TLDR: At what I call the "moderately high end" of Hearthstone, it still only costs $1 per day for essentially unlimited playtime. I spend more than that on Mountain Dew and coffee.
While explaining economics to my son and why I'm willing to buy for him premium currency and items in some games but not others, I managed to change my mind a lot on how expensive Hearthstone is.
I'll start quickly with a little perspective, since I reached my new conclusion by comparison with other games.
In games like Castle Crush or Clash of Clans, unlocking things with premium currency doesn't ultimately help with the reward system -- they just allow the player to more quickly get to the next paywall. The game is literally pay to play ... you'll either continually pay with $IRL or with a LOT of time (typically in the form of waiting while unable to even play the game).
In titles like Forza, Fallout, Witcher, Civilization, Mass Effect, DragonAge, etc, purchasing the game allows you to play as much or as little as you want. There is no paywall. Granted, there's typically a point where you beat, finish, or just lose interest in the game, but you can still pay once and play ad nauseam.
I don't spend money on games with persistent unavoidable paywalls.
So onto Hearthstone now ...
Prior to each expansion, Blizzard offers a 50-pack pre-order for $50 USD. During the ~120 days between expansions, players can easily earn 7200g [at 60g per day for wins + daily quests] -- or 72 more packs. So for $50 every ~3 months, a player can open 122 packs per expansion. (This is generally enough cards to amass a decent, competitive collection.)
To really feel like you're getting the most out of Hearthstone, I think 180 packs per expansion is a great goal. That means another $70 USD for 60 more packs. At a grand total of $120 per ~120, that comes out to $1 per day. I spend more than that on Mountain Dew and coffee.
Unlike many popular mobile games, Hearthstone has no hard paywall. The more you win at the game, the more you earn, which makes it easier still to win more games, which makes it easier to -- you get the picture. If anything, Hearthstone's paywall is very soft, because the alternative to $IRL is to play the game more -- not wait for some arbitrary timer to count down.
Like for-purchase titles, Hearthstone also permits unlimited play. For me, most of these titles are played out after about 2 months. At $60 a pop for a AAA title every ~2 months, that comes out to $1 per day -- the same as Hearthstone near its high end.
It's worth noting, I think, that if your entire gaming budget is $1 per day, Hearthstone can monopolize that budget -- whereas spending the budget on for-purchase titles means an entirely new game/experience every couple months. But if your budget is more than that, Hearthstone may not hurt as much as it initially seems.
Trust me HS is getting even better with free content. If anyone has played mtg here than you would now how ludicrously expensive some cards could be. Some of the top legacy (wild) decks in the game reach the 800 dollar mark for 60 cards. This is why i hate people who keep on bitching about the f2p experience even though blizz is taking more steps in the right direction.
I have no idea why you're comparing hearth to other genres. Compare it to other tcgs, Hearthstone is extremely expensive.after a year and $200 and a shit load of arena, my collection is a meme. Gwent,hex,shadowverse...my collections are already larger and better while being f2p.(eh i spent $5 on shadowverse lol)
Hearthstone has more in Common with Magic the gathering than it dose with gwent. Hearthstone isn't very expensive when compared to tangible card games however the f2p experience might be a bit worse but like i said team 5 is taking steps in the right direction. I don't get the comparison between hs and gwent they are two very different games and gwent dosent appeal to me i don't like the wither lore or games and i don't like the card game. I think shadowverse is alright it just isn't interesting enough to hold my attention however i'm getting into the tes card game because i'm a fucking fanatic when it comes to anything tes related.
I will just point out something. Hearthstone does have a timer, just in a different way. You are only allowed to get 100 gold per day for wins you do. After that, you can't progress in that aspect. So they do have a limitation, one for the gold progress. If they allowed players to earn as much gold as possible in a day, then it would be limitless. Currently, you grind 100 gold, and wait until the daily limit resets to continue doing it again.
Still nowhere near as bad as the timer limitations other games have. "I just paid 1000 gold to build a farm, now I have to wait another 8 hours before I can do anything in this game or pay 5$ to speed this up"... Yeah, I don't see that kind of game as fun.
