Hearthpwn

Not at all. I can point to actual tangible uses for an Apple product that could be used to justify it's price point. For 90 dollars Blizz is giving you 18 pictures, 9 simple animations, and a couple minutes of sound. There's no justifying that price point. If you collected all that onto a CD and tried selling it to people you'd be laughed at. Hell, if you collected those pictures and put them into an actual book then packaged that as a proper art book then included a DVD that had the animations and sound on it and tried selling those as a tangible professionally made product for 90 dollars you'd still be laughed at. 

Yes, people are getting what they are being sold. I don't dispute that, but the cart vendor that shills 20 dollar hot dogs to tourists is giving those people what they were promised as well, same with the cabbies and the 200 dollar cab rides. They just know that tourists are usually too stupid to realize they are being ripped off or too scared to say anything or don't want to argue so they charge that much because they can typically get away with it. In short they know that most tourists are rubes and treat them accordingly. These prices show that Blizz thinks that it's players are a bunch of rubes as evidenced by them trying to sell us 18 pictures, 9 simple animations, and a couple minutes of sound for 90 dollars. 

Yeah.. I'm 100% FOR cosmetic items being sold cash only.. I just strongly disagree with the pricing for this specific product.

Even if I had unlimited funds I wouldn't buy these. They're pointless, and I think they send a weird message. Like, are people going to know that you're "serious" about HS if you dropped ten bucks on an alternate hero that has no actual impact on gameplay? I don't think so. I'm not F2P, I've spent some money on packs and bought my way into the arena a fair few times, but all I think these new skins will accomplish is showing everyone that you spend cash on the game, and making the F2P players assume that you're only good because you have money to blow on packs as well. My two cents.

I don't understand what all the whining is about.  If it isn't worth $10 to you, simply don't buy it.  It isn't going to effect the meta in anyway, it's purely cosmetic.

Quote from Stealpulse »

I don't understand what all the whining is about.  If it isn't worth $10 to you, simply don't buy it.  It isn't going to effect the meta in anyway, it's purely cosmetic.

 

This is true, but its still a rip off. Also, for someone that may want the cosmetic skin, it is a shame that it would cost so much.

I don't mind them charging for cosmetics, I personally think it's one of fairest ways to rake in some extra cash from your game. I just wish the heroes were a bit cheaper. $7 bucks seems like a reasonable compromise between what Blizzard wants for the heroes, and what the customer really wants to pay IMO.

Quote from Neon_Strike »

You guys are a bunch of fucking self-centered, selfish, spoiled, self-entitled little kids who think they deserve something from a company that lets you play their game for free.

They don't "let" us play the game. We are consumers, and as such, we have the right to not be served overpriced garbage. Even people who don't pay a penny for the game are consumers - they help generate interest in this game and made it a success basically overnight (for a game that even Blizzard didn't think it would succeed, if you remember). So don't preach this garbage that it's a privilege to play this damn game.

Quote from Tailinus »

Quote from Neon_Strike »

You guys are a bunch of fucking self-centered, selfish, spoiled, self-entitled little kids who think they deserve something from a company that lets you play their game for free.

They don't "let" us play the game. We are consumers, and as such, we have the right to not be served overpriced garbage. Even people who don't pay a penny for the game are consumers - they help generate interest in this game and made it a success basically overnight (for a game that even Blizzard didn't think it would succeed, if you remember). So don't preach this garbage that it's a privilege to play this damn game.

It is a privilege to play this game. A company paid dozens of employees to design, create, and implement this game, and they are giving it to us for free, when they don't have to. 

Whatever your think about cosmetic pricing, this game is being handed to you on a silver platter, and you enjoy the privilege of playing it without paying them for their work. 

Quote from Zenmasta »

The reason why that the skins are actually here is to attract WC-WoW players so they will actually be able to play the characters they like from the lore.

I don't think people will spend 90 USD on a couple of swag skins just because they can. I'm one of those who'll only buy them if any of these skins actually include certain characters. Maybe we won't ever get all the skins at once, maybe Blizz will release them overtime, in different patches. So lets say you'll actually buy one skin in one patch, thinking you're only spending 10 USD, in maybe 5 or 10 patches, with the every new skin released, you'll actually spend 90 USD. I expect this to happen, because most people can afford 10 USD. And even though it's an odd logic, mostly you feel like paying less money if you're paying 10x9 instead of a direct 90.

