-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Kotaku: "Valve's Card Game Artifact Is Running Out Of Players"
- Thread starter NeoRaider
- Start date
Sorry it's off topic but absolutely no. Tf2 still has a big audience to this day. People like that it's simpler class wise. People like that it has custom maps and server rules and so on. People like it's story and they maybe don't care for the kinda cringy ow fan base or it's story. They don't actually play the same either besides the nature of their game goals. Ton of reasons why a tf3 would be successful.
Absolutely. That reaction was an ill omen and the bad press only snowballed from there. Misstep after misstep.
In Artifacts case it's not that simple. The game design is fantastic and fixes some of mtg and hs biggest issues. But it is a deeper experience that can feel very taxing to play. It's a niche game for a niche group of players. The casual appeal isn't there.
Double down on steam and continue to not care about making new games.
Whenever something comes out that people says wll kill Hearthstone, it ends up not happening.
Shadowverse found its niche thanks to its Japanese audience but that's because Cygames has "fuck you" levels of clout.
Shadowverse found its niche thanks to its Japanese audience but that's because Cygames has "fuck you" levels of clout.
I guess it sticks out more as the people who would play Artifact are already invested in those other games, so the game seems more costly if they switch.
Me drawing a comparison to Lawbreakers should make it pretty obvious that I didn't say it was "a conspiracy" that killed the game.
Neither does Magic Arena. After playing Magic Online for years, that's a feature, not a bug.
There's a big enough distinction that people are turned off from the game because they expected something along the lines of MTG/Hearthstone. Valve set those expectations up and it bit them in the ass.
good, lol....valve needs to make serious games, not this. Dota 2 is one disgusting game, i dont even know why i keep playing it. so much toxicity, its not even funny, its worse than its ever been.
This feels a lot closer to the truth, and I wonder if their path forward is to develop the game more for this niche than to chase widespread appeal. For the niche it appeals to, Artifact is cheap and unprecedented as a digital game.
One thing that people don't mention when comparing hearthstone and magic economy awith artifact is that even though is very grindy and almost impossible to do, you can still build a collection by scratch without paying anything.
In artifact, I bought the game, and since my pulls were not that good, I couldn't sell the cards for a good price and buy other things that I wanted, and there was not really much options to earn new cards, so even though I paid for it I was still kinda stuck with my collection. Hearthstone isn't a great example but magic definitely showers you with gold to either play constructed drafts to win more cards or buy packs, isn't that hard
In artifact, I bought the game, and since my pulls were not that good, I couldn't sell the cards for a good price and buy other things that I wanted, and there was not really much options to earn new cards, so even though I paid for it I was still kinda stuck with my collection. Hearthstone isn't a great example but magic definitely showers you with gold to either play constructed drafts to win more cards or buy packs, isn't that hard
Sure, but that's because, as I said in the previous thread on this subject, there's fewer sets in the game currently. Magic Arena has five full expansions, with a sixth launching tomorrow. HearthStone has been around for years now.
I mean there's been a tournament on twitch with 2000-3000 viewers the past few days. So the player base being very low recently is probably because of that. But yeah I hope the game pulls through. It's really fantastic and I've put well over 80 hours in so far lol.
But that's got nothing to do with it being "a board game". It's a card game with deeper gameplay, and it's solid. This isn't the first time MTG has been challenged by a more complex game, and it wont replace MTG but rather build a new niche for itself of dedicated fans. It happened with Netrunner.
"Artifact didn't just die... It was MURDERED!"
© Triggerhappytel 2019
They had 2 easy option :
- F2P with no access to constructed play, only draft. Given that people right now who want to play draft only, buy the game and sell all their cards to try to break even / diminish the cost of the game, are already leading to a drop in card price, it would be healthier than the current situation.
- F2P, cards unlocked with the daily quest etc.. are untradable
I've heard the game is really solid, but I just have no interest in even trying it to be honest. I've already invested thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars into Hearthstone. I don't really want to spend $20 to play a card game I probably won't be playing for more than a few hours, especially when the future of the game is very much up in the air, at the moment.
Hopefully they make it free-to-play soon and maaaaybe down the line it can become a real challenger to Hearthstone and MTG:A
They're also likely to have a balancing issue on their hands at some point, if they're not willing to nerf cards that end up being too powerful. It would probably be best if they ditch the current business model of being able to sell your cards for real money.
