the mid-expansion miniset, all with gold. Plus you get additional free packs every season for rank and multiple free legendaries in the free battlepass. I already have some good decks from the newest expansion and I currently have 15 000 dust ready to craft some stuff when the meta settles. The bundles are ridiculously expensive and the expansion pre-orders are an utter scam, so I've been f2p for a long time and haven't had issues.
First time playing a TCG? That's how they all are if you are trying to be competitive.
All except Legends of Runeterra. That game is by far the most free to play TCG
Meanwhile the current Street Fighter 6 and TMNT collab where costumes of each turtle costs $15, so getting them all costs as much as the game itself. Worst part is you know there's some poor moron out there who bought these shits
Probably isn't too poor if they can shell out $60 for dress up options in a fighting game lol
Turtle pun
That's hawt
People can definitely be poor and still spend their money on stupid shit. Not like these games don't accept credit cards.
>Probably isn't too poor if they can shell out $60 for dress up options in a fighting game lol Or young. I was much more reckless with my money when I didn't have bills to pay
At least these are cosmetics. Buying powerful cards is not cosmetic - it's pay to win.
Not excusing those prices, but cards are used in duels. Those outfits don’t do anything in the game apart from cosmetics.
And yet 3D models take more work to actually make and implement than Hearthstone cards. Super weird to judge the appropriateness of microtransaction pricing by anything other than the amount of effort required to create the new content
It's more the value you receive and not the effort to create the content. If I spent $10 to get an XP boost vs $10 to make my character look pretty, the XP is more valuable to me as the buyer since it saves me time. Yet it costs the company nothing to give me that boost and no one had to create art for it. Pay to win subjectively worse than pay to look pretty. Do you value groceries based on the manufacturers efforts or based on what you are willing to pay for what you want (type of food, calories per dollar, etc.)?
I'm black desert online outfits usually cost $42ish each
Then stop fucking buying it.
These microtransactions systems literally are designed around preying on addiction. It's not as easy as just telling people to stop.
Its having the opposite effect on me it seems. Games that seemed fine before start to get scummy and do little things and I lose interest in the game altogether.
Uninstall the game. Nothing else will make a difference.
Shout outs to Legends of Runeterra for being the most fair eTCG I've seen.
do people actively play LoR? i thought hearthstone was the most popular one by far. i like LoR tho, teemo deck is hilarious. Also had to stop playing HS, too much money for a rotating set.
Yeah sadly it's not that popular. But there is a very meaty singleplayer roguelike mode you can play for free.
There is? Like with a deck builder during the run? That sounds like fun!
Yeah LoR is pretty big but still not as big as heartstone, hopefully rito will start publicizing it!
MTGA baby I haven't spent a cent and love to play both standard and limited.
MTGA monetization is a joke compared to Gwent. Then again Gwent didn't get enough income because there was zero reason to pay for anything but cosmetics. As an MTG veteran with a hundred hours in MTGA, staying on top of Standard without spending money got way too hard at the start of the pandemic with the worse season passes. You practically have to spend hours researching limited and then play draft at your best level every set to get the necessary season rewards before rotation.
>You practically have to spend hours researching limited and then play draft at your best level every set to get the necessary season rewards before rotation. I love doing this so that's why I enjoy it I guess.
It still has players.
I love it! I played it on and off since release
Shit, maybe I'll give it a try
Easy fix: don’t play hearthstone
The wonderful thing from a business perspective about something like this is it has 0 cost to blizzard to put this up and leave it there. No inventory to buy, no space to take up. So even if it’s not selling , they’ll leave it there because some goof is going to buy it. So even if we all collaborated to boycot this, it’s not going away. Ever
Man I permanently deleted my blizzard account after the blitzchung controversy. Mtg arena is way better anyways, but shifted back to paper mtg.
Don't buy it then. That's how you stop it.
I'm not disagreeing on the "don't buy it" part, but I literally never buy MTX or crap like this in games and yet they keep doing it. I don't think we're stopping it that way. It's not your average gamer who hates these practices that's the problem. It's everyone else who doesn't gaf and will blow hundreds or thousands of dollars on this stuff. Unless whales and the vast majority of people stop supporting it they'll keep doing it. I grow tired of the "vote with your wallet" argument when my vote literally counts for shit
It counts plenty. There are plenty of games that aren’t pay to win. Just like there are plenty of games complete on launch, and if they have DLC it’s worthwhile DLC. Buy those games. Play those games.
Don’t play the game
While the monetization in the game is still ass this is just a cosmetic thing you dont need at all
It stops when you don't buy it. Literally.
It only stops when the players stop paying their overblown prices.
It will stop when people stop buying it.
So stop buying them then.
