We are able to buy packs and passes with cash right?
So why is it necessary for Blizzard to add Runestone, another digital currency?
And what about Gold?
To avoid transaction fees from Google Play and Apple is probably the biggest reason for it. Im not really a fan of it, but I have yet to see anything too terrible to get mad at.
Yet…
How do you get around the Apple/Google Play fee with Runestone?
Tbh not quite sure… Thats just the reasoning Ive heard others say. I should probably look into that more
If I buy $100 in runestones, I can then buy anything in the game with them without an additional transaction fee. It’s very helpful for the smaller things like arena tickets, single packs, heroes, and apparently BG perks.
It doesn’t eliminate them, but reduces them.
That’s right, exactly this, yet…
I am 100% it’s coming and the smallest denominations of runestones will change as well as getting “more value” from bigger purchases of stones.
The aren’t going to stick it to us all at once, rather they will slide it in there slowly thinking we won’t notice.
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Why would YOU as the customer care about transaction fees? You don’t pay them, lol.
It’s just a lazy excuse for “we want more money”
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So, Blizzard is finally obeying the Loot Box law held across a lot of other countries, manly EU. Case in point, the removal of purchasable loot boxes in Overwatch, but still earned through gameplay.
This same principle is being applied to Hearthstone; instead of purchasing the “Loot Box” (A pack) directly with cash, Blizzard is circumventing the gambling aspect by instead telling the governing bodies “They aren’t paying for the “Loot Box”, they are paying for a digital currency that can be used on other things in our store; one of which includes card packs, but that is not the prime focus for our currency in game”
Granted none of this is verbatim but it’s the presumed mindset behind the change.
You can still buy packs with earned gold; heck each expansion I save up enough with the completed rewards track to get 50+ packs, but they’re doing their best to loophole the “Well, they aren’t gambling, they’re buying the poker chips”.
Edit: I never considered the tax applied in app-stores for paid packs, I always thought it was a flat price, so that’s also a possibility.
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Apple gets something like 30% of all in app purchases if you are an app on their devices. You cant just increase the price to offset that as the percentage would just take the same percentage but a bigger pile of money, and with price hikes fewer purchases are made typically. So its a lose / lose with that strategy. As far as I know Android doesnt have this percentage on in app purchases agreement so its mainly a way to circumvent it by encouraging the big purchases of the in game currencies as a one time 30% payment to apple and then you can use the in game currency to make as many small purchases as you like. transaction fee free as far as apple and blizz are concerned. Its just an economical maneuver that will maintain their ability to stay on apple products app stores and not have to owe so much to apple just because.
also the lootbox laws around the world this can also be applied to as a successful maneuver.
So there is still a fee to Apple if you buy the runestone/digital currency from Blizzard?
Can Blizzard ask players to buy those from Boizzard website? So there is no Apple involved.
Apple was having a legal battle with Fortnight over whether Fortnight is able to direct people to their own site for purchases, rather than go through the Apple store. Wasn’t really paying attention but I think Apple won.
I believe it’s a psychological tactic to divorce our association with purchases from being of real value. I believe this skirts gambling laws in many countries. And I believe in greed. I’m legitimately worried about the direction this will take us. Diablo Immortal syndrome.
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So long as capitalism and games of chance are legal, you wont be able to do much about this. This is just another in a long lineage of similar moves for a business to remain in business.
A hotel in the middle of the desert wouldnt last very long when no one has a need to stop there, the occasional here and there clients wouldnt be a sustainable business for long. So you come up with a reason to make your hotel a destination, and not a one night stayover if you happen to be tired and coming up on it. What is the reason you are a destination now? You opened a casino in your lobby. Now people from all over will go out of their way to stop there and patron your business. And you have the birth of Las Vegas.
Blizzard is doing not very much differently. They are a company in a vast sea of companies much smaller and making hand over fist more profit than they can because all the business models that made them what they up til now will no longer do that anymore. You cant make an RTS game now that will sell so well as compared to FPS or Mobile Games. Most people now a days dont even have a traditional computer of any kind in the house, but they have a phone or a tablet as the most sophisticated computer device. This is where the market has moved to and shows no sign of ever going back. So in order to remain in business, adaptation is needed. They did so with lootboxes and the like and that ran afoul of many anti gambling laws across many parts of the world. Slap on wrist, learn from that.
So that brings us to now. In order for Hearthstone, that quaint little inn that is a drain on resources to the company as it is a free to play game on all platforms. it has a store but boosters and such run afoul of anti gambling laws, they learned that mistake before so adapt they must. So now you have runestones. Much akin to poker chips. Any one set of chips/runestones could yield an amazing win, or a devastating loss, or a complete wash. You never know, its a game of chance (booster opening, not the card game itself, thats a game of skill). So they learned from the anti gambling mistake they made before and fixed that issue. They adapted to make the company more sustainable as a business by making a better return on its investment by having to give less of its revenue to apple via the runestone purchases.
All around I see it as survival and a win for Blizz vs Apple. Im not considering how it affects the players because ultimately it wont matter. People have left the game over the meta, so people being fickle about runestones wont be any different. Karens are gonna Karen.