Hopefully they make it free-to-play soon and maaaaybe down the line it can become a real challenger to Hearthstone and MTG:A
They're also likely to have a balancing issue on their hands at some point, if they're not willing to nerf cards that end up being too powerful. It would probably be best if they ditch the current business model of being able to sell your cards for real money.
You drawing a comparison to anything but a failing game makes little sense. It's not catching on. Nothing more, nothing less. It's Valve, maybe they can do...something, idk. I like the game, and I wish it was doing better.
Even when HS was in beta buying a full collection was more expensive
Eh, maybe, but IMO that has it's own set of issues. Making the game full F2P at this stage would likely topple the the marketplace-based economy, as there would be an influx of people hopping in for 10 minutes and then dumping whatever cards they get. Most of them would end up being just a cent or two. At that point you may as well give every player every card because it would probably cost less than a few bucks for a complete set; buying card packs would be a fools errand because it would be way more expensive then buying cards on the market. Then you've burned your early adopters too, some of whom may have dumped tens to even hundreds of dollars into the game for complete collections, so they would likely want to offer them some sort of concession too. It would be a very delicate dance to pull off, and I can't really wrap my head around how they would transition into that model and still actually make some semblance of money off the game, but maybe some big brains at Valve have it in their pocket. Idk.
And even then, it's probably not enough. The game isn't Uno; it's very niche and complicated and like 80% of people who jump in it as a F2P game are just going to say "it sucks" after they get crushed in their first match or two and move on to something else anyway.
i think the mobile version not being out yet is one of the biggest problems this game has at the moment though. I would actually play this game a lot more if I could pull it out on my commute or lunch break and play a match or two. As it stands now I'm never really in the mood to sit down and play a match at home, personally, when there's so many other things I could sit down and play. Being able to take the game on a bus or over to my friend's place to play them head-to-head with raise my enthusiasm level a bit. I'm kind of bewildered that the mobile version wasn't ready at or near launch, and we're now almost 3 months out without word of when it's coming.
It's all a bit of a bummer because I find the core game a lot of fun, but I'm also part of the problem because I don't play it too much; the reasons for that have basically nothing to do with the cost of cards or entry though.
It's a good game but I'm a fairly casual player of card games and the games are just too long for me, they can end up taking up the best part of an hour and that's fine if I'm sitting at my desk with time to kill but I don't see how it's going to do well on mobile with the current game length.
I wouldn't know much about that, to be honest, so I'll take your word for it. As it stands, though, the value of cards in Artifact is low because the game is seemingly dying.
People are missing the point. It doesn't matter if it's a good CCG. No one wants a dota card game, and certainly they don't want to pay up front for it when other, more popular CCG are free. It was already a saturated market where people are devoted and invested in the games they like to play already.
Valve can say they did all the research and analysis they wanted when constructing the game but they were insane to think this was going to do well. They are completely out of touch.
Valve can say they did all the research and analysis they wanted when constructing the game but they were insane to think this was going to do well. They are completely out of touch.
Great news! Hopefully this leads to all companies (and VALVE most of all) finally understanding that they don't have to put all their eggs in the same basket (Multiplayer) Having a balanced portfolio of games is the best. They should use the income from MP to fund quality single player content for a dedicated audience.
All those games are very derivative of Magic and Hearthstone, while Artifact is a very fresh take. But nevertheless it has to break through that perception
Like none of this type of card game do, because it is nothing but all rage all the time.
There's complex, and there's insanely complex. I think the complexity of Artifact is actually understated due to being digitized. Imagine playing a physical version of Artifact, it would be nightmare to keep track of. It'd make even the most tedious of boardgames look like a walk in the park. The game is a totally different beast than any of those other CCGs.
Hell that should have been a litmus test for the game. "Would it be possible to play this game physically?" If the answer is "No" your CCG is too involved.
Last edited:
Hey, don't bring Titanfall 2 into this. I've never felt so attacked by a random post. Titanfall 2 is the best FPS this gen and deserves better than this random comparison to fucking Artifact.