To be fair, you have to win 30 games of hearthstone to hit that 100 gold per day limit, which, assuming a winrate of 50%, is 60 games every day, maybe 50 if you have a really good deck or are a really good player. I play a lot of video games, and playing 60 games of hearthstone every day sounds insane to me. You can debate about whether the daily rewards system or the 10 gold per three wins system gives enough money, but the 100 gold a day limit isn't the paywall the vast majority of players are worried about (i had no idea it existed before now), and sounds like more of a sanity system to me than a paywall. If you've reached that limit, it's probably a good idea to get off the computer anyway.
I agree with you that the second kind of timer system is horrible, whenever I see that type of system in a game, I run away from the game as fast as I can and never look back.
To be fair, you have to win 30 games of hearthstone to hit that 100 gold per day limit, which, assuming a winrate of 50%, is 60 games every day, maybe 50 if you have a really good deck or are a really good player. I play a lot of video games, and playing 60 games of hearthstone every day sounds insane to me. You can debate about whether the daily rewards system or the 10 gold per three wins system gives enough money, but the 100 gold a day limit isn't the paywall the vast majority of players are worried about (i had no idea it existed before now), and sounds like more of a sanity system to me than a paywall. If you've reached that limit, it's probably a good idea to get off the computer anyway.
I agree with you that the second kind of timer system is horrible, whenever I see that type of system in a game, I run away from the game as fast as I can and never look back.
There was a time when I had a lot more free time than I do now, where I would hit the daily limit mostly every single day. Regarless of whether most players don't reach it, I still don't see why it's there. Currently it doesn't affect me at all, as I don't reach the limit anymore, but I think it should be removed. Any Pro or Streamer in this game reaches the limit basically every day, they play a lot and it's not hard to reach it when you dedicate fully to the game. It would even be good for free to play players or simply players that don't pay huge amounts in this game. If they have the free time to invest in this game, they should get something for it.
In some ways, our time ends up invested in this game... Either by grinding for the free gold, or by paying with money that we earned from using our time to work a job.
I think what redwings was getting at is that's a lot of time to be playing hearthstone each day. If you average just 5 minutes per game it could take upwards of 4-5 hours potentially for that 100 gold. Not really a statement about them giving enough gold, but more about that being a lot of time to be playing, and they probably decided to de-incentivize it at that point because they don't want to have people win-binging all day long. I think this is a fair limitation of time, but it likely won't be increased if it only increases the required time; they would increase it if/when they decide to increase the gold rewards (which would be nice).
I've been playing HS since beta, have spent probably $300-$400 on it and play fairly casually, maybe 3-4 games a day on average. The fact I'm still playing the game > 2 years in means that is money well spent. I have basically all the cards I'd ever want and generally open 100 packs or so per expansion.
So I've spent < $1 per day, and I can't think of any other game I've played for > 3 months in the same time I've been playing HS.
Yeah ... having come from the Death Trap that is Mobile Strike, Hearthstone is beyond reasonable. I have told the whole story several times on here already, so I won't go into full detail, but long story short, I spent over $70,000 USD on Mobile Strike in just over a year playing. I was able to recover about $40k of that through various means, but I still learned a $30k lesson about gaming addiction. Luckily, for me, the loss wasn't catastrophic as it was for others I played with ... I saw life savings disappear, marriages dissolve, and multiple suicides. That game, and others like it are pure evil. Hearthstone is nothing, even at the worst possible level, compared to those games.
Pic below is just part of one single day of what Mobile Strike can do to ya. (currency is foreign ... figure about 1/10th to get it into USD)
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I wanna glide down, over Mulholland I wanna write her, name in the sky I wanna free fall, out into nothin' Gonna leave this, world for awhile
One reason I can think of that there is a limit to how much gold you can gain via wins each day is to discourage the use of bots. If you could gain unlimited gold we'd see a proliferation of bots out there just farming gold all day for accounts.