As I already said, this product is mostly targeted for players who like WC/WoW lore. So most of the time they are the same people that are already spending money on other Blizzard games. They are regular customers. For me It's more pay to roleplay than pay to look better. Because functions or art is mostly only details. I want to play as a prophet troll priest instead of a crappy crybaby prince, therefore I'll buy Sen'jin hero if he ever gets released.

I love how people like you don't really understand the point of the argument against this crap Blizzard is pulling. It's not that they are charging for a minor cosmetic change that in no way change gameplay. I'll bold it so people can maybe finally understand it:

THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY ARE OVERPRICING A MINOR COSMETIC CHANGE AND BASICALLY SAYIND, "YES, WE EXPECT YOU TO PAY 10 DOLLARS FOR SOME CRAP WE MADE IN AN AFTERNOON, BECAUSE WE THINK YOU ARE A BUNCH OF RETARDED IDIOTS AND WE'RE GOING TO BLEED YOU DRY FOR EVERYTHING YOU ARE WORTH OF!"

I could support this if it was 1 dollar for each new portrait. Most people wouldn't care, because that would be Blizzard saying, "We recognize this is such a minor content; here, vahe it for what's worthy of. We certainly didn't expend more than $10,000 making this Magni art, so if 1% our player base pays $1 for each, we will be profiting tons of money on this".

The fact that they are charging this much is indicative of a) they are sure there are enough idiots with too much money and who will pay this absurd price, and b) they will overprice things in the future because, hey, the idiots bought a portrait and 10 new emotes for 10 bucks, what else we can sell to these imbeciles? A new board for 50 dollars? More deck slots for 25 dollars each? A token to turn one card gold for 100 dollars? Let's do it!

If you thinks this isn't going to happen, just look at what Blizzard did to WoW. It started with cheap mounts and pets, then the mounts became overpriced, then the Lv 90 upgrade tokens were made, then the Sub Tokens were released and now you can pay $20 to get enough gold to buy raid-level gear. The result is that WoW is dying a fast death and they just don't know what to do to save it.

Quote from Snow_King »

Quote from Tailinus »

Quote from Neon_Strike »

You guys are a bunch of fucking self-centered, selfish, spoiled, self-entitled little kids who think they deserve something from a company that lets you play their game for free.

They don't "let" us play the game. We are consumers, and as such, we have the right to not be served overpriced garbage. Even people who don't pay a penny for the game are consumers - they help generate interest in this game and made it a success basically overnight (for a game that even Blizzard didn't think it would succeed, if you remember). So don't preach this garbage that it's a privilege to play this damn game.

It is a privilege to play this game. A company paid dozens of employees to design, create, and implement this game, and they are giving it to us for free, when they don't have to. 

Whatever your think about cosmetic pricing, this game is being handed to you on a silver platter, and you enjoy the privilege of playing it without paying them for their work. 

We are CONSUMERS of their product. They are "letting" us play their game because they are making money out of it. In fact, I'd bet that HS is now the most profitable game Blizzard is current selling. The fact that download, installing, playing with basic cards and buying one pack each 2 days on average is free doesn't make it charity. It's free because of two things:

- There are other F2P online collectible card games available in the market, and Blizzard is directly competing against them to make a profit;
- They need to hook up new players and turn them into consumers;

Also, it's a PvP game. It is a success and it attracts people who spend money in the game because there is a huge player base to make the game interesting. People who play without paying are still contributing to the game's success just by the virtue of playing it and making it interesting to other people.

"But it costs money to sustain the game!"

Maybe you don't know, but in this day and age, data storage is dirty cheap. Petabytes of storage cost just a few thousands of dollars, which doesn't make a dent on Blizzard's profits with HS. Data transfer and servers upkeep cost a bit more, but here's the thing: Blizzard is a huge company. Huge companies buy and hire things in batches. Batch deals are much cheaper than small purchases. Don't worry, even if 90% of HS's 24 million player base is playing completely for free, the game is making enough money to sustain itself.

