I think that is one of the main reasons HotS failed. Skins are way too cheap and that is a detriment to the company and, in my opinion, to the players as well.
Xenotech Malthael drastically changes the whole model. It has altered voice-over and animations. It costs less than 5 euros. Shan’do Illidan is a completely different design and theme and costs… 1 euro.
The most expensive skins like Queen of Ghosts Kerrigan and Prime Evil Diablo cost like 7 euros.
Used to be that skins were so rare, and stood out so much, that you really felt like you could show yourself to both teams and be the star of the show. They were more expensive but still felt worth the money because you also got all colours in a single package. And they still could be worth the money, if Blizzard drastically increased their prices (in gems AND in shards) and gave all colours to those who pay real money for them.
The removal of gold costs for mastery skins was also a huge mistake in my eyes. The prestige you had, showing your dedication to a particular hero, all gone. They are now on the lowest price tier at just 1 euro. Mastery rings are a nice idea but they are way too little, way too late.
I don’t feel any prestige anymore for owning a skin. Blizzard went overboard in giving us free stuff all over the place, which further reduced the interest I had in those skins. That’s a weird feeling from the company that overprices everything in WoW…
Weird. I personally find it to look too much like his original suit. In-game, I can barely tell whoch one I’m looking at.
It didn’t work. Players had a dilemma in that in order to show their mastery, they had to refrain from using other skins they liked. So they added the Mastery animation instead. THeir data showed most players preferred using varied skins.
But yeah, players asked for everything, and they caved in. So that eventually there was little way they could actually do any money. The 2.0 system made no sense.
They tried it with a few skins, Alextrasza namely. Didn’t go well because now people were used to being able to get them for free. I think they should just drastically increase the costs in gems and shards for all existing skins.
When entire games are sold for 30-60€ I don’t think a single skin is worth 5-10-20.
However, I have a large bunch of them so they would add up, just like my usual suggestion of 2€ a month, I’d have paid (somewhat less than) 148€ in the 6 years and 2 months I’ve played.
(I did purchase stuff but the only one that was worth the investment usage-wise was Star Princess Li-Ming.)
The only upside of manual purchases is feedback on which items people crave. Except we have lootboxes messing it up.
Of course numbers are subject to varying income levels. There are places where 1000 €/$ a month is a respectable salary. The café across the street paid about 600 before all their employees left - but they accepted first.
I was only impressed by Master skins. It was really cool to see Master vikings at a time when only a handful of people could level them to 10 (and in 1.0, that was equivalent to something like 35 or 40 in 2.0).
Yeah the old master skin system was the way to go.
I also bought a few skins during the games peak and they were way too expensive but atleast it was income.
With the introduction of the lootboxes they likely lost all profits.
I never bought skins because they weren’t cheap enough.
Sometimes, I wanted one skin with a specific color but I would have been forced to buy the whole bundle just to get the color I wanted. Not doing that and never did that so I didn’t drop a dime.
Bought a gazlowe skin for 15. Not even worth 3 back in the day eventhough most characters had either none or one skin.
Not bought anything since the introduction of the lootboxes though and i own a colossal ammount of skins so thats a profit loss of 100% on my part.
They should just sell every skin single-handly for a small price, this skin bundles are stupid. I wouldn’t do that either. Whoever want more skin colors of the same skin? I don’t know anyone.
But you didn’t really had it. There was a small time period when it was yet hard to achieve and obtain them, and then it was kinda prestige, but that gone quick when ppl who were bad could farm it out.
Yea, was a big mistake. The game is too free, barely gets any money from its players. Cursed Lootchests.
The problem was mainly the fact that those were locked in Bundles. They should’ve just let us buy individual skin tints instead of forcing bundles on us.
Example: Heroes who were level 10 should adjust to approximately Level 15 in the new progression system. A former level 20 Hero will convert to about level 54.
But why do you need to spent money to get those lootboxes faster than you do already? I play a lot of Hots (It’s basically my only game) and I’ve already 500 unopend boxes and hundredthousend of gold. I don’t see the incentive to spent any money in this game, but I would like to like I spent money for announcers in Heroes of Newerth, because I love them, but in Heroes of the Storm I can get them all for free, which is crazy to me.
Hots 2.0 was a failure, there is no incentives to pay money for cosmetics, but buyers should get exclusivity for their money.
Indeed. This only works in cardgames like Yugioh, Hearthstone and such, because it fits the design how cardgames works in general.
I bought a few skins as well, was a bit disappointing that they decided to go for the lootbox system.
Also having the master skills felt so good back then, people could see that you put a lot of effort into a character and most of them look great. Now they’re worth nothing and it’s kinda sad.
This was a literal gamble with the introduction of the loot box model. Keep in mind that they did lock most new skins behind a paywall, there was a Alex and Whitemane bundle and a few others, they eventually ended up giving them away too.
This didn’t surprise me, as someone who spent real cash on HOTS before 2.0, when everything I had paid for was now free, I didn’t consider spending real money on those supposedly money only skins as I was certain they would end up making them free to forge or drop in chests, which is exactly what happened.
You’re no doubt correct that they made a mistake with the loot chest option, but we will never know how much money they made on either monetization model. The only thing we can be sure of was that the loot box model didn’t make enough to save HOTS from becoming a legacy title. It’s still more complicated than just that, as the money sunk into the HGC was no doubt also a contributing factor.
Kotick and friends are probably very disappointed we didn’t get addicted to the lootcrap gamble, but at least it contributed to make that acceptable in the eyes of The Gamers ™.