Trust me HS is getting even better with free content. If anyone has played mtg here than you would now how ludicrously expensive some cards could be. Some of the top legacy (wild) decks in the game reach the 800 dollar mark for 60 cards. This is why i hate people who keep on bitching about the f2p experience even though blizz is taking more steps in the right direction.
Yeah... waaaaaaaay more than that. The dirt-cheapest decks in Legacy are around that much. Some decks are well over $3000
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Its fangs are in your flesh before its hiss leaves your ears.
Yeah ... having come from the Death Trap that is Mobile Strike, Hearthstone is beyond reasonable. I have told the whole story several times on here already, so I won't go into full detail, but long story short, I spent over $70,000 USD on Mobile Strike in just over a year playing. I was able to recover about $40k of that through various means, but I still learned a $30k lesson about gaming addiction. Luckily, for me, the loss wasn't catastrophic as it was for others I played with ... I saw life savings disappear, marriages dissolve, and multiple suicides. That game, and others like it are pure evil. Hearthstone is nothing, even at the worst possible level, compared to those games.
Pic below is just part of one single day of what Mobile Strike can do to ya. (currency is foreign ... figure about 1/10th to get it into USD)
Thank you for sharing. I hope things are better for you now.
To be fair, you have to win 30 games of hearthstone to hit that 100 gold per day limit, which, assuming a winrate of 50%, is 60 games every day, maybe 50 if you have a really good deck or are a really good player. I play a lot of video games, and playing 60 games of hearthstone every day sounds insane to me. You can debate about whether the daily rewards system or the 10 gold per three wins system gives enough money, but the 100 gold a day limit isn't the paywall the vast majority of players are worried about (i had no idea it existed before now), and sounds like more of a sanity system to me than a paywall. If you've reached that limit, it's probably a good idea to get off the computer anyway.
I agree with you that the second kind of timer system is horrible, whenever I see that type of system in a game, I run away from the game as fast as I can and never look back.
There was a time when I had a lot more free time than I do now, where I would hit the daily limit mostly every single day. Regarless of whether most players don't reach it, I still don't see why it's there. Currently it doesn't affect me at all, as I don't reach the limit anymore, but I think it should be removed. Any Pro or Streamer in this game reaches the limit basically every day, they play a lot and it's not hard to reach it when you dedicate fully to the game. It would even be good for free to play players or simply players that don't pay huge amounts in this game. If they have the free time to invest in this game, they should get something for it.
In some ways, our time ends up invested in this game... Either by grinding for the free gold, or by paying with money that we earned from using our time to work a job.
I think what redwings was getting at is that's a lot of time to be playing hearthstone each day. If you average just 5 minutes per game it could take upwards of 4-5 hours potentially for that 100 gold. Not really a statement about them giving enough gold, but more about that being a lot of time to be playing, and they probably decided to de-incentivize it at that point because they don't want to have people win-binging all day long. I think this is a fair limitation of time, but it likely won't be increased if it only increases the required time; they would increase it if/when they decide to increase the gold rewards (which would be nice).
Yeah ... having come from the Death Trap that is Mobile Strike, Hearthstone is beyond reasonable. I have told the whole story several times on here already, so I won't go into full detail, but long story short, I spent over $70,000 USD on Mobile Strike in just over a year playing. I was able to recover about $40k of that through various means, but I still learned a $30k lesson about gaming addiction. Luckily, for me, the loss wasn't catastrophic as it was for others I played with ... I saw life savings disappear, marriages dissolve, and multiple suicides. That game, and others like it are pure evil. Hearthstone is nothing, even at the worst possible level, compared to those games.
Pic below is just part of one single day of what Mobile Strike can do to ya. (currency is foreign ... figure about 1/10th to get it into USD)
Thank you for sharing. I hope things are better for you now.
- Mart
Thank man .. and yeah .. much better. Wouldn't play another game like that now if I had too. And so far, with HS, I have spent just a little over $200, which is well within means. Ill buy a bundle of packs here and there just to work on a collection, but at least here, I don't feel that I am forced to spend. Cards don't grant skill, so having every card in the game isn't going to increase my rank one bit.
