I do follow what you're saying, but I disagree. While HS has diverged from WoW significantly, a decent portion of the player base seems to be in touch with WoW lore, and the relevant characters. Releasing a non-lore skin for each class, behind a minor paywall (cost of adventure) would silence some complaints about the cost of the adventure, but would not impact significantly on demand for favoured characters that have a strong grounding in Warcraft lore e.g Kael'thas, Vaashj, etc. It might mean they have to raise their game when it comes to designing the bundle skins (no more Mecha-Jaraxxus), but it wouldn't drive down sales overall imo.
The Thunder King was met with excitement, despite being the 4th Shaman hero, and I wouldn't expect it to be met with any less if it was the 5th. Likewise, Kael'thas would be met with excitement, even though Mage already has Jaina, Khadgar and Medivh. I don't imagine adding Rakanishu to that pool would reduce that any less.
I agree that they should've included one skin in the adventure to drive sales, as you said, but 9 of them is certainly overkill. And shaman had 2 skins before the Thunder King - and only morgl is free. And people who like morgl, or Rastakhan for those who bought him, won't be buying the Thunder King. You can only have one hero equipped after all. If the Thunder King was Shaman's first skin, he would absolutely sell more. I don't see how anyone can disagree with this, or, to take it a step further, that giving away a skin for every hero would hurt future sales.
That would devalue new heroes. It wouldn't be a smart move by Blizzard, as a company. They love selling those 60 pack bundles every expansion.
I doubt it, people who want to collect the Hero skins would still buy them. Otherwise, why would the Masters bundle have sold? If the bundles featured lore specific heroes, they would still get snapped up. If these were locked behind a full Heroic completion of the run, it would drive sales for adventure, but it wouldn't stop people if they introduced, for example, Kael'thas as a new Mage hero in the next bundle.
I was writing a lengthy response, but in the end, the bottom line is: People care more for new skins if they have 1-2 other available skins for a certain class than if they have 10 other available skins. The skins get devalued at that point. Not sure I can explain it simpler than that.
I agree that they should've included one skin in the adventure to drive sales, as you said, but 9 of them is certainly overkill. And shaman had 2 skins before the Thunder King - and only morgl is free. And people who like morgl, or Rastakhan for those who bought him, won't be buying the Thunder King. You can only have one hero equipped after all. If the Thunder King was Shaman's first skin, he would absolutely sell more. I don't see how anyone can disagree with this, or, to take it a step further, that giving away a skin for every hero would hurt future sales.
I was writing a lengthy response, but in the end, the bottom line is: People care more for new skins if they have 1-2 other available skins for a certain class than if they have 10 other available skins. The skins get devalued at that point. Not sure I can explain it simpler than that.
That would devalue new heroes. It wouldn't be a smart move by Blizzard, as a company. They love selling those 60 pack bundles every expansion.
I play control warrior, warpath and brawl wreck murlocs, and weapons project also helps a lot.