How Artifact became Valve's biggest failure • Hacker News Board

Re: How Artifact became Valve's biggest failure

#61

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

bloaf wrote: post #14

CydeWeys wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are a lot more willing to dump money on a physical good that they provably own (because it's literally in their possession in their home) than on digital goods. Artifact uses the microtransaction model to the very extreme, to the point where it costs real money to play a ranked game (not even to get new stuff, just to play a game). This has understandably turned off a huge number of people. With AAA games that…

I think this is the key thing. The problem isn't that Valve charged too much. The problem is that people thought Valve was charging too much. Why did they think that? It is because the pricing was too "in your face" and prevented you from actually playing the game. People will spend a lot [0] so long as they feel like they aren't being forced into it. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4by4e4/pol..…

> The problem isn't that Valve charged too much. The problem is that people thought Valve was charging too much.

I don't think this is a meaningful distinction. The correct price is determined in large part by whatever people are willing to pay. The vast majority of the addressable customer base deciding that a price is too high means that it effectively is too high. Valve certainly hasn't maximized their profit at the current price level. And since the marginal cost of offering more product on digital goods is effectively zero, they have a wide range of options in addressing the problem, unlike manufacturers of physical goods who have a base price level of the cost of manufacture.

Re: How Artifact became Valve's biggest failure

#62

Post by bloaf » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #61

bloaf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the key thing. The problem isn't that Valve charged too much. The problem is that people thought Valve was charging too much. Why did they think that? It is because the pricing was too "in your face" and prevented you from actually playing the game. People will spend a lot [0] so long as they feel like they aren't being forced into it. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4by4e4/pol..…

> The problem isn't that Valve charged too much. The problem is that people thought Valve was charging too much. I don't think this is a meaningful distinction. The correct price is determined in large part by whatever people are willing to pay. The vast majority of the addressable customer base deciding that a price is too high means that it effectively is too high. Valve certainly hasn't maximized their profit at t…

But what I am saying is that Valve could have kept the game effectively the same price and avoided the criticism by changing how they charged the player.

Re: How Artifact became Valve's biggest failure

#63

Post by me_me_me » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #57

dx87 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part about the in your face RNG of Artifact is that Richard Garfield knew players don't like that type of RNG, and it was one of the main factors that killed off the Star Wars TCG he developed [1]. He decided to try it again in Artifact, and to nobody's suprise, people still don't like super visible RNG affecting the outcome. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/k...

> people still don't like super visible RNG affecting the outcome. Everybody says this, but the problem is that RNGs are friendlier to noobs. The real problem is that any game like this has two markets--noobs and experts. And you have to win over both--that's a tall order. You have to have a continuous influx of noobs or your game dies. However, the experts have to be able to fleece the noobs and gain enough money co…

In the artifact the RNG in baked into the game itself, there is on way to avoid it. In HS you can build deck that has none of it (or varying degrees). You still are at the mercy of a draw (but that's just the beauty of deck building).

Re: How Artifact became Valve's biggest failure

#64

Post by me_me_me » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

aranelsurion wrote: post #50

For me, their business model was the biggest turn-off, I didn't even give it a try because of that. Hearthstone is already strong in this market, they have $0 entry fee and only charge for the cards. It's a pay2win game, some like/accept it, and some don't. I don't. Because I'm not willing to pay some unknown amount of money for a game just to stay competitive everytime the meta changes. I play games for fun, and bei…

>Hearthstone is already strong in this market, they have $0 entry fee and only charge for the cards. It's a pay2win game, some like/accept it, and some don't. I don't. Because I'm not willing to pay some unknown amount of money for a game just to stay competitive everytime the meta changes. I play games for fun, and being destroyed in a game because of IRL money is no fun.

HS has actually pretty good system, I played it for first few years and spend almost no money on it (I got the adventure packs/tickets).

There are also a series on yt/twitch where players start from 0 and climb the ladder.

Given what HS could be I have to give it to Blizzard for balancing the free rewards to not be a grind-fest design to funnel ppl into buying packs.