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I wanna glide down, over Mulholland I wanna write her, name in the sky I wanna free fall, out into nothin' Gonna leave this, world for awhile
I have no idea why you're comparing hearth to other genres. Compare it to other tcgs, Hearthstone is extremely expensive...
I compare one game to another game for the same reason I compare one form of entertainment to another form of entertainment for the same reason I compare one unnecessary expense to another unnecessary expense: perspective.
Since I'm not restricted to exclusively playing CCGs/TCGs, I don't restrict myself to exclusively comparing Hearthstone to other CGs. And since I also have many other entertainment options, I also don't restrict myself ... instead considering them all for a broader perspective.
Pretty much every video game gives me the same sense of enjoyment, so my decision boils down to "How much am I willing to spend on video games, and on which game(s) will I get the most return/pleasure for my expense?" (I like to consider my Soda/Coffee spending to answer the first question.)
Yeah ... having come from the Death Trap that is Mobile Strike, Hearthstone is beyond reasonable. I have told the whole story several times on here already, so I won't go into full detail, but long story short, I spent over $70,000 USD on Mobile Strike in just over a year playing. I was able to recover about $40k of that through various means, but I still learned a $30k lesson about gaming addiction. Luckily, for me, the loss wasn't catastrophic as it was for others I played with ... I saw life savings disappear, marriages dissolve, and multiple suicides. That game, and others like it are pure evil. Hearthstone is nothing, even at the worst possible level, compared to those games.
Pic below is just part of one single day of what Mobile Strike can do to ya. (currency is foreign ... figure about 1/10th to get it into USD)
Wow, that's insane, I'm really glad you've recovered from that and managed to leave that game. I imagine it kind of creeps up on you with the sunk cost fallacy until life is literally not sustainable, you start pursuing a goal and then suddenly another thousand dollars here or there is small compared to what you've already spent? I despise a lot of mobile games for this reason, they're built specifically to lure people in that way and get them to spend more and more money on it. It is a trap, and its a horrible and malicious one. I'm impressed you managed to get out of it after getting that far deep, it could not have been easy.
Yeah ... having come from the Death Trap that is Mobile Strike, Hearthstone is beyond reasonable. I have told the whole story several times on here already, so I won't go into full detail, but long story short, I spent over $70,000 USD on Mobile Strike in just over a year playing. I was able to recover about $40k of that through various means, but I still learned a $30k lesson about gaming addiction. Luckily, for me, the loss wasn't catastrophic as it was for others I played with ... I saw life savings disappear, marriages dissolve, and multiple suicides. That game, and others like it are pure evil. Hearthstone is nothing, even at the worst possible level, compared to those games.
Pic below is just part of one single day of what Mobile Strike can do to ya. (currency is foreign ... figure about 1/10th to get it into USD)
Wow, that's insane, I'm really glad you've recovered from that and managed to leave that game. I imagine it kind of creeps up on you with the sunk cost fallacy until life is literally not sustainable, you start pursuing a goal and then suddenly another thousand dollars here or there is small compared to what you've already spent? I despise a lot of mobile games for this reason, they're built specifically to lure people in that way and get them to spend more and more money on it. It is a trap, and its a horrible and malicious one. I'm impressed you managed to get out of it after getting that far deep, it could not have been easy.
Mobile strike, and Game of War essentially perfected the trap. They employ gambling addiction and psychologists as part of the development team to actually design addiction triggers into the game.
By design, the game forces you into developing personal (yet virtual) relationships with other players via the alliance system, making leaving even that much harder. And it uses a "revolving door" principle with your items and resources, so no matter how good you are today, you will be completely antiquated within a week or so, creating a never ending cycle of spending.
And like you said, they creep you into spending, but once you have a couple hundred bucks in the game, your instinct is to protect that "investment", and the only way to do that is to spend more ... and more. They actually just released another game in the series based on Final Fantasy, so I am sure there is a whole new crop of victims falling into the trap as we speak.
