Hearthpwn

Quote from Mojo_Jojo >>

That number is including cards that got HoF so it's actually lower.  The majority of those cards are unplayable and you know it.  This is also the very start of a new rotation.  That % will drop when we get a 5th and 6th expansion for this year.  Most likely more cards will be HoF over time as well.

 If so many of the Classic cards are unplayable, why do you want them so badly? How is it doing anyone any good to give them away if they are garbage? And we all know they have even more value if they go to the Hall of Fame, thanks to the dust refund, so I'm not sure why you would bring that up. ALSO, "the very start of a new rotation" encompasses one-third of every calendar year. You can't just write that off like it's nothing.

No, you do not get to argue that Classic should be free because it's worthless.

Quote from Wolfric >>

For me collecting is not a driver in fact it´s a way to piss me off if moving into grind or a paywall. Thats why i lost intrest in a bunch of games, next expac, more of all, higher level .... Awwwww.  I want to be creative, construct decks and play with others giving them surprises and having a challenge. So i actually like PvP games where everyone has the same resources as long as there is huge diversity/individually possible.

 you can just download yugioproh if you want that....it's yugioh with all cards avaliable to everyone.....plenty of people in this forum know the app, know it's completely free, know it's constantly updated (well the pc  version is constantly updated..the mobile version is stuck in 2013 i think),  yet no one here uses it and stays in hearthstone.......i wonder why, maybe because having all cards avaliable actually pushes people to netdeck even more instead of finding creative replacements to cards they're missing effectively making their decks differents in certain matchups, making the game even staler and devoids them of significant in-game goals, but what do i know?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/323239/number-gamers-hearthstone-heroes-warcraft-worldwide/

Doesn't seem like Hearthstone is losing too many players year on year. Obviously this doesn't speak to retention of players, but the argument of Hearthstone failing to attract new players anymore (as some assert) is statistically not true. 

If you refund all the money I paid for classic packs, sure.

so if they anounce this you can have your refound just disenchant all your cards and wait for them give all back

free dust

Quote from moloch519 >>

By now Hearthstone has been around for a little over 5 years. Given the current release schedule, we see three full expansions, totalling around 390 new cards per year. During these times we have seen many efforts in order to attrackt new players. One major feedback I have gotten from friends and family, who tried to start playing HS was always that they felt like it was impossible for them to play without spending money. Whether this is true or not, might be a different point of debate but the general feeling seems to have lasted.

I would like to suggest a way to enhance to F2P part of HS, which might enable new players to participate in more parts of the game.

The main point is simple. Only sell expansions from the current year plus the latest two wild years. Everything beforehand becomes F2P. From a financial perspective I assume that they would only really loose money from classic pack sales since the really old expansions and adventures will probably not sell that well anymore. Keep in mind that this is the major assumption, which could be wrong due to the absence of real sales data but I don't think that it is too far fetched. 

The advantages for new players on the other hand are significant. They get to create and play with wayyy more decks and archetypes than it is currently possible and can even play older single player content. Consequently the next assumption would be that those players are more likely to be interested in new expansions and might even be willing to invest money. The likelyhood for this to happen increases as well, since they can now use a lot of classic cards to build a basic deck, which could be even playable in standard given a few additions from current expansions. 

The main downside from my point of view is probably the reaction of players, who did spend a lot of money over the years to keep a full collection, which is a group I belong to as well. It is easy to imagine that some of those people will feel bad about a major strategy change like this. Personally, I would argue that HS needs new players in order to get the attention from Blizzard it deserves in the future. Further, I played HS for the last years with every card available so the value I got out of it is undeniable for me.

I could go on about potential advantages I see in such a change but I would rather like to hear how the community would feel about a change like this because I have only my own point of view based on certain assumptions, which might be incorrect or flawed. 

EDIT: A lot of people have commented that Blizzard would make less money this way. I don't think this is necessarily true though. As written above my major assumption is that nearly everyone who was going to buy wild packs or old adventures already did so. That means the remaining amount of revenue they can generate from it is limited when compared to the unlimited abillity to create and sell new expansions. Therefore, expanding their customer base by giving away stuff they sell in very small quantities might proof to be a good strategy to increase future revenues and profits. 

