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I'd say not capitalising on one of their greatest games is another huge failure as well..(HL3)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to defend them at all, but the longer it took to plan HL3, the longer it became a sounder business decision to just not do it for risk of not living up to the hype.
Duke Nukem Forever is one example of this. But Black Mesa is a counterexample; they still haven't released Xen last time I checked, but everything they have released far exceeds expectations. Maybe Valve should pay that group to finish the HL series.
If the price was the only problem, you'd still expect to see people playing draft regularly, at least in the interim, especially since there are free drafts you can play. But there's more wrong with this game than just how they priced it. It may be that RNG is actually less of a factor in Artifact than in other similar games, but boy does it FEEL stronger. Every turn in a CCG lets you draw cards, and maybe you don't…
Even Wizards of the Coast (WotC) struggles with this in Magic: the Gathering, and that game has been around for over 25 years and remains King of the paper TCGs. Counterspells, discard, and land destruction are all very balanced effects, but a plurality of the players hate them so much that WotC eventually made those effects more expensive or less reliable.
One of the keys of game design is that your first goal is not to build something that's balanced; it's to build something that's fun to play. Making something balanced and competitive, though necessary, are secondary to the enjoyment of the game.
I played the game a lot, before giving up. I played only draft and was pretty good (Mostly infinite and highly ranked). I have two opinions on why the game failed. First, while it was a truly satisfying game and wonderfully complex the random elements where both anti Dota and truly fuck you rng where a flip of a coin decides most high level games. Now, the same could be said about most competitive card games but in A…
But in the end I had no way of knowing whether I was getting any better, and the games ended up feeling totally meaningless.
They tripled down on the worst part of card games, paying to win.
We could have had new Left 4 Dead.
IMO they ruined TF2. I haven’t really played it in a while because every time I do it’s all completely different and just a joke.
If the price was the only problem, you'd still expect to see people playing draft regularly, at least in the interim, especially since there are free drafts you can play. But there's more wrong with this game than just how they priced it. It may be that RNG is actually less of a factor in Artifact than in other similar games, but boy does it FEEL stronger. Every turn in a CCG lets you draw cards, and maybe you don't…
> Standing above in their white tower, yelling down "but the math says you're wrong" doesn't matter if nobody's having any fun. Even Wizards of the Coast (WotC) struggles with this in Magic: the Gathering, and that game has been around for over 25 years and remains King of the paper TCGs. Counterspells, discard, and land destruction are all very balanced effects, but a plurality of the players hate them so much that…
That's generally not true today, where 'organic' marketing driven by professional streamers is a large part of potential players' initial exposure to a game. Streamers can easily kill a game in its infancy simply by providing negative feedback (as we're seeing here).
But the pro players will only commit if they think there will be a successful pro scene revolving around a balanced, relatively low RNG, high-skill-cap game.
So developers are forced to attempt to appeal to two very different markets and occasionally stumble badly.
I mean, this is exactly how card games work. People don't seem to have an issue buying into expensive Magic decks. You don't NEED to have the best though, no shame in drafting and pauper decks.
In comparison, MTG Arena costs less overall, but there is no way to cash out. I have nothing of value. Just an account with digital cards. I could sell the account, but I'm sure that's against the TOS. That's how most digital card games work. I didn't play Artifact but it seems like a huge ripoff.
If the price was the only problem, you'd still expect to see people playing draft regularly, at least in the interim, especially since there are free drafts you can play. But there's more wrong with this game than just how they priced it. It may be that RNG is actually less of a factor in Artifact than in other similar games, but boy does it FEEL stronger. Every turn in a CCG lets you draw cards, and maybe you don't…
Fwiw, price _was_ my only problem and i still stopped playing. Why? Because it felt the game's intentions differed from mine. It felt like the game was trying to be Magic, where as i just wanted to play a card-dota game - not invest in some market, continually buying packs, etc.
In addition to this, the drama and complaints surrounding the market also made me feel like the game was doomed for failure. And the type of game it was made me not want to play it if it died (unlike a single player game, where i'd happily play regardless of other people).
Just my 2c / context.