This article is opinionated and written with the intent to have a discussion with the community.
Let us know in the comments how you feel - just keep it civil!
I received an email from Blizzard on Tuesday asking me to fill out a survey that would take around 10 minutes of my time. I'm always interested in these types of surveys because they give you an insight into what the business side of Hearthstone is thinking about and what avenues may be used to improve the game.
From experience past surveys I've filled out, there honestly wasn't a whole lot of questions that truly stuck out, it was primarily asking about how you felt about Saviors of Uldum, but the question that did is the topic of this article. That question wanted to know what things in Hearthstone I felt were fairly priced and if I felt I needed to spend money to remain competitive or have fun. Disclaimer: Yeah, I do.
Note that the below quote is formatted exactly as appeared on the survey. Survey images further below. Remember that surveys do not indicate anything will actually change, Blizzard is just collecting feedback!
Quote From Blizzard How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements about the value of Hearthstone cards to you?
- The Saviors of Uldum Pre-Purchase Bundle of 50 cards plus random Golden Legendary and Card Back was fairly priced
- The Saviors of Uldum Pre-Purchase Bundle of 80 cards plus Druid Hero Portrait, random Golden Legendary and Card Back was fairly priced
- Classic card packs are fairly priced
- The Tombs of Terror Adventure Pre-Purchase Bundle was fairly priced
- I get good entertainment value for the MONEY I spend playing Hearthstone
- It is necessary for players to spend money in order to have fun in Hearthstone
- It is necessary for players to spend money in order to stay competitive in Hearthstone
- The Explorer Bundle of 20 packs from past expansion was fairly priced
- I get good entertainment value for the TIME I spend playing Hearthstone
The Fun and Games End Here
I don't think someone put these questions on the survey just for fun. Getting to know how your players feel about the pricing of content isn't something they can just pull up perfect numbers for. Yes, if Hearthstone isn't selling as much content while the player base remains just as active compared to past expansions, that can show dissatisfaction for it, but, you still don't get the full picture. Personally, I don't think every bundle available is truly worth my money, but as soon as you add in something exclusive, as someone who likes to complete collections, I feel forced to buy it for that cosmetic alone but don't get a chance to really say why I made the purchase. Macrotransaction cosmetics are one hell of a drug.
So, why are they asking about it now? Well, if you're like me and frequent several places of Hearthstone discussion each day, you've likely seen a solid chunk of community members upset with the pricing model of Hearthstone, with more posting frequency about it as time goes on. Although this may not be the opinion of the majority, Hearthstone is over 5 years old now which does give it some merit and it is absolutely vital that Blizzard gets the full picture.
This question being asked says to me that this without a doubt has been talked about internally and is feedback taken seriously. Maybe the results of this survey help determine the 2020 plans for Hearthstone, we are only 6 months away from the Standard rotation after all! It would not surprise me at all to see large changes to the new player experience and helping the veterans of Hearthstone still feel good about the game. I know plenty of people that have quit the game and moved on because they felt like Hearthstone was no longer worth their money, so I really do hope this is a step in the right direction to keep this game successful.
The Classic Experience
One popular suggestion out there is that the Classic set is a bit too expensive, with a popular argument being brought up of it being too much for new players to get into the game. Blizzard has done many things to improve this such as giving out Classic packs every week for winning a game in the Tavern Brawl, including Classic packs in several bundles, giving them to us in quests for participating during special limited-time events and the ultra-cheap Welcome Bundle (10 packs + Legendary). That doesn't mean the set is fairly priced though, that just means newer players don't have to put down such a large investment on the game and can get brought into it as a F2P / small investment player initially.
In an ideal world, I'd cut the cost of Classic Packs by half (real money and gold) and with that, the amount of dust those cards give you and how much they cost to craft. By doing so we let new players get cheap and easy access to some fantastic evergreen cards such as Archmage Antonidas, Edwin VanCleef, Preparation, Brawl, and Leeroy Jenkins. I'd maybe buy a round of 40 packs just to try and finish up some of the Legendary cards I'm missing since the investment would be so small. All that needs to happen is anyone with Classic cards currently, give them dust to counteract the reduction in how much our cards are worth.
It may end up with me buying fewer packs in the next expansion due to the surplus of dust, but player happiness would definitely skyrocket and the value for that set would as well. And while we're on that topic, let's also get a reduction in cost from some of the very old Wild sets, making the format more accessible, thanks!
Having Fun
Now, that does leave the other big question - is it necessary for players to spend money to have fun or stay competitive? I do still feel this would be the case even with changes to how Classic cards could be obtained. There is way too much power in Legendaries and while you may not get dupes of them anymore, they remain the hardest cards in the game to obtain and the only reason why I feel like I am required to purchase card packs past the pre-order bundles. That's not to say that's entirely a bad thing if Blizzard wants to make boatloads of cash, but it does not feel great.
