Update 8:58 PM EDT: Added some strings.
Buying Arcane Dust? Blizzard Gets Around Loot Box Regulations in China
This evening a new patch hit the Hearthstone CDN for the Chinese servers. Included in this patch are some minor text adjustments and an interesting couple of new images which change the store over to a "purchase Arcane Dust" mode.
This is very likely only to ever be China only change.
- It has been confirmed that players in China now purchase Dust from the in-game shop.
- Upon purchase of Arcane Dust, players receive a gift from Blizzard with Card Packs equal to the amount of Arcane Dust Purchased.
- This is to get around the new gambling laws (see speculation section below) surrounding loot boxes in games.
Thanks to nobravery for the image provided via iyingdi.com.
Datamined Images
A new file for the StoreSwitchButtons was added which contains a CN suffix. This is usually an indicator that this image is only going to be used on clients which connect to the Chinese server. This file has an Arcane Dust Jar button in the usual spot for the button for card packs (see difference below).
In addition to this image, a StoreFrontIcon was also added for Dust to match the button above.
New Strings
There's some great new strings available.
Quote from HearthPwn
- GLUE_CHINA_STORE_BOOSTER_GIFT - Gift:\n{0} Packs
- GLUE_CHINA_STORE_WELCOME_BUNDLE_GIFT_1 - Gift:\n\n10 Packs
- GLUE_CHINA_STORE_WELCOME_BUNDLE_GIFT_2 - 1 Legendary Card
- GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_DETAILS_HEADLINE_DUST - Dust Bundles:
- GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_NAME_DUST
- {0} |4(Dust,Dust) with {1} {2} Gift |4(Pack,Packs)
- 0=quantity of dust, 1=quantity of packs, 2=pack type
- GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_DETAILS_FIRST_PURCHASE_BUNDLE_DUST
- 10 Dust which also includes: 10 Classic packs and 1 random Classic class-specific legendary minion
- Each pack has 5 cards, with at least 1 Rare or better
- Dust can be used to craft cards in the Collection Manager
- GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_DETAILS_DUST
- Your Dust comes with a set of packs
- Each pack contains 5 {0} Hearthstone Cards and at least 1 card will be Rare or better
- Dust can be used to craft cards in the Collection Manager
Speculation
Update: This isn't speculation anymore since it's now live. Leaving this information because its important.
Out of pure speculation, my guess would be that this could be a backup plan in case Chinese regulatory agencies aren't happy with the way Blizzard presented the drop rates of cards thanks to the Loot Box regulations law. Should China ultimately want more information on the card packs, forcing people to buy dust instead of card packs would be a good way around giving up their secret sauce. It's even possible that you buy some arcane dust and as a reward, Blizzard gives you "free" card packs along with that purchase as a "bonus". Time will certainly tell!
What Do You Think?
Expand upon your response in the comments below!
78 dust and 78 packs for 58 USD seems like I'm getting ripped off here in the USA
Sweet!
18 deck slots and now this!? There is truly nothing Hearthstone technology cant achieve.
We do keep thinking about it and we do complain. Thing is that Blizzard doesn't really care, mainly because it doesn't have to. People will keep playing the game and buy packs. It took them 3 years to correct the card text on druid of the claw so it matches the behavior of the card. Until the community will get organized enough to voice our protests through strikes etc (yeah right..) it won't change. not anytime soon that is.
They are going to change the dupe legendaries, however, so there are some good news. Maybe in 3 years we will get lesser % chance on owned epics and rares as well and maybe even option to upgrade to golden instead of the current system. Maybe.
Couldn’t care less, if anything they get more out of their money ( the free dust ) but it shows what kind of retards are running the marketing department.
They must be high functioning.
Once again Blizzard's greed shows no bounds. $60 for 78 dust and the card packs. They did the same shit with Overwatch. I hope to god those commies punish you fuckers because this is beyond scummy.
??? china basically forced blizzard to do this in the first place. it's against the law in china now to directly sell RNG stuff like card packs and loot boxes, so now you buy 1 dust at a time instead, for the same price as a pack, and you get a pack as a "free bonus". it's not like folks are getting cheated by it, since it's the same value lol. if anything you're actually getting more value than you did before, even though it's entirely inconsequential
You forgot to put an "I don't care" option in the poll.
Because I really, really don't. At the rate of one free dust per pack purchased, this doesn't make one iota of difference.
So this is like scammers in ebay? sell 1 dust for 100g and free pack so blizzard can manipulate % the pack because no buy the pack? to avoid the law in china
I'm pretty sure you just made up the bit about manipulating the % in the pack.
I would have never guessed that the technology to make buying dust possible already exists.
Blizz, every day you surprise me more and more.
THE TECHNOLOGY IS FINALLY HERE !
Yes but then the dust should cost 101 Gold to match the added value ;P
It would seem reasonable to do, but it would fail, massively. Bots would grind out new accounts and dust everything. Then the account would be sold as having a 'premade' meta deck (forged with the dust). Want to play Pirate Warrior? Just pony up $20 and we give you the account email/password. The diminishing return is the only thing preventing it currently.
78 would just be an annoying amount of dust to have.
Its 78 due to the Un'Goro promotion, buy 60 packs get 18 packs free. Applies to the dust for China so they can also get the promotion. I would assume after promotion it goes back down to 60
That makes sense, I haven't thought about that. But that makes it actually worse. If you get 78 packs and the promotion ends you are stuck with a dust value ending in 3/8.
I remember Chinese League of Legends did the same thing before. They sold '7-day ward skin' and then gave buyers a 'random' champion skin.