I have long been opposed to the idea of returning limited time items to the game, especially free card backs for real money. I would rather see new card backs be offered to keep the exclusives as a rare trophy for devoted fans. However I feel this recent addition is the start of a bad trend and shows a lack of appreciation for dedicated fans of the game for a short term financial gain.
The previous card backs have all been monthly rewards but this card back was a preorder exclusive bonus. It was very much touted as a limited time offering and used as a carrot on a stick to entice players to buy the preorder package. The value of the cardback is debatable since it came bundled with packs, however the concept is the same. Buy this package to get a cardback that won’t be available after the preorder time.
I am not opposed to selling card backs to generate more revenue, but please stop using old limited time content to reach these ends. New cardbacks and hero skins would seemingly be a more profitable venture since loyal players will also be incentivized to purchase them rather than foregoing dedicated players to sell old limited time exclusives.
no thx for loyalty…i chose to give up on wow cause they thought making their players work like slaves for collectible was a good idea(especially the case with shadowland)…heartstone dont have that problem but it has the problem of costing too much $
the card back offer in the shop is fine and i appreciate that having skip certain months on the game…also only like maybe 5-8% of the players care about their card back ?..at least most are happy when they got at least 1 awesome looking card back…in my case i’am just a collector and i’am not likely gonna use that card back at all
only cards back i’am missing are like blackrock and karazhan + 6-7 for ranked participation…i like hs but i’am not making it my top interest in term of games
imma soon return to PSO2(JP server) since i have no desire to do slave work for activision…play 4 char of every armor type to cap lvl to unlock all of the covenants xmog ? no thx(16 total)…do i want to do absurd grinding again for mounts,toy,pets,xmog ? no thx…1% drop rate…0.1% drop rate is not exactly what i would consider fun…8 hours of camping for a few mounts ? that just insanity and boring…so ya…after pushing me into quitting wow i dont think being loyal to activision is something i wanna do…not to mention the bs they pulled on the WC3 players with reforged…and even the Diablo fanbase…only games they got left to screw up is heartstone and Starcraft 2…
anyhow…card back sales is fine…more ppl will be happy//ok with it than ppl salty about it…btw…why would you be loyal to activision after how many ppl they angered on their other games ? unless you weren’t award of such…but ya…rip the original blizzard team which kept ppl liking the games…i do plan to spread bad review bout activision since the choice they made to keep the torture ongoing with shadowland…i keep playing hs for now…at least…untill they decide to pull something thats definetly gonna anger everyone…i doubth they end up making the right choice in the end…(play Linkin Park song :D)
Huh. I didn’t realize the C’thun card back used to be a pre-order bonus. Neat!
Anyway, I’m gonna go ahead and be the dissenting voice here. Allowing access to older cosmetic content is a good thing, because it allows newer players access to stuff they might have missed out on, which in turn makes players’ hero/card back appearance more diverse. The more cosmetics available to players, the more visually interesting the game becomes, IMO.
And I say this as someone who has multiple pre-order card backs and heroes. If, say, Mecha-Jaraxxus shows up in the shop tomorrow, I’d be happy that more people will get to have that skin, even though they didn’t get it through a pre-order like I did.
Well… they haven’t really stopped releasing new card backs/hero skins either, so I don’t see why it has to be an either/or proposition.
As someone who made many pre-orders, therefore has many of these “exclusive” card backs(like the old gods one), I am fine with this. It just a cosmetic, I always despised time limited rewards in video games.
You paid money for it back then. We’re paying money or time for it now. You’re quite selfish wanting to deny us getting something even if we’re willing to spend the equivalent money value that you did back then. Just cause you did it before other people doesn’t mean you should have exclusive rights to that… you’re not special for spending money before others spent their money.
But that’s the point of exclusive items. It’s a way to show a long term dedication to the game. However that argument has more merit for the monthly card backs since this particular one was listed as a limited time offering only. So it shouldn’t be back in the store for cheaper than it was originally.
On a similar (but slightly different) topic, I wish Blizzard would allow F2P players to be able to purchase the old adventures with gold, as opposed to only w/ real money. I started to play Hearthstone sort of by accident when the Whispers of the Old Gods set was released, primarily because I was playing Heroes of the Storm & wanted to get the Hearthstone card mount for free. Discovered I liked the card game & started to play it more, slowly accumulating gold so that I could unlock the older sets (this was before Wild format even existed). I’d grind away & accumulate 100 gold, and then unlock another wing in the League of Explorers adventure and play it through; & once I had finally completed that, I started to do the same with Blackrock Mountain…
And then Wild format was introduced. & suddenly, all the other old expansions that I hadn’t gotten the chance to unlock yet–Curse of Naxxramas, The Grand Tournament, & Goblins vs. Gnomes–were no longer even available in the shop, period.
It’s only recently that Blizzard has finally placed those old adventures back into the Shop again, but unfortunately, it’s only purchasable with real money, & not gold. And seriously, a price tag of US$24.99 for Curse of Naxxramas–a game that was released in July 2014–is really way too high. Even US$9.99 for Goblins vs. Gnomes (released in Dec 2014) and The Grand Tournament (released in Aug 2015) is a bit pricey, IMHO. Compare that with, say, Blizzard’s Starcraft II Wings of Liberty, which was over US$40 when it was released back in July 2010 and is now completely free to play since 2017…!
So while I don’t really think it’s that big of a deal to be able to purchase older content that was exclusive at one point in time, I do wish that said content could at least be made payable via in-game gold, and not just real-world currency. If I can purchase the Eyes of C’Thun card back in the shop for either 500 gold or US$2.99, then I should also be allowed to purchase Curse of Naxxramas for 5,000 gold, and not have only the US$24.99 option. Just my two cents.
I agree with OP.
People pay a premium for limited edition merchandise.
Bitcoin is the same idea. If they can double Bitcoin number next year, you wouldn’t have paid 20k for it today.