I am going to mention one technical limitation though: I don't know whether their accounting department would have to show a move like this on their balance sheet and income statement. If they have intangible assets in their balance sheet, which are based on HS, it is possible that part of those would become impaired and therefore written of as a consequence, what would in turn show on their income statement. Unfortunatly my IFRS and GAP knowledge is a little rusty and I am not familiar with accounting practises in f2p environments so if someone does i'd be really interested to hear about it. It is possible as well that they have to account for packs or cards given out for free as marketing expenses. If they have to do this at face value this could to proof to be extremely expensive for them.

 Bli$$ard giving free stuff? NO WAY, THAT WOULD BREAK THE MATRIX 

I realy like moloch519 ´s explanation and agree that this can be  a good way. I did buy expansions since Gazetan and craft lots of classic with dust but i won´t be salty if classic gets free. (Of course i would appreciate some dust refund ^^).

Quote from Legendarias >>

Quote from moloch519 >>

 Bli$$ard giving free stuff? NO WAY, THAT WOULD BREAK THE MATRIX 

 I don't get what your little passive aggressive dig is all about in all honesty, they give loads away for free. They do have to make money though or the game would collapse, you do realise this? 

Out of interest, what do you do for a living? 

when i look at revenues I wonder .... We keep services running that make below 10k per month.... Shure those don´t have a roadmap annymore and will die ... For a million per year we would have marketing and devs behind to move forward (of course not as huge as for E-Sports). The numbers of this game are just beyond annything and this could have a very good margin even with 5% of the last years revenue.... Shure it would not meet growth wishes from stakeholders but .... I smell greed ...

If all classic cards become basic, then everyone gets a shit load of dust - either automatically, or by manually dusting them all the day before the change comes in. If people have more dust they don't to buy as many packs for the next expansion because they can craft more of what they need.

If all wild cards become basic then you get the same thing every single year - massive dust refunds on rotating cards, and therefore it's easier and cheaper for the player to stay up-to-date without buying as many packs.

"Let's make all Classic Cards F2P"
Not sure why we talking about this topic, because:
Thats never gonna happen.

The best example ist World of Warcraft. This game is much older and still not free to play.

Maybe think about a compromise. We all know Hearthstone needs more modes and a better single player experience (hopefully we will see more of that later today) so perhaps they can make some relatively hard and grindy content for new players that will reward classic packs at a much better drop rate than the one pack pw from Tavern Brawl we are seeing now. 

A cost reduction on classic packs might be worth considering as well instead of making the entire collection outright free which I think is a mistake. Basically, make the earning of the classic collection much quicker but still require grind (with compelling single player and ranked rewards).

If it took 3-4 months of grinding on average to get the classic collection for free players instead of the 3-4 years (or more) it does now (unless you just drop a lot of money on it before you still needed to keep up with expansion collections) then this will be a lot more inviting to new players and hopefully they will want to stick around and buy the next expansions. 

Giving the classic collection away for free in a one and done manner is not a good idea, but making it a lot easier to amass a starter classic collection seems like a no brainer 5 years in. I've been playing since beta and have a large collection. None of this will help me but if it helps the game keep a steady influx of players coming in then it eventually will help me because the scope and development of Hearthstone will continue for longer with new people that don't feel completely gated out sticking around. 

No I don't want that, I spent years to obtain my card collection it's just not fair.

Moreover they can't refund it or they will break the economy of the game giving old players essentially unlimited dust.

Finally we are talking about Blizzard whose main purpose has been milking the players through the years, I don't think this will ever happen. 

Blizzard is a company, it's gonna profit somehow right? So they would need to compromise the loss of making the classic packs free. How will that happen? Any ideas?

New stuff would be even more expensive and unaccessable by the majority. So basically, new players will get a head start with my money. Yeah perfect idea. Ingenius.

Quote from rajaz1>>

So basically, new players will get a head start with my money. Yeah perfect idea. Ingenius.

Quote from user-14157642 >>

Quote from rajaz1>>

So basically, new players will get a head start with my money. Yeah perfect idea. Ingenius.

That is exactly the attitude that will prevent this from happening.

 You know, the only reason f2p players are able to play Hearthstone at all is because others are willing to spend money on it.