Wizards of the Coast (the company behind Magic the Gathering) offers a lot of free physical stuff, both for store owners and for players. They give you free cards for participating in Friday Night Magic events, they issue you a card with your player ID for free, and they even used to send a physical copy of their newsletter to players' homes, free of charge (I don't know if they still do this; I haven't played MtG for many years now). Physical stuff, I hope you'll agree, cost much more money to produce and distribute free of charge than just keep shit on servers over the internet. And WotC is active since 1993.

Blizzard will fail with HS only if they keep doing this stupid stuff which will shoo away and offend their player base.

Quote from UbangiShmelvin »

I don't mind them charging for cosmetics, I personally think it's one of fairest ways to rake in some extra cash from your game. I just wish the heroes were a bit cheaper. $7 bucks seems like a reasonable compromise between what Blizzard wants for the heroes, and what the customer really wants to pay IMO.

Unless the dollar is so devalued that it is now 1:1 with the Zimbabuwian dollar, 7 dollars for such a small thing is still way to overpriced.

Specially if you consider that alternate heroes art was something that was suggested by players to be a ladder reward. Because the ladder right now is a sad grind with absolutely zero rewards at the end of the month (unless you are one of the top players getting Blizzard points, I guess).

Quote from T4te »

This is F2P game, Blizzard always claimed it to be such and they are not going to change it. "Actual game content" for real money without ways to achieve it with in-game gold would make this game not F2P anymore. Understand this once and for all, people. And really, whinning that you can't be P2W in this game is just hilarious. Not enough that non-paying players have to save gold for weeks to buy an Adventure and that one pack is at least 12 games won considering you complete a 60 gold, quest you also want to have "Actual game content" for real money. This is just ridiculous, people already have huge advantage from spending money on this game and you want even more?

Nobody wants the game to be P2W. In fact, one of the advantages of HS to other collectible card games is how much you can do without having to spend money on it, and how good some basic cards are compared to cards that come in packs. There's no better AOE for Paladin than good ol' Consecration; the new BRM Warlock AOE card is inferior to Hellfire; Coghammer is not as useful as Truesilver Champion; many Mage decks don't run a single Flamecannon, but all of them run two Frostbolt, and so on. Face Hunter, Mech Mage and Zoolock are dirty cheap Legend-attainable decks that a beginner can easily craft without having to open that many packs. In that regard, HS is fine - not perfect, but fine.

Quote from SnowWhiteOo »

Something really intresting came to my mind. What if the price is so high, precicly because Blizzard wants not everyone walk arround with these new skins. New players that start this game, only can choose the vanilla heros. Now if they see  in every game another hero, they maybe feel excluded and leave again. By keeping the numbers small its not that big of a risk.

Just a thought;)

If that was a risk, then they could give the new avatars as ladder reward and sell other stuff.

My 2 cents about this Yes its a rip off .. but my thinking of this is a tease the skins will eventually lead to another  hero after they are done with the new hero skins and while I was angry at the start its like this in WOW what did they end up doing buy your way up the levelling system level up to 90.. .. In hearthstone they have the same idea want a golden Hero with out winning 500 games in the ladder ok.. just buy a golden hero... I am going to buy this  .. in time... I like the way blizz  is trying to get you playing all their games  and get you hooked. ok so you like hearthstone? why don't you get in to our other game Heroes of the storm? and you will get a brand new shinny card back .. They are milking us .. I don't care anymore I say they are good at making games and I'm a big fan of blizz.... good for them I suppose ..:P I am a blizz  zombie :P sheep whatever GET OVER IT BUY DONT BUY .. ITS UP TO YOU IF YOUR A FAN OF THE GAME AND LIKE IT WHO CARES REALLY   ..

PS . could blizz be thinking ..ok there was bots and a lot of cheaters ok .. we will let them cheat but it will cost them

Quote from Tailinus »

Quote from UbangiShmelvin »

I don't mind them charging for cosmetics, I personally think it's one of fairest ways to rake in some extra cash from your game. I just wish the heroes were a bit cheaper. $7 bucks seems like a reasonable compromise between what Blizzard wants for the heroes, and what the customer really wants to pay IMO.

Unless the dollar is so devalued that it is now 1:1 with the Zimbabuwian dollar, 7 dollars for such a small thing is still way to overpriced.