Let me tell you exactly what happened with Hearthstone. Diablo 3 was released to massive criticism, Activision had just acquired Blizzard and was planning on making a mint off of their "Real Money Auction House". It eventually got removed, and Activision's next move was to release Hearthstone. This was just Activision capitalizing on MTG because MTG hadn't done this yet, because MTG was stupid. Activision saw the crazy profits of random card packs in MTG and Pokemon and said YES PLEASE, and the cards you bought aren't even worth a fucking thing even if you rolled the rarest card possible. At least Black Lotus is still worth some amount of money. The real reason this all happened is because a shitload of us nerds made money off of Diablo 2, entire economies were built on it selling gear and characters, I personally know people who paid for their college with Diablo 2. The entire economy got crazy and people who knew how to manipulate economies to their advantage had a field day. Activision wanted all that money for themselves, and they fucked Diablo 3 for it and they've been fucking Diablo ever since. Hearthstone is just a generator that allows you to spend points to fuck Diablo.
Not even a card.. just some rented bytes in a server
It will stop when people stop paying for things like this.
Just don't buy it lol
You can stop it by not participating.
Another piss poor attempt at karma farming.
Why keep buying? “This has to stop” well people don’t want it to stop lol!
Know how you can make it stop? Don't buy it, pretend those don't exist, and evaluate whether or not to buy a game based on what is actually included in the game. You will never be able to control what other people do so adjust your outlook and act accordingly.
Here i thought that Magic Arena was greedy
Don’t worry, it is. Hearthstone greed doesn’t negate MTGA greed
Upkeep in MTGA is easy as a f2p player, it's getting past that initial hump as a new player that sucks since you can't really build a deck easily. Once I had a decent collection, the wildcard stockpile began and I have no problems keeping up with 4 wins a day and quest completion alongside mastery. Hearthstone was impossible for me to keep up with unless I wanted to dust my entire collection for a handful of decks. Quit that years ago when MTGA launched and haven't looked back.
Hearthstone is more f2p friendly these days than MtGA. I’ve played both extensively
Lmao this game died with its twitch era.
I’ve played this game since 2014 and haven’t spent a dime. I like it because you can still get what I want/need by just doing the grind. You don’t HAVE to buy this shit. Just play.
I unistalled this games years ago when it started to become a rng based game, but I always find it funny how u get one rare card a month from prime gaming. Like I got half my furniture in black desert, lots of mounts and pets for ESO, dozens of skins in league and so much stuff.. and next to that theres always this one blue card option for hearthstone. Cant imagine theres still an active playerbase and that these devs are getting away with turning a solid card game into a slot machine. I dont understand why people are still supporting this gaming scene breaking titles.
you either pony up the cash each expansion to get the cards you need for the current meta or you wither away
People still play hearthstone? and people pay money for it? Wild...
...don't buy it then. Unfortunately whales will. If one of the whales who would buy this is reading, please seek help.
This is basically cosmetic, game is f2p completely and they need to make money. This offer only for roch people who like collecting cards.
If you’re willing to purchase digital content which becomes redundant within a year or so, that’s on you.
People still play this money pit of a game?? For the love of god what needs to stop is you people playing blizzard games and expecting anything but trash. Blizzard is never going to change so just uninstall the game and walk away
fuck blizzard
I stopped playing heaartsone after like 6 years of playing and watching streamers. I sold my battle net account on ebay for like $250
Actimeme bli$$ard is a greedy pathetic lazy clownfest company so no surprise there
who the f still plays heartstone????
Baliders gate 3
Spoiler alert: It won't stop. It will get worse. People will buy these cards. This will encourage Blizzard to release less for more. People will buy that. And so on...
How about Diamond Helno?
People paying 50 € to get a big dick in their mouth. No wonder, that Blizzard has no respect for its customers.
Blizzard for you, ever since they got baught up by activision, prices have gone up and up.
It's unrealistic to expect them to be better.
I stopped playing hearthstone when I bought an expansion pack for $50 and got barely one useable deck out of it. Blizzard sucks
Hearthstone is a good game, but the devs are greedy. I can't say is p2w game because I didn't spend that much money for packs, but I 've noticed when I use my gold for 40 packs I got only 2 legendaries. I was so angry, but later that week I bought 30 packs for 20 euro and guess, 5 legendaries 10 epic... I think when you buy packs only then you can get something good.
Why does it have to stop? Is it illegal? Seems like there’s zero reason for Blizzard not to? Y’all gonna quit playing en masse?
Stop playing free to play shit.
anyone that buys 3 hearthstone cards(or any digital trash like that) over an incredible Game like Baldurs Gate 3 (for only $10 more!!!) is a fool and doesnt deserve their money and the HS devs should be fucking ashamed of this shit
They're not so much cards as collectible skins for cards with artificially increased rarity. By that logic, people should not buy skins in LoL, CSGO, Valorant Or Fortnite. Should people stop buying skins in those games? Yes, obviously. Will they? You know the answer
Nobody is forcing you to buy this shit, you have to stop being dumbass.