The definition of greed is "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed." It's the free players who are always asking for more. Remember, none of this is needed, because video games are a luxury, not a necessity.

Paying players don't tend to worry about what Blizzard is or is not giving away. Paying players are happy and appreciative when something is free, and they pay when it's not free (instead of making ridiculous demands). If it's not worth paying for, people don't buy it, and Blizzard adjusts from there.

Maybe that's worth remembering as you try to dictate Blizzard's business model.

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from user-14157642 >>

Quote from rajaz1>>

So basically, new players will get a head start with my money. Yeah perfect idea. Ingenius.

That is exactly the attitude that will prevent this from happening.

 You know, the only reason f2p players are able to play Hearthstone at all is because others are willing to spend money on it.

The definition of greed is "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed." It's the free players who are always asking for more. Remember, none of this is needed, because video games are a luxury, not a necessity.

Paying players don't tend to worry about what Blizzard is or is not giving away. Paying players are happy and appreciative when something is free, and they pay when it's not free (instead of making ridiculous demands). If it's not worth paying for, people don't buy it, and Blizzard adjusts from there.

Maybe that's worth remembering as you try to dictate Blizzard's business model.

 You do realize that Hearthstone is still running and making an unbelievable amount of money mainly because it is a F2P game, right?

Blizzard didn't pick the F2P model out of generosity or because they care about the little guy, but because they knew it would make them a LOT of money in the long run. And it has. A huge playerbase brings popularity, popularity attracts more potential customers, which increases the brand value and results in more money than most regular titles could ever hope to make. Having 100 million players is a capital that FAR outweighs a smaller revenue per customer. And it works for over five years now. Free players make the game money - if only indirectly. Part of the reason why the developers cared about making and keeping F2P a viable option to play the game.

If the game is not promising enough (anymore) for people to try out the game, or continue playing the game to the point they'd even consider spending money (for whatever reason), that's a serious issue for a game that wants to continue being successful for years. Less players, less popularity, less potential new customers, much less money.

The devs definitely know this too. This is from the AMA in March: " One approach we're discussed is to consolidate the current reward systems so that players can feel more rewarded playing the game the way they want, whether that's single-player, the ladder, Arena, Tavern Brawls, and so on. [...] It has always been our goal to provide players with enough rewards to make it easy to craft a deck they enjoy. Everyone benefits if that's true. We want you to be able to craft fun decks, because players who are having fun stick around long-term. If creating fun decks is a painful process, players will leave and we know that." (by Iksar)

Whether or not making Classic free is a necessary or worthwhile step in the direction of attracting more players/keeping players interested is debatable, but it isn't as unreasonable as you might think.

I don't know where you get your "good paying customer" vs. "evil F2P" from, but it is not in the best interest of the game to put "dem greedy plebs" in their place. If that crowd jumps ship, the ship will sink fast.

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from user-14157642 >>

Quote from rajaz1>>

So basically, new players will get a head start with my money. Yeah perfect idea. Ingenius.

That is exactly the attitude that will prevent this from happening.

 You know, the only reason f2p players are able to play Hearthstone at all is because others are willing to spend money on it.

The definition of greed is "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed." It's the free players who are always asking for more. Remember, none of this is needed, because video games are a luxury, not a necessity.

Paying players don't tend to worry about what Blizzard is or is not giving away. Paying players are happy and appreciative when something is free, and they pay when it's not free (instead of making ridiculous demands). If it's not worth paying for, people don't buy it, and Blizzard adjusts from there.

Maybe that's worth remembering as you try to dictate Blizzard's business model.

WTF are you talking about? I didn't say anything about greed and neither do I try to dictate their business model.

But yes, you're right on the F2P part. So maybe I was a bit too harsh. But then again as you can see in this thread even if they technically wouldn't lose anything many people don't like the idea of giving things they paid for to others for free. To a certain degree it's understandable, but in the end they would've got something out of paying early. They could've already played it until it became free. That's what I was refering to.

And btw I'm someone that does always buy the full expansion or anything else when it comes out. I do like this game a lot, but I don't like that some are so... inconsiderate of others a lot of the time. That was all.

F2p games, have no support, and development team, to make new cards. To future.....