Specially if you consider that alternate heroes art was something that was suggested by players to be a ladder reward. Because the ladder right now is a sad grind with absolutely zero rewards at the end of the month (unless you are one of the top players getting Blizzard points, I guess).

Lol, don't worry about the U.S. dollar, it's more valuable than most currencies out there right now. It's actually been surging rather nicely since this time last year.

Back to HS, unfortunately I'm not a person who plays enough to get to up to the top tiers of the ladder. I'd rather have the option to pay for it rather than be forced to grind to the top in order to get the skins and other cosmetics (which I don't have the time to do). You don't have to buy it if you don't want to. It doesn't affect the game in any way, all these new heroes do is make your account look shinier. I don't really think $7 bucks (which is what I hope it will be lowered down to) is really THAT big of a deal in the grand scheme of things when you actually have a choice of whether or not you want to spend it, particularly when I compare that to the amount I've dropped on supplies and accessories for other TCG games like MTG. Even $10, while BS, isn't so bad to me considering I'm just going to buy the heroes for classes I play most (Priest, Warrior, Mage) also. With Hearthstone I'm saving money that would've been spent on card sleeves, deck boxes, and play mats among other things so I can put it into things like Adventures and now possibly these new heroes.  It's not like its as bad as HotS either, where blizzard has you spending $7-$10 bucks on dozens of heroes which actually affects gameplay experience. Again, not saying these heroes are worth as much as blizz is asking, and I do think they should be putting more of an effort into implementing other things such as more deck slots, new game modes, and revamping the reward system, but I don't really think it's as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. I love the game, and those guys in art design need something to do and if I like the aesthetic of the hero I'll pay for it and support the game and blizzard as a result.

Quote from Tailinus »

Quote from Neon_Strike »

You guys are a bunch of fucking self-centered, selfish, spoiled, self-entitled little kids who think they deserve something from a company that lets you play their game for free.

They don't "let" us play the game. We are consumers, and as such, we have the right to not be served overpriced garbage. Even people who don't pay a penny for the game are consumers - they help generate interest in this game and made it a success basically overnight (for a game that even Blizzard didn't think it would succeed, if you remember). So don't preach this garbage that it's a privilege to play this damn game.

Well, I guess he was right about you being a self-centered, selfish, spoiled, self-entitled little kid.

News flash, kiddo: if you don't pay a penny for the game, yes, you're a consumer, but you're certainly not a customer. Don't come around here and claim that Blizzard owe you something for being so generous as to "help generate interest" in this game that they let you have the privilege of playing for free.

Quote from Tailinus »

They are "letting" us play their game because they are making money out of it. In fact, I'd bet that HS is now the most profitable game Blizzard is current selling. The fact that download, installing, playing with basic cards and buying one pack each 2 days on average is free doesn't make it charity. It's free because of two things:

Staggering. The people who aren't paying money are claiming credit for the game being profitable, and claiming that Blizzard owes them something for the fact that they did so.

Quote from UbangiShmelvin »

Back to HS, unfortunately I'm not a person who plays enough to get to up to the top tiers of the ladder. I'd rather have the option to pay for it rather than be forced to grind to the top in order to get it (which I don't have the time to do).

Wait, what? You'd rather have an option to literally buy your way to the top i.e. legend? 

Quote from AUzg »

Quote from UbangiShmelvin »

Back to HS, unfortunately I'm not a person who plays enough to get to up to the top tiers of the ladder. I'd rather have the option to pay for it rather than be forced to grind to the top in order to get it (which I don't have the time to do).

Wait, what? You'd rather have an option to literally buy your way to the top i.e. legend? 

No, I wouldn't like that. What I meant to say was just that I'd like the option to pay for the new hero skins rather than be forced to grind for them because I don't have the time for it. I worded that wrong, my apologies. I edited my previous post to reflect what I really meant to say.

I think Blizzard has every right to sell the skins as they are. As with any product, products which are on sale are a form of contract between a seller and a consumer. The seller has a right to list whatever price they want, and the consumer has the right to decide if they want to accept that price and form a contract with the seller by accepting to pay the proposed amount.

Whether or not it's a GOOD idea is another thing entirely because that would hinge on the fact that if too many people think that they can't accept the price then they wouldn't agree to buy it at all, resulting in less people overall buying it.