Following the critical response to the recent card art changes (review our Patch 14.6 coverage here), Blizzard has spoken with a journalist from Kotaku in order to bring more clarity to the situation:
Quote from BlizzardThe recent changes were applied to make those cards more visually cohesive and consistent with the art style of Hearthstone today. When Hearthstone first launched, we brought in a lot of artwork from the physical World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. In the years since, Hearthstone has developed a look, feel, and personality of its own that distinguishes it from that of Warcraft — though we still love being a part of that universe. We’ll always be looking for ways to deliver on the game’s unique style, charm, and personality.
(Lead Mission Designer) Dave Kosak also spoke with PC Gamer to discuss his views on the reasons for the changes:
Quote from PC GamerBlizzard made changes to the artwork on eight Hearthstone cards yesterday (and changed the names of two of them), and the reaction was not entirely positive. Multiple posters in this Reddit thread, for instance, speculate that the sex and violence was dialed back in order to be in line with Chinese regulations. That would not be unprecedented: China's gaming market is heavily censored, and Blizzard has previously made changes to World of Warcraft visuals in order to comply with regulations.In this case, however, China had nothing to do with it. Lead mission designer Dave Kosak told us that after reviewing the full Hearthstone set, Blizzard decided that the art on some of the cards simply didn't meet its standards, and that Blizzard "wouldn't print those same cards today."
Quote fromWe went back and really just brought everything up to our standards. It wasn't because we were looking at ratings, or international [regulations], or anything like that. We really just wanted our artists to feel good about everything in the set.Succubus underwent the most complete transformation: The stats and effect are the same, but the sexy cruel demons who "slake their lust with coupling" are out, and pack-hunting "demonic beasts" are in. Mistress of Pain (now Queen of Pain), Secretkeeper, and Windfury Harpy have also had the sexy factor dialed back, while Bite, Eviscerate, and Deadly Shot are now less graphically violent.
Kosak confirmed that some of the changes were aimed at toning down the portrayals of sex and violence in the game (although designer Liv Breeden noted that one card, Headcrack, was updated because it was just too dark and hard to read) but emphasized:
Quote from[...The decision was driven not by external forces] but just kind of bringing it up to the standards we felt really good about today.
Tbh this post from them is pathetic. It's so obivous that they are talking out of their ass and are just copying what the marketing department told them to say. We all know why you did this Blizzard, and we all know that you are heading into a direction where the main fanbase won't be following you. I thought you wanted to make more money again? It started with Jaina and now this, where do you draw the line?
For me personally it was a shock seeing these cards changed. Not because I'm a weeb jerking off to card arts or a gore fanatic. I know these cards since the beginning of playing this game, which was shortly after the beta. Especially Deadly Shot, Bite and headcrack look really bad and unrecognizable now. The winner of the show is of course Succubus, can't believe they deleted the whole identity of this card, which also has a huge lore part.
Well, at least we can be kinda sure now what other changes will await us in the future.
SPOILER: Most of us won't like it.
The fucking crackhead...It's art....It is soming to me in my nightmares....When I see it in the game I am alt+f4 by a fucking reaction...This monster is so ugly.
Pls call a doctor..
Man I'm going to say it, these SJW cucks are going nuts
Yeah that's why they didn't touch Kill Command but eraser'd the blood droplets out of Eviscerate.
"Headcrack is dark and hard to read" my ass.
You have to protect the women! They can not depict anything bad happening to them or sexy!
Dude.. you okay? You seem to be losing it. Maybe a nice sit down with a doctor to talk about meds to calm that anger issue you have going on.
Corporate white knighting WeirdChamp
Such an obvious lie, do they really think they can claim "they only were updating old art" when EVERY change had to do with desexualizing it? How moronic, maybe if they changed like 20 more cards that had nothing to do with removing sexualization it would have gone under the radar.
The funny thing is, i never noticed the freaking Secret Keeper's ass until i saw blizzard changing it for that reason, is like they imagine players looking the butt of the cards while those are destroying your face being buffed
bow down to the china master, blizzard jerks
that's what you've been doing for years. little bitches
PS: how's that diablo game going for you? nice idea for china isn't it? all the blood and torture/satanic imagery
i'm sure china will love that stuff... bunch of blizzard morons
I think they could had gotten away with it if it was just for the "de-sexying" of ceratin cards and making other cards more goofy, but the smoking gun is evicerate, a little speck of blood removed (bite also had blood and was also changed) why would they made that decision does Blizzard not wasnt blood in their games? Well china for sure dosen't many games were blocked due to blood and "revealing clothes" this is clear pandering to the chinese market we saw it with diablo imortal now with hearthstone
The BS detector alert went crazy...
PR bullshit
Wait, what? I don't understand corporate decisions at all.
A. If you're were going to upgrade the art on old cards, wouldn't you do it for cards people play?
B. They claim they just wanted their artists to "feel good" about the card art, but completely ditching Succubus out of over 150 basic cards leads me to believe that wasn't the real reason. Not to mention that's insanely vague reasoning.
C. If the censoring is for the kids, these same kids nowadays are also allowed to play a game where you try to murder 99 other people and plenty of parents are perfectly fine.
D. If these cards actually WERE a problem, there would've been a big controversy about it (like how big the Tracer Victory Pose was early in Overwatch).
Just saying, as someone who's missed lethal because he didn't do that math, even I can tell that something's not adding up.
They could just ignore it. Now they look even worse.
I really believe it's not China, just an infiltrated sjw/feminist dropped taxpayers' money in front of them, or threatened them with lawsuits and bad advertising.
While I'm open to the suggestion that China is an influence, something is definitely going on behind the scenes. Perhaps a company senior or Blizzard as a whole being blackmailed as you say.
So they decided to change the art and they changed, whatever. Like this make some difference (especially when half of this cards are not even see a lot of play). You can always watch their old arts in internet.
If you have to lie, lie better! I hate this marketing BS speech.