• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Hearthstone Pack-prices to rise in EU & UK on March 22

Garou

Member
Blizzard announced the adjustments

For reference:
4cS9dCg.png



This on top of announcing that there will be 3 instead of 2 pack-based expansions per year.

Make a funny rap-video about me if old.
 

LewieP

Member
Wouldn't this have already happened in the UK when the iOS app store tiers moved? Or is this about other platforms increasing in line with iOS?

Thinsaregoingprettygreat.gif.
 

Garou

Member
Wouldn't this have already happened in the UK when the iOS app store tiers moved? Or is this about other platforms increasing in line with iOS?

Thinsaregoingprettygreat.gif.

I'm not sure, but at least in Asia iOS-packs are ~20% over the Battle.net price.
 

E-phonk

Banned
Quit the game last year, since it was already too expensive (imo) to stay in the loop with all the expansions.
 

danowat

Banned
hmm, would like to know the real justification behind a 50% increase on a purely digital item that has no manufacturing cost.
 
Doesn't look good considering they're abandoning Adventures (and the guaranteed cards they gave) for the purely pack driven Expansions just to raise the price of said packs across an entire continent.

Pretty much makes the decision on whether or not I should quit the game for me, though.
 
That's a pretty steep increase in the UK, but I still play Heartstone daily and can't remember the last time I paid real money for a pack (Probably League Of Explorers) so this won't affect me at all.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
EUR doesn't seem too terrible but boy UK got reamed. HS packs aren't cheap!

Hearthstone has to be one of the worst values in all of gaming.

Absolutely ridiculous. The bulk of F2P games are worse than this. You can still make competitive decks through daily questing, assuming you've got a good base. Lack of adventures hurt but it's still possible. You should be able to get 40+ packs when a new set launches.

Like it's not good for your dollars. But very few of these games are. At least it's playable.
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
This game always seems to be SO expensive, and here they are raising prices? Glad I uninstalled. Between last month and this one, Shadowverse is giving 15 packs away.
 

danowat

Banned
Not really the right place, but I can't shadowverse to work on mobile, it just hangs when trying to load a chapter.
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Absolutely ridiculous. The bulk of F2P games are worse than this. You can still make competitive decks through daily questing, assuming you've got a good base. Lack of adventures hurt but it's still possible. You should be able to get 40+ packs when a new set launches.
My understanding is that comparable electronic card games are usually much more generous. And 40+ packs per expansion isn't particularly good. You're still going to be super-constrained with your deck choices without lots of card crafting.
 
Insane price increase for UK on an item that doesn't even exist.

Having played HS since beta this is where I finally nope out.
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I must've played hundreds of hours before I stopped a while ago and never paid a single cent. That's a lot of a value for 0€.
Hearthstone is a great value if you don't spend anything. It's a horrible value if you want to go beyond that.
 
Price rises like this are annoying it's not like I'm suddenly earning any more money yet things are increasing due to currency changes.
 
if you did the daily quests, you didn't really need to buy card packs at all

but then again, game has been on a pretty big decline over the past year with each new set being even shittier than the one before it-so I do't blame people if they didn't do them(complete dailies)
 

Forkball

Member
Hearthstone has to be one of the worst values in all of gaming.

It's a card game, its goal is to keep you spending money. Infinitely. I spent about $70 on it and had a lot of fun, so my experience with it was no different from just buying a full priced console game. But for those who have been playing for years and have spent hundreds of dollars on it, I do have to question if they are getting the most value out of the game.
 
Hearthstone is a great value if you don't spend anything. It's a horrible value if you want to go beyond that.

That's all relative if you consider money > time.

It takes a lot of grinding to stay competitive unless your Kripp and grind out +8 wins every arena which even he doesn't do.
 
3 euro/gbp for 8 unplayable filler cards and 2 maybe once in a while useful cards for certain decks you probably don't play. Sounds like a bargain.

Better keep doing that pay to play cardpack slotmachine until you hit your legendary dopamine spike!
 

ZeroX03

Banned
My understanding is that comparable electronic card games are usually much more generous. And 40+ packs per expansion isn't particularly good. You're still going to be super-constrained with your deck choices without lots of card crafting.

What are we talking in terms of comparable? Similar business model? Probably. They're often more generous because they have to be. In terms of actual scale or size? Nothing is really on par with Hearthstone.

My math was a little off, but from Gadgetzan to the latest set you should have enough for at the bare minimum 48 packs if you were doing your dailies, more likely somewhere 60+ when you add in gold for winning three and dailies worth more than 40. Plus you'll be getting dust back from Azure Drakes which every player should have, and anyone who's been playing for a while will be getting Ragnaros and Sylvanas dust too. Bonus packs and dust from monthly rewards too, and it's easy enough to hit a decent rank cheaply with pirates.

It won't be as nice as it was with this price increase and adventures being dropped, but I think I've only ever spent money on packs twice over two years, and once was the little intro pack promotion they did.


I mean I'm probably done with the game pretty soon, but that's less to do with the business model and more that I just keep forgetting to play it because my time is taken up with other games and things to do.
 

Adzin

Neo Member
That's quite an increase for UK prices, blimey. That makes the decision to stop playing a lot easier.
 

Footos22

Member
Still won't use real money. Pretty easy now to amass gold each week. 50% increase is a fucking joke though. Fuck off blizzard.
 

Lumine

Member
Haha, oh wow. I mean it doesn't affect me, but ouch. I admit I did buy the first 2 mini-expansions/adventures, but I haven't spent a single dime on the game since and probably never will again. I'm even less likely to do so now. The packs were already far overpriced to begin with and Blizzard has done a poor job balancing the game and adding much-needed features, or any for that matter. That said, I've been doing fine getting most cards I want simply from doing dailies and I still enjoy it. Of course I've been playing since beta so I got quite the collection to begin with and I don't "net-deck."
 

gngf123

Member
Meanwhile, Shadowverse just gave out another 8 free packs, on top of all the free packs they have given out over the past few months.

