Hearthstone is coming to Steam! That is not at all officially confirmed by Blizzard's messaging, but we feel it's safe enough to say that if they went through the development time to detect Steam, it's going to happen. So far, Overwatch and Diablo IV are both available on Steam. The catch-up packs introducing with Showdown in the Badlands make a lot more sense now if Blizzard is expecting a surge of new players trying out Hearthstone as it'll make the Standard format much more accessible.
Let's see what's in the client, but first, our usual disclaimer that datamined information is subject to change and until Blizzard officially announces anything, this isn't official.
A New String Appears
Hearthstone's various files include easily readable strings for the game which contains the most obvious hint that Hearthstone is destined for Valve's Steam platform.
Quote From Out of Games GLOBAL_ERROR_STEAM_ACCOUNT_LINKING
We could not link your Steam account to BattleNet account. Restart Steam client and try again.
It Gets Deeper
Looking into the code that makes Hearthstone run, Blizzard has added several new references to Steam.
- The region switcher has had code added to check if its Steam.
- Your achievements will sync to Steam's achievement service.
- A check to see if the Battle.net Client is used is disabled on Steam.
- A button has been added for account switching, the same one used on mobile, when Steam is detected.
- A mapping has been added to check against Steam's language codes which differ from Blizzards.
- There is specific store code to check prices for Steam's platform.
- Steam purchases will timeout after they fail to go through for 180 seconds.
public void RequestSteamUserInfo()
{
m_connectApi.RequestSteamUserInfo();
}
public SteamPurchaseResponse GetSteamPurchaseResponse()
{
return m_connectApi.GetSteamPurcahseResponse();
}
Look at that, typos in the code!
The Steam Account Linking UI
A new graphic has been added that will be used to link your Hearthstone account to Steam.
Would you play Hearthstone on Steam?
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Comments
Now I wonder how this will work with friends lists. I'd imagine playing HS on Steam would use your Steam friends list but most of my friends that play HS would remain on the Bnet client soooooo no change for me then
I wonder if this'll get review-bombed just like Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 did. Easy to say that it will because Activision-Blizzard.
Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 were, imo, justly given bad reviews.
D4 on launch was not a great game, season 1 still had lots of issues, and season 2? ehhhh. They are taking the game in the right direction though so given enough time, they should get to where they need to be for years to come.
OW2 was a horrible decision, monetization nightmare, and an insult to people playing OW1. My only hope for it at this point is with Blizzard and Activision being separated, we end up in a scenario where Blizzard can make OW2 more friendly. Tough call though since they clearly have some players playing it and it might be enough to support development and profits.
I would definitelly play Hearthstone on steam but I am, glad it did not come earlier... I do not even want to think about time spent in-game
You can kinda already get an approximate of time played by looking at the number of wins in every mode
Nice! Another Activision-Blizzard game to flood with negative reviews to oblivion!
I think that's great news. Steam is the biggest gaming platform so it will definitely boost the arrival of new players as long as Hearthstone actually has a decent score and is easy to find.
I personally wouldn't be switching to steam because I really don't mind bnet. If anything it has much simpler look and I honestly don't like steam and all of its addons that much.
It does make me wonder tho, is Microsoft planning to delete battle net? We are almost half way of all the blizzard games being on steam which will eventually make a question if battle net is at all necessary.
I will probably switch to Steam. The only Blizzard games I play are Hearthstone and StarCraft 2 and it's been a few years since I last launched SC2. I now have the BattleNet client running for just one game, while I also have Steam running because most of my other games are there.
Maintaining the BattleNet client does cost money, so if they can phase it out without losing too many players, I think they will.
I doubt we'll see the Battle.net launcher go away. There are millions of people conditioned to using it already, and people that use it avoid platform fees in other places when selling games or in-game content.
I do wonder if Call of Duty will eventually be leaving Battle.net though in favor of the Xbox app. It seems like Activision and Blizzard are being allowed to be separate entities again under Microsoft, so there's no real reason to keeping CoD on Battle.net. Maybe they push it there into a corner so they can get some sales still should people not want to go to Xbox or Steam, but no longer a main focus in the app.
I do hope Microsoft borrows BNet client engineers though to improve the Xbox app. So much potential but it just doesn't feel right. I don't know if the bnet team will have a good solution, but they've certainly done some great client work over the years.
Logic would dictate that Microsoft would redeem Valve. It's in order of things.
You mean acquire? That would be difficult, because Gabe Newell himself owns over half the shares.
I agree, but market shares aren't an exact science. ValvE suffers from its shortcomings, and the Blizzard-Activion merger will increase pressure on a takeover of Microsoft in the next 2 years.