Maybe some light can be shed on this topic?

Community Discussion
1

So this post is not meant to be toxic or to troll in any way, it’s purely composed to answer an honest question that I simply can’t wrap my head around.

Hearthstone is meant to be a child friendly and family fun card game. Where anyone can play and have fun. This is certainly true when it relates to solo adventure mode and to a degree arena. These forms are content are either free as in the case of adventure mode, and I personally look at arena as being quite feasible in terms of cost. For the family, or a child to earn quests and come up with 150 gold seems fair in my opinion.

However, single player and competitive mode is an entirely different story and this is where my uncertainty comes into play. I want to make it very clear that I know first hand this thought process I have is not unique to myself only. Well known and much loved you tubers have all shared their opinions regarding this subject matter at one time or another on stream. Such you tubers include, Kripparian, Disgusted Toast, Reynad, Brian Kibler, Thisj, and many more…

So what opinion exactly has been formed about the game Hearthstone as it relates to competitive. Well it’s simple, how as a children’s card game can Blizzard get away with charging these prices for card packs. When I say Hearthstone is an expensive game to play, I don’t mean that it’s a little more expensive than other games. If you don’t know, Hearthstone is comparatively 4 times more expensive than your average game.

How does one come to that conclusion you might ask? Let’s say that most high end games, so in other words expensive new games hit the market between $60-70 per product. When a new expansion roles around, to receive the maximum card pack you are expected to pay $70 on the high end. That sounds fair right? Except it doesn’t take long to realize that the $70 you spent on the game only gives you access to small portion of the expansion in terms of cards generated.

A case in point was I remember when I spent $70 on the Ungoro expansion only to be able to craft 2 out of the 5 decks I wished to play. That means I would have to drop at least another $70 dollars on cards to get close to what I perceive to be a good sample of the expansion.

So you may be asking where did I get the 4x number from? Well paying approximately $170 would yield me the 5 decks I wanted to play, that still doesn’t mean that I get to play all the decks that the expansion had to offer? You are essentially paying a massive amount for a game and not even getting all that is offered in the product.

This post is not meant to offend anyone, and if you are someone who is enjoying the game, then honestly all the more power to you. I’m happy that you are still engaged with Hearthstone and Blizzard, but with the economy in the slumps, I can’t sleep at night knowing that a beloved company that I grew up with could charge such hideously disgusting prices for a “children’s card game”. It’s not right and I seriously thing Blizzard needs to address this issue, because from reports that I am hearing on many info channels including Belluar from Bellular gaming, Hearthstone numbers are down and it’s obvious to see why, unless you are doing very well financially I can’t see how most people afford this game.

2

In case you aren’t aware, the description of Hearthstone as “a children’s card game” is meant to be facetious. It’s meant to poke fun at the light-hearted tone of the game in contrast with the more serious World of Warcraft lore (or mock the relatively simple mechanics of the game). It does not mean this game was designed with children as their main target audience.

11 Likes
3

This is not a children’s game. And that right there blows your entire post, from to bottom, out of the water. Without this game being a children’s game your entire argument is completely wasted. Your entire argument is predicated on the false assumption that this game is a children’s game.

7 Likes
4

I understand your post, however it is underpinned by an unspoken assumption: that playing ranked implies a desire, perhaps even need to gain ranks.

If you want to climb the ladder, you need to play competitive decks (*). If you want competitive decks without having to wait while you grind arenas, you need to spend money.

But I know from personal experience (because that’s what I do) that playing ranked can be fun without trying to climb to legend, to rank 5, or even to any single-digit rank. I make decks (or, yes I’ll admit it, sometimes copy decks and then replace cards I miss) that I think are fun to play. It doesn’t bother me that they are not the most competitive. It doesn’t bother me that I end most seasons between ranks 10 and 15. I simply have lots of fun playing those decks.

Everyone gets to choose how much they spend on the game. One can spend the amounts you mention. One can spend less. One can even spend nothing. And all of those options open the door to various ways to enjoy the game. Spending more does, of course, allow for more options.
But it is not true to state that you need to spend those huge amounts of money to enjoy ranked. That would only be true for one specific type of “enjoy ranked” - the type that requires climbing the ladder all the way to the highest ranks.

(*) Yes, I am aware of streamers going to legend with F2P decks. They are very smart professional players. Most “normal” players are not able to do this. Most “normal” players do need the combination of their own skill/experience AND a competitive deck to stand a chance at higher ranks.

4 Likes
5

Even if this game was not classified as a children’s game the cost difference is still valid, I don’t know where you get the assumption that the entire post is somehow invalid when one looks at the cost discrepancies across games?

6

Pretty much every premise you stated was incorrect or highly subjective. I’m still not convinced this wasn’t just a troll with a ton of words.