Hearthstone is a rip off by comparison and is only getting more expensive.
 

Crazyorloco

Member
I spent about a $100 on this game, but since haven't spent anything (not worth it - especially if there's no guarantee of good cards). Just complete the quests daily and you'll get enough coins for packs.
 
the value of gbp -> usd decreased by about 21%~, while the average price increase is 25%. so not that far off, presumably it is anticipating further decline lmao.
 

Zemm

Member
I stopped playing recently because the game is so shit now, this just reinforces that. Those UK prices lol
 

Eridani

Member
What are we talking in terms of comparable? Similar business model? Probably. They're often more generous because they have to be. In terms of actual scale or size? Nothing is really on par with Hearthstone.

My math was a little off, but from Gadgetzan to the latest set you should have enough for at the bare minimum 48 packs if you were doing your dailies, more likely somewhere 60+ when you add in gold for winning three and dailies worth more than 40. Plus you'll be getting dust back from Azure Drakes which every player should have, and anyone who's been playing for a while will be getting Ragnaros and Sylvanas dust too. Bonus packs and dust from monthly rewards too, and it's easy enough to hit a decent rank cheaply with pirates.

It won't be as nice as it was with this price increase and adventures being dropped, but I think I've only ever spent money on packs twice over two years, and once was the little intro pack promotion they did.


I mean I'm probably done with the game pretty soon, but that's less to do with the business model and more that I just keep forgetting to play it because my time is taken up with other games and things to do.

Shadowverse is pretty damn huge (a quick google shows $100m earnings in half a year compared to HS's $400m in a year, so not quite as good but still pretty huge) and practically showers you in packs. Besides that, I'm not sure why scale or size should really matter to people when deciding which game to play. So because hearthstone is the biggest f2p card game it's ok if it's much more expensive/needs much more grind than other similar games because people will pay for it anyway? No thanks.

As far as comparable in gameplay yeah, most f2p card games are much more generous than HS. 48 packs a set for playing every day is really low in comparison.
 

Dragner

Member
Glad I quitted. Idk what to do now with an account with a lot of golden cards and all the playables to date. Wish I could trade them or sell like in MTGO.
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
What are we talking in terms of comparable? Similar business model? Probably. They're often more generous because they have to be. In terms of actual scale or size? Nothing is really on par with Hearthstone.

My math was a little off, but from Gadgetzan to the latest set you should have enough for at the bare minimum 48 packs if you were doing your dailies, more likely somewhere 60+ when you add in gold for winning three and dailies worth more than 40. Plus you'll be getting dust back from Azure Drakes which every player should have, and anyone who's been playing for a while will be getting Ragnaros and Sylvanas dust too. Bonus packs and dust from monthly rewards too, and it's easy enough to hit a decent rank cheaply with pirates.
That's the horrible part of Hearthstone's business model--60 packs isn't that great. I remember people posting the epics and legendaries they'd get for their $50 for 50 packs Old Gods pre-purchases, and they'd end up with a scant few of each. How many other games can get away with such a bad value for money? It baffles me. $50 will get you an embarrassingly huge amount of top-quality content in virtually any other genre. I can get an insanely detailed grand strategy game, or an RPG on the scale of the Witcher 3, or even invest in a physical card game like Netrunner and pay for known, pre-defined card sets.

I'd also say that the business model makes situations like the pirate-dominated meta vastly more common. Players can't just craft cards to toy around with--if they do, they'll spend a crazy amount of money to keep up. They can either resign themselves to not being competitive or just stick with popular decks. Whale-focused F2P kills experimentation and deckbuilding creativity.

It won't be as nice as it was with this price increase and adventures being dropped, but I think I've only ever spent money on packs twice over two years, and once was the little intro pack promotion they did.
I played since beta and never once spent money on the game. Had Blizzard gone with an adventure-only model (ie. you spend a set amount of money and get set cards), I would have started buying those, and would have been a regular, steady source of revenue for maybe years.

Instead, their whale-focused model meant I gradually switched to just watching Youtube Kripp/Kibler/Strifecro highlights, and then nothing (except bitterly posting in Hearthstone threads, haha).

I mean I'm probably done with the game pretty soon, but that's less to do with the business model and more that I just keep forgetting to play it because my time is taken up with other games and things to do.
I wish I didn't have to be done with the game. It's so well-designed in so many ways.
 

Zafir

Member
I mean I'm probably done with the game pretty soon, but that's less to do with the business model and more that I just keep forgetting to play it because my time is taken up with other games and things to do.

That's basically how I stopped playing initially. The problem is once you've stopped playing for a while it's harder to get back in because everything's changed. Especially now with sets being cycled out.
 

hollomat

Banned
Haven't spent a dime on the game and I'm currently sitting on 2k gold and 30k dust. Probably the most generous f2p game I've played.
 

Trickster

Member
Yeah, blizzard discovering how many of their playerbase are willing to throw money at their shitty gambling unlocks really turned them into greedy ass motherfuckers.

Don't get me wrong, they still make good games, but holy shit are their business practices for unlocking cards in HS, or cosmetics in OW, so serious bullshit.
 

MTC100

Banned
I bought a 20 Pack when the game was fresh(and fun) and never invested real money since then, I also don't plan on doing so in the future, they can increase the prices by 100% for all I care.
 
The problem with Hearthstone is not the cost that you need to pay to be competitive. The problem with Hearthstone is that you only need about 20 cards to cover 95% of competitive play.

Pack prices are meaningless.
 
Top Bottom