Players claim that Blizzard is giving them 150 card packs in Hearthstone – why are the developers feeling generous?
In the Hearthstone subreddit, several posts have accumulated in recent days, leading to a lot of skepticism and disbelief. Some former players claimed that they suddenly had a gift from Blizzard for Hearthstone in Battle.net. They were said to have received a whopping 150 card packs as a “casual” gift. Others were only gifted 20 card packs.
But how true is that?
Well – quite a bit. Because it is true. More and more players are reporting that they have received numerous packs for free.
Which players are affected? In a conversation with PCGamer, Blizzard explained that this is a test limited to certain regions. It states:
We conduct many different limited and targeted tests to find out what drives the interest of new, former, or current players, which is standard practice in this industry. This was a region-specific test for Hearthstone in the United Kingdom and France, for a subgroup of relevant players who were previously sorted into random groups and then received an appropriate offer of between 20 and 150 packs.
How many packs were offered to each participant was supposed to be completely random – after all, players were placed in different, random groups.
However, since the test was apparently limited to France and the United Kingdom, no one in Germany should currently hope for such a gift.
How much is that worth? Some must have rubbed their eyes in disbelief when they logged into Battle.net. Because 150 card packs correspond to a value of 150 Euros, assuming the cheapest pre-order offer. If you consider the “current” price, without pre-order discounts, the value even rises to about 180 Euros – quite a significant amount.
Blizzard is currently giving away a lot: Apparently, Blizzard is feeling generous right now and is trying to bring many former players back into the Battle.net cosmos. Just a few days ago, we reported that former players of World of Warcraft suddenly had the Epic Edition of WoW: Shadowlands in their account as a gift – this is the most expensive version of the current MMORPG expansion.
What do you think about this? A good thing to win back former players? Or unfair to the loyal existing customers who do not receive such gifts?