When Hearthstone costs, at a minimum, more than the price of 2 AAA title launches every expansion, I question myself if it is worth it vs the time I'll actually play on the Standard ladder. I've personally been more interested in the solo adventure content than the actual constructed game over the past couple of expansions since Standard... hasn't been the best of experiences. I've certainly had fun, but Blizzard has just felt way too slow to react to problematic cards. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate that we are in a time where Hearthstone gets actively updated with card changes and awesome events that change up how we play - it's a thousand times better than the old days - but there's only so many times I can slam my head against the 30 minute game Warrior that I'll almost certainly lose.
The whole Hearthstone team has also been doing an absolutely wonderful job with their community engagement this year too, although not as high as where'd I'd love to see it, it's better than ever.
When you compare it to other games I could be playing or activities I could be doing with my time, Hearthstone is one hell of a deal compared to paper Magic or woodworking, but I wouldn't have much fun without using real money to acquire tons of packs.
Do You Think Classic Packs are Fairly Priced?
Let us know in the comments below what you think about the pricing of Classic packs. What about other types of content Blizzard mentioned in the survey?
Other Noteworthy Questions
- Which recent bundles you knew about and whether you liked them or not.
- If you knew about the Fire Fest-E.V.I.L. and Onward to Uldum events and your satisfaction with them.
- What kind of rewards you wanted to see out of future events.
- How you felt about Hearthstone - "On its way down" "Holding ground" "On its way up".
- Have you been watching esports, attending a tournament, or watching streams.
The Survey Screenshot Dump
These are most of the questions in the survey. Some pages were not included if they were not of interest. All images can be clicked on to open the full image.
Comments
Everyone wants to have fun in the game, theres no point being here if it's not; but not everyone wants a competitive game, I only play on the ladder long enough to get my 5 wins and get to 20 or 15 depending which alt character i'm using. (I do have a lot of alts)
To be competitive you'd have to sink some money to get the legendaries you want as you said, but as a fun player making decks with what I have and earn is by far the most fun aspect.
Witch's cauldron was by far the MOST crafted epic by me on my alts :) I wasnt playing around halloween last year so unfortunately I did miss out on the gold ones.
Since I play on casual for most of the time, the hidden win/loss rate usually gives me a decent game; something I do have a chance at a win for whatever quest I might need to win for.
This will be a huge boost for new players!
Also as a wild player I would appriciate to reduce cafting cost of wild cards to half
AcTiViSiOn iS tHe PrObLeM
Playing since Karazhan (approx. August 2016). Since 2017 trying to play competitive, but best rank I could reach is stalled at 2-3. Feels like I bash my head into a wall every time I try to climb higher, no matter what deck I use. Accidently got 12 wins on arena and never ever played that unfair mode again since then. I think when I reach Legend, I will gladly delete Hearthstone with a relief. And I will not recommend this game to newbies, because it became very expensive in last 3 years.
As a relatively new player:
Had fun to start out with (bots I assume).
Hit rank 20 and got absolutely smashed.
I fluked level 16 with a deck full of taunts.
Then got back to getting smashed again and could not get off 20, I nearly quit. Seriously it was a big downer.
I then thought about whether or not I would risk spending that much cash, my answer was absolutely not ......then I got drunk and spent the cash.
I panicked the next day....spending regret.
I looked for advice on some forums and starting building good decks. Had a great time.
If I had not gotten drunk at that crucial moment then I would have chucked in the towel, however, if the original outlay to build one decent deck was quite small then you would have had me..hook..line & sinker when I was sober.
I think they should HoF most of the classic legendaries. At least all of the class ones.
Playing hs since 2014 regularly, I am 0 likely to recommend it to anyone why? Cause it's so expensive.
The economy is the same since beta yet there are about 30 times more cards in the game, sure you could keep with standard but MEH it feels like you either grind daily quests or arena or you stay out.
Speaking about arena, I like the mode but the rewards for it feel bad yes I get a net profit after 4 wins but the rewards seem lacking and again, not updated since beta...
There need to be more rewards, or better you know what you could make oppenning single packs less miserable decrease the chance for a 40 dust pack by a lot, make epics more commons.
Epics are the most expensive cards in hs not legendaries since most of the time you need more of them and they are about 1/4 as rare as a legendary and yet you find so few of them.. Also you can get duplicates of them.
Played gwent before, don't see why couldn't they implement the discover the rarest card option that's a good way to feel good about opening packs.. Or maybe increase pack sizes from 5 to 6 or dust value of common from 5 to 10.
If gwent was half as fun as hs mechanically it would be more popular but sadly it's just not as fun and simplistic.
Also people have been asking for achievements and progress forever... All they did was and achievement for 500 and 1000 wins that's nice but not enough..