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I wanna glide down, over Mulholland I wanna write her, name in the sky I wanna free fall, out into nothin' Gonna leave this, world for awhile
So as long as you pay 150$ per year EACH year it's not bad? Well duh, i don't know about you bruh but there is no way i'm willing to waste so much money on a game. I'd rather purchase 3 AAA titles with that money.
To each their own. For me, I don't like most games because they are finite. I will tend to binge play a campaign based game, and finish it in a weekend or two. For ones that have a decent multiplayer experience, I can get a little more enjoyment, but most of those have their drawbacks as well, not the least of which is many of them have a pay to win aspect as well (GTA:V Online, for example).
Even if you put Hearthstone into the same perspective as it's "older brother", WoW, it is still more affordable. (I assume WoW is still $15 or so per month to play ... I quit years ago), not to mention the yearly $50-60 expansion.
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I wanna glide down, over Mulholland I wanna write her, name in the sky I wanna free fall, out into nothin' Gonna leave this, world for awhile
The mistake you make here is comparing games cross-genre, if you compare Hearthstone to other online CCGs then it is actually at the bottom of the barrel in terms of value for money.
Comparing any game to certain mobile games will make it look "good value" and triple A is a whole different ballpark that is also usually in completely different genre of games anyway.
I don't get the comparison between the amount if free content between HS and shadowverse, gwent etc. Of course you get more free stuff in the newer games for the sole reason that Hearthstone is much more popular than them. Thus, they need to be more generous to attract people. If Blizzard notices that all their players are leaving for another game then they'll of course do something about it. However, to my knowledge this has not been the case.
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TLDR: At what I call the "moderately high end" of Hearthstone, it still only costs $1 per day for essentially unlimited playtime. I spend more than that on Mountain Dew and coffee.
While explaining economics to my son and why I'm willing to buy for him premium currency and items in some games but not others, I managed to change my mind a lot on how expensive Hearthstone is.
I'll start quickly with a little perspective, since I reached my new conclusion by comparison with other games.
In games like Castle Crush or Clash of Clans, unlocking things with premium currency doesn't ultimately help with the reward system -- they just allow the player to more quickly get to the next paywall. The game is literally pay to play ... you'll either continually pay with $IRL or with a LOT of time (typically in the form of waiting while unable to even play the game).
In titles like Forza, Fallout, Witcher, Civilization, Mass Effect, DragonAge, etc, purchasing the game allows you to play as much or as little as you want. There is no paywall. Granted, there's typically a point where you beat, finish, or just lose interest in the game, but you can still pay once and play ad nauseam.
I don't spend money on games with persistent unavoidable paywalls.
So onto Hearthstone now ...
Prior to each expansion, Blizzard offers a 50-pack pre-order for $50 USD. During the ~120 days between expansions, players can easily earn 7200g [at 60g per day for wins + daily quests] -- or 72 more packs. So for $50 every ~3 months, a player can open 122 packs per expansion. (This is generally enough cards to amass a decent, competitive collection.)
To really feel like you're getting the most out of Hearthstone, I think 180 packs per expansion is a great goal. That means another $70 USD for 60 more packs. At a grand total of $120 per ~120, that comes out to $1 per day. I spend more than that on Mountain Dew and coffee.
Unlike many popular mobile games, Hearthstone has no hard paywall. The more you win at the game, the more you earn, which makes it easier still to win more games, which makes it easier to -- you get the picture. If anything, Hearthstone's paywall is very soft, because the alternative to $IRL is to play the game more -- not wait for some arbitrary timer to count down.
Like for-purchase titles, Hearthstone also permits unlimited play. For me, most of these titles are played out after about 2 months. At $60 a pop for a AAA title every ~2 months, that comes out to $1 per day -- the same as Hearthstone near its high end.
It's worth noting, I think, that if your entire gaming budget is $1 per day, Hearthstone can monopolize that budget -- whereas spending the budget on for-purchase titles means an entirely new game/experience every couple months. But if your budget is more than that, Hearthstone may not hurt as much as it initially seems.