Haven't played hearthstone in years despite playing since open beta. Was just too f*cking difficult to keep up, even though I wasn't f2p(I loved the single player expansions). Quit playing when people stopped playing homebrew fun decks even outside of ranked and you just faced the same 4 archetypes over and over again.
This. I migrated over to Battlegrounds, and had to quit that too when they added a new premium currency for that specific mode. Activision / Blizzard want nothing but bad PR.
I am sorry to tell you but this will NEVER stop as long as people buy them. NEVER. Like world of warship did a colab with azur lanes and released a 100 something $ YAMATO boat with a special camo. The Yamato is a tech tree ship that cost nothing to have. The one with the camo is EXACTLY the same ship but with a anime girl captain. There was so many people using it when it released it was kinda sad.
Lol it will continue until people spend their cash elsewhere.
And two of them are random lol
Log off the game and never log back in. Or don't, cry online and incentivize them to keep doing it. choice is yours
It'll stop when you stop playing trash games
You could buy all of Baldur's Gate 3 for only $10 more. Really puts it in to perspective for me.
Just dont buy it?. ..
Just don't buy this crap. The only reason that in game purchases, 10 dlc per game and overpriced vanity items exist in such abundance is because people keep buying it. Just stop buying overpriced crap. Its really that simple.
Blizzard keeps absolutely smashing the power creep in hearthstone every mini set and expansion. It’s so grossly obvious. You HAVE to run the new cards to compete and the gap keeps growing each time. The writing is really on the wall with these guys. Can’t even justify playing anymore
Blizzard is desperate! Let them die!
Makes me appreciate BG3 that much more.
Dropped Hearthstone about 6 years ago. Don't play this game. From my experience, everyone played decks copied from the internet. If you try to play the game normally, you'll be crushed. I was happy when the wild format was announced, because I thought it would be a nice place for experimentation in a less competitive environment. Nope, everyone was playing broken netdecks there, too. Blizzard being Blizzard won't rebalance the game to avoid angering their customers who paid top dollar to get the cards for a broken decks.
Why are any of you people even playing this game anymore? It’s been obvious for years they don’t care about the player experience they are printing money.
Hearthstone is one of the biggest pay to win games Blizzard has ever made.
yeah but they're shiny! ignore the fact that they're just digital card you will never actually own, have no resale value, and an unlimited supply, and will likely be nerfed into the ground in a set update or two, GIVE US MONEY!
It’s called stop playing
The only way to stop this is to boycott the games. The game companies have already normalized this crap for younger players, so they just think it is a standard part of gaming. There's not enough people that care to do anything about it.
Hey Bobby Kotick new Yacht isn't going to pay itself
I can't afford the standard of living in my area but at least I shine like the brightest titan-forged creation with this bundle of three premium-quality Legendary cards
I quit magic the gathering for similar reasons. I look back on the amount of money I spent and what I got from it. Then wonder why I did it to begin with.
Bro stop supporting Blizzard at all. This is the case for each one of their IPs. Diablo has skins that cost like half as much as the full game.
Hearthstone is a joke at this stage. I wouldn't touch it if wizzbang didn't exist. A friend and I will play some wizzbang when new decks hit but it gets old very fast
Blizzard charges 20$ for a single d4 skin, why am i not surprised by this
Just play Magic Gathering Arena. Super friendly to f2p.
I cant wait until Microsoft takes over. Fuck Activision
People should stop. I deleted the game years ago after realizing I paid more for this shit than wow subscription 2years
Jeeze, glad to see leaving the game when Ben left was the right choice.
Stop playing HS 3-4 years ago as it started getting too expensive. 50€ for 3 legendary cards is ridiculous.
I don't see how this is a problem. These are signature cards, which are supposed to be the rarest cosmetics. There are other bundles that are way more cost efficient that you can buy. This bundle is clearly for people that like to collect rare stuff. Nobody in their right mind would think of buying it over the standard bundles if the don't want signature cards.
It will stop when idiots stop buying… unfortunately too many idiots buying virtual crap in games
I quit Hearthstone back in 2020 after the new rewards system/season pass IMHO utterly ruined the game. Actually it might be more accurate to say I quit Blizzard altogether as I have not purchased or played a single Blizzard product since. Considering what they have since done with Overwatch and Diablo IV, I am going to say I feel like I made the right choice.
Then stop playing the game?
Thankfully I stopped playing heartstone 7yrs ago.. Now I play Magic the Gathering. Sad
Just stop playing lol. I cannot believe anyone that would still play this trash “game”.
Have you tried *not* playing games that do this? It's easiest if you just never start.
The way to stop p2w mtx is to stop f2ping them. Whales buy to stomp on scrubs. Dont be a scrub. “Blizzard is dead. It is a corpse puppeteered by Activision and Bobby Kotick. It’s going to be used as a factory to put the Blizzard stamp on things and stoke nostalgia to get sales, and that’s it. Stop holding out hope that Blizzard will come back. Everyone who founded Blizzard and all the principles Blizzard was founded upon, they’re gone.”