I'm one of the people who bounced off Artifact at launch. For me, it was a combination of the game being very complicated (and feeling pretty unbalanced) and being unable to put together my own decks. Deck construction is my favorite part of CCGs, so that pretty much killed my interest in Artifact. Every game I got matched against someone who played Axe on turn one, and I didn't want to spend $30 to get an Axe of my own. (He's apparently $5 now, so that's something.)
I also think Artifact's complexity prevented it from being popular for streaming. You can't really tell at a glance who's winning or even how the game is going. Splitting the game board into three lanes made sense from a theming standpoint, but having so many discrete pieces to the game (including the shop screen, which is also separate and can persist between turns) is a lot for casual viewers to keep track of.
I also think Artifact's complexity prevented it from being popular for streaming. You can't really tell at a glance who's winning or even how the game is going. Splitting the game board into three lanes made sense from a theming standpoint, but having so many discrete pieces to the game (including the shop screen, which is also separate and can persist between turns) is a lot for casual viewers to keep track of.
What does this have to do with Single Player games? they still have 3 fairly successfull mp games that have probably given them way too much money, unless this as an stealth half life 3 wish post
I don't think that really matters, at the end of the day. Magic Arena is the story right now, and it's just got too much positive momentum right now for Artifact to compete, especially with the entry barriers it comes with.
Yeah spot on I think. They also have to deal with a similar effect to Lawbreakers. They are an entity people want to see fail. And it crosses into a combination of both the player experience of game or they don't enjoy the niche enough that its not quite fitting what a lot of people expect - so they drop out. And also a positive feedback loop of conversation of the failings / dropping player base exacerbating the same cycle.
For me I'm in the former group. The game is awesome in many ways to me, but simply not engaging enough to me over other games. In the time period to get through a game, it is simply loses out a lot of the time to other games, I have the same problem with most TCGs. I thought Artifact could be different and in a way I think if it was on mobile, but even then I would be a relatively infrequent player (just when travelling, which is most of my mobile game time)
Nobody wants to see Valve fail. At least, not a large percentage of the gaming population. It's just sad that they've allowed things to fall as they have.
For what it's worth, I think you should try Magic Arena, especially tomorrow after the major patch and the launch of the new expansion, Ravnica Allegiance. The game is fantastic right now.
I've been doing the maths, and I think it may even be closer to two years.
It's not. Catering to the multiplayer audience has huge risk, for every Overwatch, there are several Battleborns and Lawbreakers. The target audience won't be playing several MP games in their free time. Quality single players games from Valve, would serve a different audience one that has not been catered by Valve for at least a decade.
My interest in it softened significantly when a lot of the card game fanatics I know who will gladly play a bunch cited it as just taking too long. That's the kind of thing that will lead to a lot of churn as well, considering its complexity. In the end I didn't pick it up because all I could think to myself was "if I have an hour or more to spend sitting at my PC, do I really want to invest the majority of that on one or two matches of Artifact?"
For me the time to completion of a match is just such a fundamental design flaw for mass appeal. Some people will like it, and that's probably the small audience still playing it. But in the current age where even League is trialling a new, shorter mode, people just don't have the attention span to concentrate on a 1 v 1 card game for that long.
For me the time to completion of a match is just such a fundamental design flaw for mass appeal. Some people will like it, and that's probably the small audience still playing it. But in the current age where even League is trialling a new, shorter mode, people just don't have the attention span to concentrate on a 1 v 1 card game for that long.
What Are you implying?
Not valve per se, but a large group of players on steam very much wanted Artifact to fail.
Ehh, it's not really overly complex. Also many videogames would be too onerous to do as a board game, but they don't get called "too complex". I could show you several real board games that are worse, lol.
But I think we can agree that Artifact is complex, certainly more so than the casual fare like Hearthstone or even Magic. The game has been designed (by the designer of Magic, no less) for a more hardcore audience of card gamers. The same way something like Dota is tuned for a more hardcore gamer.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with making a hardcore game. It's about connecting with the audience for it. You could argue they haven't done a very good job of that, but there's also a lot of unnecessary ranting from the peanut gallery of Valve fans who think they made Artifact instead of "a real game".
I love Titanfall 2 as well, over 600 hours played. But that's always mentioned as a game launched at a bad time with a low player base. Thought it was an interesting comparison at least.
Is it realistic that they get this game turned around and turn it into a big success? Or is 1500 like a nail in the coffin number thats just so low you can't come back from it?