Hearthstone was not designed for children. You know that, yet you persist in being a ‘lul childrens card game’ troll

Hearthstone doesn’t have decks you build. You get cards, you make a deck. You keep stating you could only build so many of the decks you wanted, but in reality you refuse to use the cards you have. I’m sorry netdecking isn’t working out for you. Try just playing the game.

Hearthstone is F2P. I’ve spent under $30 since closed Beta. My collection allows me to build lots and lots of decks.

1 Like
7

You do know that this game literally has a card called “succubus”

8

Telling me that I know something is silly to begin with, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. There are many posts of Blizzard back in the early days of Hearthstone stating that it’s a family game. Do you not think children are a part of that target audience? If not then I don’t know what to say to that, you may think they are white knights and do not target children, but look at the gaming industry on a whole with loot boxes right now. You have senators that are trying to pass bills in congress that ban loot boxes because of the negative effect it creates on children.

And as far as the cost goes, no I don’t agree. Almost every single big you tuber who has tons of money, who are the least likely to say something is expensive when they have tons of money in their back pocket are saying it’s an expensive game to play, ya… I make a healthy living with a masters degree job, and there are times where i’m like damn, really it’s this expensive? I might need to pass on it.

Yes I understand there are free aspects to the game, that’s why I gave credit where credit is due at the beginning of the post, but paying $30 like you did is not going to give you access to much of the deck builds that are in the game, and i’m sorry if you disagree but those decks ARE a huge part of the game and experiencing what the developers put time into making for “you, the customer” to play and try out.

10

Tldr. Learn to write posts pls

1 Like
11

They must be extremely stupid at Blizzard. To build a game that runs entirely on their servers. And then to build some complex and illegal cookie-reading stuff to learn what you play most instead of just aggregating the data they already have on their servers, where the games are played.

Not responding to the rest of your post. Your tin foil hat is too strong. You’ll probably accuse me of being paid by Blizzard.

1 Like
12

Holy cow that must be frustrating to lose so much. I can see why you would be upset, but instead of looking for conspiracy theories, look within yourself and try to improve your play. Good luck, and I hope to see you at Legend one day.

13

Not anymore it doesn’t! LOL

14
  1. “but this is not a children’s game so OP’s entire argument is invalid”

If this isn’t a children’s game then why does it needs censorship for blood, death, bones, a bit of cleavage and “suggestive” card names (like “mistress”)
If this isn’t a children’s game then why does it needs to be PEGI 7?
If this isn’t a children’s game then why are some people in the forum defending Blizzard’s censorship? Are they just trolling?

If this is a children’s game, then Blizzard has to lower the cost of the packs.
If this isn’t a children’s game, then Blizzard has to remove censorship.

  1. but I created a new account and got to legend in 2 months so clearly you are a noob if you are paying 70 dollars and you can’t win games

I congratulate you but that’s not OP’s point. He wants to play with all the expansion cards just because he likes variety, and he thinks he should get all the expansion cards if he’s paying a substantial amount of money, like, 70 dollars, which is kind of the price of a new game.

1 Like
15

I like how you said the exact same thing three sentences in a row, but had to rephrase it each time. lol

16

Neither one of your conclusions follow from the preceding statements.

2 Likes
17

I’d have to disagree with this. It says clearly, more than once, on Blizzard’s Hearthstone website that Hearthstone is “a game for everyone”, by implication that includes children.
However, I don’t see where the OP gets the idea that it is a “children’s card game”, that’s not something Blizzard have ever said to my knowledge.

18

“This is a game for everyone, including children” is not the same as “this is a children’s game.” The latter statement implies the game was designed specifically (or primarily) to be played by children, which is not implied by the former statement.

2 Likes
19

And your point is? That’s exactly what I said in my reply.

20

My point is that in the context of the post you quoted, it reads like you are saying that “Hearthstone is a children’s game” is an accurate description.

2 Likes
21

For one expansion it should not be so expensive. I can understand this game being expensive if you want to have cards from previous expansions on top of the current one but just one expac alone is ridiculously expensive…I’ve always bought bundles but they were never enough, I could only manage to put together 2 maybe 3 decks if I’m lucky and that includes disenchanting all the extras, and as someone who doesnt have time to gold farm I still have to put out another 80 or so dollars to fully enjoy the expansion. I’ve watched DaneHS spend 50 quid on packs just for one legendary, an expansion he had already opened alot of packs from…and he didn’t pull it. He only got 1200 dust from those packs and that still wasnt enough for his legendary. Which reminds me the dust cost in this game is ridiculous. Disenchanting 4 legendaries equals to the cost of just one legendary…and still hasn’t changed. Now that is what I call expensive.