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!
More ways Blizzard could respect players time:
-Have rewards be based on time spent playing, not just victories. There is something to be said for incentive to win (some competition and motivation is fun) but currently all time spent losing games is not respected enough. Keeping the reward chests at the end of the season for ranked play should be plenty or incentive to rank up (also, bragging rights is a strong incentive as well). The daily quests could easily be changed to play x games with class rather than win x games with class. Instead of getting 10 gold every 3 wins, why not grant 1 gold every 10 turns played?
- Allow players to stack up more than 3 daily quests at a time. An easy way to do this would be to add a counter that keeps tracks of the amount of dailies a player has. So if a player has not completed any dailies for five days there would still only be three dailies shown and the counter would be at two. Then, once a daily has been completed a new one would be generated and the counter would go down to one. This way players are more encouraged to play when it is best for them.
- Make the actual game play more fun. Ultimately this is the best way a game can respect a player's time. Yes this is a collectible card game, so gaining gold and dust to obtain cards is a large part of what players are looking for, however, the majority of a player's time is spent playing. I do think Blizzard has done a great job with this, from intractable game boards to all the different cards they have designed. I'm not sure how they could make the game play more enjoyable other than changing/adding new cards, but I just wanted to throw this idea out there, that really the best way to respect our time is by affecting game play rather than rewards.
Bad about time for players is forced to win. You could easily make x time play is online get gold or even better for x games played (concede dont count).
On the topic of additional card backs, as well as rewarding time spent and recognizing accomplishments in arena, I would like to see a card back implemented that reflects the players highest number of arena wins. The artwork of the card back could resemble the key that is awarded, thus limiting the amount of additional design necessary to produce it.
Just want to say I voted 'No'. That vote was mainly for my new player experience, not for current, but still.
Because of simple reason: if you have dailies complete - you have basically nothing to do aside ranking up or arena. And both are not easy ways for a new player at all.
Ranking up is great if you have at least proper budget or mid tier deck and learned a lot from streams/tournaments - you can squeeze as much as you can to get, say honestly, r10 and some dust upon eom. But new player is most likely do not have enough experience or cards and easily hit the wall around r15. Tough and high wall it is and this one certainly does not respect your time.
Arena is something an average player can get value from. But for new players it can turn out in to randomed pack or being stuck with packs of expansion you do not need for your budget/mid tier deck and also in quite a lot of loses. Adding that arena games are quite long in comparison to possible budget aggro games and it also takes some time to draft a deck - this didn't respect my new player's time at all. It was me who was the reason, I understand it, but it does not change the idea.
When I played unranked as new player and after a few win streaks I also hit the wall of guys with Dr. Boom. and just well composed decks, because matchmaker decided that it was my place. Well, I appreciate that kind of assessment but since I literally had no ways to improve my deck and the play with basic cards is quite straight forward with little space for creativity - I consider that as kind of wall that didn't respect my time also.
Only the tavern brawls, those which provided random cards, so I could actually play for some more than 1 win - those were the only games I didn't feel hitting the wall and liked to play.
Still 3.3 gold per victory taking honest 50% chance to win provided by matchmaker and 10 minutes games it is 30 games to farm 50 gold (an average daily amount) ant this will be 5 hours of gameplay. In comparison to 6 plays (with 50% w/l) for 50g daily which you can accomplish 'honestly' in 60 minutes or quite less. This makes me believe that in this game it is something wrong with TIME.
While blizzard can claim that kind of slow 'wins-farming' in comparison to only 'quests-farming' progression is to not give big advantage to players who have time to farm each day over players who don't. And to not give players perception that they lose something if they don't play each day - this does not look legit because of two points:
1. Any advantage in cards of one over another will be considered by rank or matchmaker anyway.
2. Regardless slow or fast you farm - you will have the game quality level depending only on how much you have. You will not lose anything at your rank or MMR if you do not farm fast.
Which brings me to clear conclusion - this game does not respect anyone's time as much as employer or parents or whatever is you current business - which turns your face very straight to the facts that 'you better pay some'.
When I paid some - I instantly got some freedom as tempo-mage and zoo-lock mid-tier builds and some additional non-common tweaks of those builds allowed me to progress a lot higher than I could in common way.
So... in general. Game didn't respect me before I paid.
I believe it does so for some period of time. Then when latest expansion is adventure or a while passed - it rewards with random.
If I call to memory correctly, I observed different single packs as rewards inb4 the WotG.
For older players that started the game very early, it was possible to go completly f2p and never spend anything on the game...i did it and many others did.
Sadly for newer players that join after 2 or 3 expansions/adventures, it is very hard to keep up because most decks needs cards from multiple different places and not just the latest adventure/packs.
There are always the budget decks but new players are attracted to the big shinny legendaries, the epicness of seeing ragnaros coming from beneth the earth in a flamy way is just so coolthe first time.
Hearing jaraxxus say his line , destroying your hero and taking his place is what got me hocked in the first place and i'm sure many viewers that wanted to try the game had a moment like this with one legendary or another.
Sadly for a new player to get such cards he either must be veeeeeery lucky, spend an insane amount of time with frustration or spend money on the game.
In the end i have to say some catch up mecanisms for new players would be really welcomed, and i'm not talking about the free packs from quests/brawls, those barely help....i'm talking about something like having any new account get some crafting discounts or maybe a free legendary of your choice that CAN NOT be disenchanted later, to help those players play decks that they actually enjoy.
Blizzard should give more boosters as a quest reward, or monthly 10 epics and 3 legends for example... They did a great job at promotion of Whispers of the Old Gods.
I'm sure a lot of F2P players gave up the game just because older players' legendary cards outvalue their 3-4 card combination.
