I didn't even know Richard Garfield worked for Valve or on this game.
Jesus, I didn't know Richard Garfield was one of those sacked recently. This game truly is dead and won't be revived CSGO-style any time soon. Shame.
if they were truly money thirsty, wouldn't they have made and released HL3?
No, because that would be conceivably a regular single player game, and not a market full of content they can manipulate and profit off of for years to come.
I think that's a tad hyperbolic to say. I mean in the same industry where a company hosted an AMA on a haven of pedophilia, games are bricking consoles, etc., a formerly-beloved company's game flopping massively seems like just a drop in the bucket compared to some of the stuff out there.
At this point I'm not sure I would trust Valve's heart being in it, with the competition from Fortnight and Ape:Legs being so Strong.
No. Because it was easier to do other things. Hl3 would have been a massive under taking. It's oretty funny Gabe compared artifact to HL2 considering both have left its fans wanting more and dissatisfied. Maybe artifact will get trolled ten years after release like HL2 by Gabe.
Unlimited drafting sounds amazing. That's like the game mode I've always wanted for other TCGs. Definitely going to download this tonight.
I have no idea, I don't know Valve's internal financials? and I don't follow CS:GO whatsover
Are you joking? No nobody thinks that these games were made by 1 person. You have to be wilfully ignorant though to think that somehow 'valve' was instrumental to the basic design of most of these products. Like, literally every one of these was already a game prior to acquisition.
Yeah the drafting is a lot of fun, it really wasn't communicated clearly that there was actually a free unlimited drafting mode, and the only one locked behind the tickets were the ones where you can win packs and the keeper draft.
No, it's heart was very much in the right place, trying to get away from gacha and MTX approaches - but they really didn't think it through so it ended up with savage fundamental problems that took away its longevity and didn't keep players compelled to keep playing.
That's just it though - there's no INHERENT ability to buy cards, just like real life all cards come from packs. Which means the cost of cards is 100% determined by the EV of the pack since people won't open packs wiith an EV below the cost. Basically: If the game is successful, it still has the same problems, except that good cards cost MORE than bad cards, unlike Hearthstone and the like, and if the game is a flop then nobody is opening packs and the game is dead so the fact that you can buy the singles cheaply reflects poorly on the actual health of the product to begin wtih.
It's not really, but I think it's much better as it's easier and more straightforward to get the ones you want (and more cost-efficient) with the market being involved. Boosters are just that, there's no "craft the shitty ones for a decent one" other than recycling 20 cards to get a ticket (this was because people got dupes of basic cards at the start and there's nothing you can do with them since literally everyone gets them when you buy the game). Getting these tickets is not anywhere close to the most efficient way to get the cards you want, when you can just buy them on market for usually cents, sometimes dollars. It's better than a gacha system where you have to keep pulling until you get the ones you want, or merge a TON of your bad pulls into the one you want.
Yanger put it well above. There was also an excellent thread on it months ago, maybe search the forum for a couple of threads. Yeah it's something like buying individual packs as per a "traditional" card game was a great idea but basically meant you might be throwing away tons of money for packs with no guarantee it'll be anywhere near useful or you'll get lots of duplicates - and everybody else is doing the same so they won't buy the duplicates - or something.
Gabe has been pretty vocal in the past about how they want to focus on multiplayer experiences that can generate ongoing revenue. They probably make more money off cosmetics and loot boxes than they would with HL3 sadly.
There is a floor for dust acquisition in a game like hearthstone. y'know how much you'll ever pay for the most expensive card in HS? Far less than you would've paid for Axe or Drow when Artifact wasn't dead. It's not like you're just beholden to pulling the lever over and over. That's not really any different.
You also have to play a ton of games to get gold for card packs, open the card packs, dust the duplicates, hope you have enough dust to make the card you wanted. Sure, it's not money you have to pay for the card packs, but it's a grind for sure. I used to play HearthStone.
uh, you can just buy the packs.
I'm aware you can just buy the packs, and thus you're spending more money on those.
That's the point: You spend LESS money buying packs, dusting every card in those packs, than you do buying Drow or Axe. Any Hearthstone card in existence was cheaper than the high end artifact cards. That's the ENTIRE point. It's why the notion that somehow those other digital TCGs are 'gacha' and Artifact isn't is ridiculous. Whether you open a pack in ARtifact or not, it is gacha based and you are paying real money for the gacha odds even if you buy singles, because the EV of the pack is what is expressed onto the market value of the cards. This ALSO prevents them from giving away meaningful amounts of packs for free because it actually negatively impacts the dollar of your customers, where HS due to not having trading doesn't have to concern itself with that and can give away as many packs as they want without it devaluing the singles market (the dust rate).
Sounds more like they just didn't renew his and Skaff's and whoever else's contracts, but I guess that sounds more mundane. Pretty sure even if it was a success he would only be on as needed, just like with Magic.
You talk as if HL3 wouldn't sell 20 million copies at launch
Yeah game industry is crazy these days. AAA development at most places is just nutso.
Drow and Axe are outliers, meanwhile the rest of the cards were pretty cheap. You don't NEED Drow and Axe to win games, but they are the best heroes in the game. Drow and Axe were ridiculously priced in the beginning, right now they're dirt cheap (Drow is less than a dollar, Axe is $2.50). I wasn't saying Artifact 100% wasn't gacha, as it still is to a degree since that's the nature of random packs existing.