"Nerf Paper," said Rock.
Trust me HS is getting even better with free content. If anyone has played mtg here than you would now how ludicrously expensive some cards could be. Some of the top legacy (wild) decks in the game reach the 800 dollar mark for 60 cards. This is why i hate people who keep on bitching about the f2p experience even though blizz is taking more steps in the right direction.
I have no idea why you're comparing hearth to other genres. Compare it to other tcgs, Hearthstone is extremely expensive.after a year and $200 and a shit load of arena, my collection is a meme. Gwent,hex,shadowverse...my collections are already larger and better while being f2p.(eh i spent $5 on shadowverse lol)
Hearthstone has more in Common with Magic the gathering than it dose with gwent. Hearthstone isn't very expensive when compared to tangible card games however the f2p experience might be a bit worse but like i said team 5 is taking steps in the right direction. I don't get the comparison between hs and gwent they are two very different games and gwent dosent appeal to me i don't like the wither lore or games and i don't like the card game. I think shadowverse is alright it just isn't interesting enough to hold my attention however i'm getting into the tes card game because i'm a fucking fanatic when it comes to anything tes related.
I've been playing HS since beta, have spent probably $300-$400 on it and play fairly casually, maybe 3-4 games a day on average. The fact I'm still playing the game > 2 years in means that is money well spent. I have basically all the cards I'd ever want and generally open 100 packs or so per expansion.
So I've spent < $1 per day, and I can't think of any other game I've played for > 3 months in the same time I've been playing HS.
Ibn Fahd.
Yeah ... having come from the Death Trap that is Mobile Strike, Hearthstone is beyond reasonable. I have told the whole story several times on here already, so I won't go into full detail, but long story short, I spent over $70,000 USD on Mobile Strike in just over a year playing. I was able to recover about $40k of that through various means, but I still learned a $30k lesson about gaming addiction. Luckily, for me, the loss wasn't catastrophic as it was for others I played with ... I saw life savings disappear, marriages dissolve, and multiple suicides. That game, and others like it are pure evil. Hearthstone is nothing, even at the worst possible level, compared to those games.
Pic below is just part of one single day of what Mobile Strike can do to ya. (currency is foreign ... figure about 1/10th to get it into USD)
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin'
Gonna leave this, world for awhile
One reason I can think of that there is a limit to how much gold you can gain via wins each day is to discourage the use of bots. If you could gain unlimited gold we'd see a proliferation of bots out there just farming gold all day for accounts.
Its fangs are in your flesh before its hiss leaves your ears.
Golden Heroes: Druid -> Rogue -> Shaman -> Hunter -> Warlock
--Alfi--
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin'
Gonna leave this, world for awhile
"Nerf Paper," said Rock.
Oh look it's BadComparison Man to save the day.
By design, the game forces you into developing personal (yet virtual) relationships with other players via the alliance system, making leaving even that much harder. And it uses a "revolving door" principle with your items and resources, so no matter how good you are today, you will be completely antiquated within a week or so, creating a never ending cycle of spending.
And like you said, they creep you into spending, but once you have a couple hundred bucks in the game, your instinct is to protect that "investment", and the only way to do that is to spend more ... and more. They actually just released another game in the series based on Final Fantasy, so I am sure there is a whole new crop of victims falling into the trap as we speak.
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin'
Gonna leave this, world for awhile
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin'
Gonna leave this, world for awhile
The mistake you make here is comparing games cross-genre, if you compare Hearthstone to other online CCGs then it is actually at the bottom of the barrel in terms of value for money.
Comparing any game to certain mobile games will make it look "good value" and triple A is a whole different ballpark that is also usually in completely different genre of games anyway.
I don't get the comparison between the amount if free content between HS and shadowverse, gwent etc. Of course you get more free stuff in the newer games for the sole reason that Hearthstone is much more popular than them. Thus, they need to be more generous to attract people. If Blizzard notices that all their players are leaving for another game then they'll of course do something about it. However, to my knowledge this has not been the case.