Jason Chayes on Monetization and Card Backs in Hearthstone
GamesBeat sat down with Jason Chayes, Hearthstone's Production Director, shortly before the launch of Whispers of the Old Gods and discussed Hearthstone's monetization and he mentioned wanting to see more card backs in the game and the level of respect games should have towards its players. We've recapped the recently published interview below!
Quote from Jason Chayes
- Would love to see more card backs to add customization to the game.
- Blizzard doesn't design games with a business model in mind, that comes later.
- Hearthstone's goal was to be super accessible, free-to-play helped with that.
- It was important to make sure that players could play indefinitely and not hit a roadblock where it was required that you pay to continue - you can still earn currency by play games and completing dailies.
- Free-to-play games should respect the time of players, not just the money they put in.
- There are a lot of WoW subscribers that play Hearthstone but do not make up the majority of players.
Do You Think Hearthstone Respects Player Time Investment?
Chayes mentioned that free-to-play games should respect player time investment. We want to know if you think Hearthstone does a good job of this. Tell us more about your answer in the comments!
I dont like how Blizzard is removing expansions and card packs to be honest but I voted yes. However this game has lost a lot of steam. Games like Overwatch and Pokemon Go are popular right now and less of my friends are playing Hearthstone because it got boring or some other reason.
I voted YES. Get over it.
Hearthstone doesn't respect player time investment anymore.
Before "Whispers of the Old Gods" expansion, or more accurately before the creation of "seasons" and "Standard mode", your invested time and/or money was valued. One could work on accumulating a collection of cards. Now, your investment is rendered obsolete. After a few years, your hard earned collection will be unusable in "standard" mode. What about "wild", you say? Who the hell even plays "wild"?
Look, I didn't even say whether I want to play or even do play standard or not. I merely said "who the hell plays 'wild'". Would new players play "wild"? Of course not. That is a part of playerbase automatically cut off from the "wild" format.
Ideally, there would be no division to "wild" and "standard" format. I hated that change. I would like to accumulate my card collection and be more powerful than the newbies because of the time and/or money (or both) I invested in the game.
And if you say that's not supposed to happen, well, you just confirm what I stated in the original post - Blizzard doesn't value player's time investment (and monetary investment). Worse - they aren't supposed to value them by design.
This means that Blizzard doesn't respect player's invested time (nor money) in Hearthstone. StarCraft is an example of that idea - you always start a game with nothing and build up your base and army from scratch every time. One could argue that the thing you accumulate is game knowledge, rather than some more visible thing like having more cards, but game knowledge you gain in any game. MMOs are an example of games relying on player's time investment instead. You accumulate good gear and game currency over time. Hell yeah one will beat up players who are "unfortunate" enough to start later (or start an alt later) in an MMO.
StarCraft is an RTS.
They are different genres. But that doesn't prevent me from comparing them, because they are both games.
I see a few mention already their take on how to improve HS's player experience. Namely HS should honor time spent not just wins; however, I to have been shaping my vision on how to improve HS' player experience and it's similar to the other ideas here so lets have at it.
5 full matches = 10 gold or 15 dust, wins do not count as they fill the win counter. What's a full match? a fatigue game where a full 30 cards are played and a bitter end was met for one player, an aggro match where the losing player played but got out paced by the aggro player. A brawl match goes past turn 8. (all values can be adjusted to fit a proper revenue maximizing number) The key to all this full match determination is a vote by the winning player "Did your opponent play a good game y/n?" if the winner, who always has his time valued determines that his opponent tried hard/ played good/ didn't BM the winner checks off yes and the losing opponent gets his time-spent credit I've called full matches.
Yea yea, you can envision a scenario where this system is abused, but anything is better then me looking at the clock and saying "what a waste of time to play hearthstone" right now it "feelsbadman" when I spend 15-20 minutes in a HS match and lose after a hot streak RNG play by opponent i.e. Yogg play/ lucky burgle/dank top deck draw, or conversely my bad RNG plays i.e. awful Yogg play/win conditions buried/ bad draws/ general-salt. Again I am sure you can launch an argument bemoaning me as a bemoaner, and I should just git-gud but in CCG's RNG is always at play and that means some times my time is disrespected because of forces beyond my control, it is those times that this my opponent can throw me a bone and say "at least you tried man, I sure had fun rofflestomping you with my totally on curve draws/play I'll click yes for that poor bloat"
Players could lose their arbiter status if they never click "yes" because statistically most opponents are trying to win and play a good game of HS, and so you should be giving out plenty of yes votes and recognizing your opponents efforts for a good game. If they never click yes they lose their arbiter status, if they then play against a player whom still has their arbiter status the default is that the losing arbiter-status player gets his credit, if two fallen arbiters play the loser receives no time spent credit either but is reminded that if he were to regain his arbiter status he would have received his credit, try again next cycle.
Well, well, well Hearthpwn vetoed my reply to this post! Thanx You so much Hearthpwn. Another probe You're only a Blizzard Extensión in web page costume.
lols... we need a more friendly cardgame :)
HOW THE FUCK CAN PEOPLE SAY YES TO THIS? BLIZZARD BOTS ? LOL THE GAME JUST WANTS MONEY DOESNT RESPECT U FUCK ALL