Would suggest using the class level system for more rewards it's kind of a pointless system past level 10 make it drop rewards every few levels and remove cap just like in over watch.
Also class specific packs are something blizzard should look into it would make mining a class much easier as well as give easier access to new players..
I totally agree with halving, or just reducing the cost (gold and dust) of Classic and Wild sets.
I usually disenchant most of the cards that rotate to Wild, and I started this HS year with 28k dust and I have bought 50-100 packs from RoS and SoU each, yet I have had to craft so many cards that I only have about 4k dust right now, I don't have all the cards, specially legendaries and epics, to craft all the competitive decks, and we're only 2 out of 3 expansions so far in this Standard year. At this pace, I won't be able to keep being competitive in the next expansion meta.
So yeah, the game is pretty expensive in dust and gold, and I don't think the bundles are great, not even good, for what you get from them.
Keep in mind that Blizzard will want to maximize profits, regardless of what they do (even if that results in a price cut, the cut will be because the revenue will increase as more people will buy). If you keep that perspective at the front of your argument, we know certain things are unlikely to happen:
1.) Making the Classic/Basic cards viable (through reworks or buffs) regardless of the expansion would hurt sales of the expansion packs (who would need to buy them to compete?). To use the Priest example (i.e. every expansion has a broken Priest deck because the Classic set is awful), if they fixed the Classic set so it alone was strong, who would buy the cards needed for the new meta deck that has been blowing up the ladder?
2.) Giving out the entire Classic set (or a rotational set) for free/at a drastically reduced price will remove the revenue from Classic packs entirely, so unless this results in more expansion packs selling, it would be unlikely (maybe the survey results suggest people would spend the money they saved from the Classic price reduction on other packs, but I doubt it). Classic packs also provide a steady revenue that doesn't change through rotations (btw, I am ALL in favor of discounting packs after rotation... I can't imagine why this hasn't been done, aside from potentially reducing dust cost).
3.) No matter what, the best deck meta MUST necessitate the new expansion cards, or as a business you have failed. You could argue a delay in response time to broken meta cards is intentional to force people to buy packs/craft the broken card, then nerf it to result in different expansion cards being needed. I know you typically receive the full dust from creating these cards upon nerf, but that doesn't result in a 100% return on investment (maybe in very rare scenarios, but not usually... see "Gift Card Theory" in Marketing for more info on that). I'm not saying this is true, just playing devil's advocate...
I don't think this is all doom and gloom; a company asking these survey questions is a great step in the right direction and can result in wonderful initiatives that benefit players (reduced pack cost, new bundles across different price points, new ideas and fixes for points of contention, etc...). I'm just suggesting to temper your expectations and remember the bottom line is always the bottom line. :)
Your first two sentences are 1) spot-on and 2) very likely the cost:benefit analysis Blizzard is doing - i.e. to what level do we need to reduce pricing OR offer more content to increase buy-in and grow overall revenue.
My guesses on a macro level would be:
1. I expect the main ex-pac bundles will either 1) increase in goods rather than decrease in price - perhaps next time the $50 bundle will have the card back and cosmetic hero and the $80 bundle will have everything the $50 does plus an additional golden legendary or two. Alternatively, now that they've gone back to the paid single-player adventures/bundles, they may slightly reduce the bundle costs to try and get as many people to "double-dip" as possible - say $40 & $75. Because hey you saved call it $10, that $20 PvE bundle is REALLY only $10 more than you would have "normally" spent, right?
2. As to reducing the cost of rotated x-packs, I think the only way they will actually pursue that is if they're planning on trying to make Wild more popular to get people to buy in - again, less money per pack but more packs sold = more $$$. They've definitely hinted at the being on the table with the big Wild bundle earlier this year, and now this "bringing the 'much loved' wild cards back into Standard" might be an attempt to gauge how much buy-in your average player wants this/tries out Wild after getting a taste.
I guess my big question is: Figuring out the "why" will almost always tell you the "what/how." Sure there's more competition in the TCG space now than there was 5 years ago, but not so much I can buy it being the driver behind these moves? Is it purely because it's an established (Do yOu GuyS eVEn haVe PHoneS?!) mobile-friendly property and they're clearly chasing that player-base? Not really sure about that either.
It would be nice if they prorated cards down after each expansion kind of like cars lose their value over time. Who wants to buy a pack at full cost when it's about to rotate? Same with legendaries newer legendaries should cost more than ones about to rotate out .
They do sort of prorate packs through occasional sales or bundles. For rotating sets specifically, they had the “Mammoth Bundle” as year of the Mammoth was near the end, and I believe they had a similar “Raven bundle” earlier this year. Both were at discounted rates and included packs of the oldest 5 sets in standard (I think). To make this more of an actual prorated price they could allow you to customize the bundle and pick how many packs you want from each available set in the bundle, or maybe remove or increase the 1 bundle limit. That way if you want to buy a lot of older packs at discount you could do that, instead of just 10 to 5 or so per expansion included in the bundle.