Also a daily player can open 1 pack from the quest and a few games. So his/her deck won't improve quickly. It will get boring and boring playing the same (his/her strongest) deck over and over again.
Thanks for reading this Ben Brode ^^
I have been playing Hearthstone since the 1st ranked season, so it's more than 2 years. I haven't played WoW ever, but HS seemed very attractive to me, I liked the idea of collecting cards and cardbacks, I liked the design and the skill aspect of the game - it was actually a skill game in the early begining. It wasn't hard for me to farm the gold, I guess that's because few people had good and rare cards, so I just enjoyed myself playing.
Now I see the game changed a lot. It goes without saying that the balance system is now very different, it feels like it's another game, not the hearthstone as it was. When I started playing HS, all classes were playable and almost equal. Now only hipsters play rogue or priest, and that's very sad for me, who got legend with priest. So I often change quests with priests or rogue wins, because it can take a lot of time to complete it.
The brawls. At first I thought it was a good idea for new players. Getting classic pack doesn't change a lot for old players ( always 40 dust FeelsBadMan ), but it's good supporting for new players. When the new format was introduced, Blizzard promised we will have brawls in both formats: wild and standart. But what we see now is wild-only brawls. I mostly play on EU and have a f2p smurf on NA. Sometimes I have to skip brawls on NA because with my poor collection it's almost impossible to get the pack I need so much.
A lot of my friends, who liked HS before, stopped playing it months ago. Now I understand why. As for me, it seems like the game is dying. It's very hard for new played to get into, because many others have loads of cards and experience. If you are new, you have to complete all adventures, otherwise you won't be able to compete properly. And if you're playing f2p, it will take years to get a good enough collection, and I'm not even saying about the fact that more and more expansions will come.
So if you're new, you have to pay. If you are a veteran player, you are probably tired of this game and playing it by inertia. I respect the huge work of developers, they made a successful game, but one day something went wrong and they have to do something, if they want people enjoy HS like it was 2 years ago.
Thank you for attention and sorry for my bad English.
If anyone thinks Blizzard doesn't respect FTP players' time they need to try and play some other free to play games. Other games that use a FTP or freemium models have so many pay barriers it is unbelievable at times.
There are...
Games that only let you play a certain amount of times or tries until you have to pay extortionate amounts of either in game currency or real currency just for a one off boost in play time.
Games that force you to piss off all your friends on social media asking for credits.
Games that piss you off every 2 minutes with an advert unless you spend in game currency to skip them. This then can't be spent on what you want. And often you can't even pay real money to get an ad free version.
Games that make you grind for hours and hours and even months to earn enough to buy the best items so you can actually complete i.e the very definition of Pay to Win.
the list goes on...
Hearthstone has...
no time/play restriction.
no adverts.
no social media begging.
No proper P2W. Budget decks are perfectly capable of competing at the top level and easily created with only a small time investment.
The gold rate isn't even that bad. A pack every 2 days is perfectly fine even for the most casual player.
High skill can reward FTP players through arena with as many packs as the they are willing to play for.
The only difference between between a FTP player and a none FTP player is the amount and variety of decks and range of cards that the person has. The only thing you have to decide between is whether you put in time or money. If you're not willing to pay for a game you like you can't expect to get the same privileges as someone else that has.
Blizzard's model is actually one of the most generous around. Especially considering the genre of game.
Well said. The Hearthstone F2P model is incredibly generous - the gold from completing dailies amounts to about 150 free packs, and a free adventure, each year. Another fifty packs from Tavern Brawls. We just received thirteen packs of Whispers. Nothing whatsoever to complain about. Lots to be thankful for.
Well said!
I also join to the point that Hearthstone is quite generous in compare to some other F2P games in term of final progress and final achievement. Eventually you can get legend rank which can be considered end-game content literally without paying anything.
However it still has walls impassable unless your assets match certain conditions and grinding those assets are capped at two stages, and your time affords have very low efficiency on it.
Regarding the question about you pay for game or not:
1. Paid services provide high respect to the time you spend and purchase. For instance World of Warcraft provide you with world full of exciting PvE content from the very beginning to the end and also relatively balanced PvP with range of choices to spend your time fun and efficient.
2. F2P services are not obligated to provide you specific standard of service, unless you purchase particular offer. However they have to show respect to time of every user because it creates the player base and retention to have value from conversion to customers then.
Regardless if the wall says to you 'Pay or you won't progress' or 'Return another day to have progress or pay' - you are put into position when you HAVE to decide if you like the game enough to pay or wait another day. And in Hearthstone this happens from very beginning, at the stage when you do not have perception of what the game ACTUALLY is. This is the thing that can scare off prospects so they never become customers.
But if it the game could allow more smooth walls for the new players allowing them to still progress efficiently investing time until they enter at least the lower range of average players - this will certainly benefit the game.
I like the game a lot now. But there was a moment in the beginning I almost abandoned it.
hi,
i'm free-to-play player and i can't buy portrait :)
if portrait have a gem for define rarity like other card
player can craft portrait with dust or buy with gold.
for example:
400,1600,3200 dust or 400,800,1200 gold depend on rarity.
thank you
(sry for my bad english)
Its obvius that they design with money in mind , and thats right so why being ipocrit ? .... Btw i am a free-to-play player and after 1 and half year that i play i can play almost everything and i got legend so yeah be a free to play player is possible here
If they respect the time of the players, they would use the same measuring stick for balancing both control and aggro. They wouldn't release a card like a 4 mana 7/7 for one class and a 1600 dust joke for the others
the 100 gold cap speaks for its meaning Bliz should respect time more
because of this cap, the answer is no