MeinMMO demon Cortyn informs about a new feature in Hearthstone. This is – who would be surprised? – extremely expensive.
Even though Hearthstone has increasingly become just an occasional game for me due to its pricing strategy in recent years, where I only occasionally try a round in the Arena or check out the Battlegrounds mode, I still follow the game quite actively. That makes it all the more frustrating when new features of the game are primarily found behind a paywall, especially when the idea is actually cute.
This time’s idea: Pets. You can have a little companion on the battlefield that mimics your emotes, that you can pet, or that reacts to various moves.
In the case of Hearthstone, it is the dino King Krush, who hunters should already be familiar with.
But how do you introduce this new system? Right, of course with real money. But you don’t just put 10 euros on the table for King Krush and then you have him.
That would be too easy.
A loot box that gets more expensive with every purchase
Hearthstone has come up with something new here. Something that approaches the worst Gacha systems and then adds a little more.
Because how do you get King Krush? From a loot box. Even if the loot box isn’t called that, but it is actually the “Darkmoon Faire.”
There is a prize pool with 10 different prizes. You can “pull” each time and receive one of the prizes randomly.
The financial twist: The price increases with each pull. The first time is still free. Of course, to entice you. The second pull already costs 200 Rune Stones (2 €). The third pull costs 400 Rune Stones (4 €).
Not only does the price get more expensive with each pull, but the increase is not even linear.
For the 5th pull, you already pay 1,000 Rune Stones (10 €) and for the last pull, that is the 10th, you have to shell out a whole 50,000 Rune Stones. 50 euros.
Even if you somehow want to paint this practice in a good light – and I wouldn’t know how to achieve that – there is even more gambling behind it. Because with 10 possible wins, not everyone has the same chance of being drawn. The rewards use different weightings. The worst reward has a weighting of 300, the best (that is, King Krush) a weighting of 1.
156 Euros for a pet in a card game
Since King Krush has the lowest probability of being drawn (0.1% on the first pull), all interested parties can assume that they will only guarantee to receive the pet with the last pull.
This means: For King Krush, a cosmetic pet, a new feature introduction, you have to fork out a hefty 158 Euros. But it was only a matter of time until after a 60-Euro skin, a pet for over 100 Euros comes.
The fact that the prices rise each time is also an exploitation of the sunk cost fallacy, meaning the thought: Now that I’ve already invested so much money, I should just follow through until I get what I want.
And yes, of course. You don’t have to buy it. You don’t have to engage with the system. I can simply ignore the Darkmoon Faire and before I spend 158 Euros on a pet, the Nether has to freeze twice.
Nevertheless, I find it regrettable that absolutely every major patch in Hearthstone brings some new way to pour significant amounts of money into the game. I am aware that Hearthstone needs to make money, like many other free-to-play games. But looking at Hearthstone’s journey over the last few years, it’s just a shame. Because it makes all the things where we used to say: At least Blizzard doesn’t do that.
Last week I was upset about something else: Achievements. Because achievements make the player experience worse. However, it took Zelda on the Switch 2 to reveal this truth to me.