Can anyone provide the original link from blizzard please!
Not something you can do. These are personalized survey links and not sent out to everyone.
Ok, thanks!
After 5 years HS has moved very little from its initial state: we got a fun mode (Brawl), just two format but both with just a difference in the avaible sets (Wild and Standard), one draft mode that is not even considered competitive (Arena). The economic system of the game has remained the same with just a little and meaningless rework of some quests, no cosmetics aside from cardbacks (that cannot even bee properly shown) and some alternate Heroes, a gameplay that too many times has felt boring or simply unfun (polarized matches, terrible unbalanced Classes for too long and the like).
While it remains the first, the most polished, well-looking and easy/fun to play of all OCG (expecially on mobile) the game as began to feel the competition of many other OCG that had/are/will coming out and that are making profit of the way already paved by HS: they already know how to appeal F2P players, what are the flaws of HS and how to avoid them, what kind of competitive environment players wanna see for tournaments and so on.
HS need to refresh its format under almost every aspect before it becomes too old to keep the pace of other competitors and while something it seems to be actualy moving, it's still too slow. The economy of the game is just the most important aspect (or at last the one that is more relevant to Blizzard) but it's not the only thing they should start to innovate and not even the one on which players are more engaged.
I'm going to propose something potentially controversial here. As a background:
I don't think it's deniable that entering Hearthstone as a new player is extremely difficult. Quite aside from the knowledge or skill barriers, the quantity of cards required to be *really* competitive is absurd. Even if we take the optimal point of entry, i.e. right at the moment of a year transition, a player needs:
- A significant number of Classic cards, as many are still in heavy use as 'core' class cards
- Cards from FOUR different expansions, at various rarities
Due to this, to even create a single high tier deck, a new player would need to spend a significant amount of money on packs to accrue the cards they need from the current expansion AND to accrue sufficient dust to craft cards from previous expansions that are still in Standard. And that's assuming they dust all the cards they don't need for that specific deck.
And that's just making a single deck. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd go crazy (or more likely, get bored and quit) if I only ever played the one deck. That isn't true for everyone - a friend of mine pretty much ignores all classes aside from Warrior - but I'd wager most people would be closer to my end than his. I myself purchase a minimum of 80 packs at the start of any given expansion - and typically I'll pre-order AND buy 40-80 packs. I'm not the typical case, as I play HS a lot and have no problem spending money on something that gives me entertainment - but I know plenty of people aren't like me.
Particularly, however, this is MUCH less likely to be true for a new player, who doesn't really know how much entertainment they're likely to get out of Hearthstone. Are you going to buy 100+ packs for a game you might not even be playing in a few weeks' time? Honestly, I probably would, but I doubt many others would.
So, here's my proposal: All players should be able to make a single payment, set, say, at the price of 40 packs (or maybe even less). In return, the purchasing player gets every single card in the Classic set. The purchased cards would be non-golden, and non-dustable.
My rationale - it's a single payment and you're guaranteed to have the entire set. The player is happier because they can entirely ignore Classic now and just spot-snipe the cards they want for any given deck (and often they'll own many of those cards already, thanks to the purchase). Blizzard is happy because players who would otherwise not bother playing the game, would spend at least a minimum amount on the game. While not limited to new players, those are pretty much the only people who'd buy the product since there's no value in buying it if you already own most of the cards. Those are the people Blizzard needs to be targeting, and those are the people who are far more likely to quit in frustration than sink the ludicrous amount of money into the game necessary to really play it on all levels.
Incidentally, noting the Tavern Brawl was mentioned in the article. If the idea of this was to assist new players, that idea is laughably naïve. A new player isn't going to say 'well, I can't really play any queue without being completely outclassed, so I'll just play weekly to get free packs'. You don't hook a new customer by drip-feeding them. The Brawl probably does fine in assisting casual players, but no more than that - it will do *nothing* to hook new customers.
For comparison here's the survey from last February (questions answered by redditors)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQSNkm32QfDv-q9MNnXSmsYQvmp9LFystLvMbKwTV72TqvwA/viewanalytics
I'm happy with the entertainment I get for the money I invest in Hearthstone, I don't spend really a lot, just around 20 € per expansion, and I grind the dailies so I can but more packs with gold, but I agree it can be very disappointing for somebody starting in the game: getting enough cards to create at least one good deck in the first few months is really hard, and most players probably lose interest if they don't achieve that. So trying to fix this would be a welcome improvement.
I also got an invitation to the survey, BTW.
We keep getting closer and closer to a free rotating core set. I wish we'd just hurry up and get there.