A Hearthstone Subscription

So here we are the first Friday since I have been back posting and I have had quite the list of posts to go through on which should be this week's Reader Post. Now I want to say first I am going through everyone which was sent in while I was on break. None of them are time specific so I will be including them all for consideration over the next little while. So I thank you all for your patience on this matter. Now the post I chose for this week was written by Dorakara and has to do with an interesting concept of a subscription for Hearthstone. Have a read and let's see what you think

I decided to send you this email after contemplating the idea of a subscription based service for Hearthstone. A problem that Hearthstone and card games like it can have as they expand forward is the inability for a new player to catch up and collect the cards they need to be competitive. Right now there are two full sets out along with Naxx and BRM and even already the amount of money or time that must be sunk into Hearthstone to get the cards to create some of the more competitive decks can be overwhelming, and this problem will only get worse as players require more specific cards from more and more expansion sets.

An easy way for Blizzard to counteract this is to simply add some sort of subscription service, something like The Innkeeper's Collection. For a monthly fee you are able to use all the cards currently in the game without the need to open packs. The cards will stay as long as you continue to pay and if you choose to stop your subscription the collection reverts to its previous state.

I feel like this would be a good addition for Hearthstone going forward and may be able to solve some of the hiccups that can come from new players trying to enter or people who feel like they have hit a wall with what they can achieve. In the case of myself I find I am using suboptimal cards because I cannot craft the expensive legendaries and epics that have taken residence in alot of deck archetypes, such as the Molten and Mountain Giants required for handlock which cost a large amount of dust to craft when your average pack (if you disenchant everything) grants you about 40 dust.

I would like to get your opinion and anyone else's on this idea and find out as well what price-point/additional features (such as arena runs) people would like to see rolled in. If the hearthstone subscription was tied to a WoW subscription would that make you buy into a subscription again if you had quit at some point?

Now do I think this is a good idea? Yes, of course, I do. Do I ever think something like this will be a thing? Not at all. I just think it would get people away from buying cards and everything else for the "chance" to get what they want. This is why Hearthstone and card games in general are such good business models. What do you all think? Could it work?

The Token To Change The World

So you may have heard but if you haven't feel free to read Blizzard's FAQ here

Basically thought it breaks down to this

Coming soon to an Azeroth near you: the WoW Token, a new in-game item that allows players to simply and securely exchange gold and game time between each other.

Players will be able to purchase a WoW Token through the in-game Shop for real money, and then sell it on the Auction House for gold at the current market price. When a player buys a WoW Token from the Auction House for gold, the Token becomes Soulbound, and the player can then redeem it for 30 days of game time.

Now this doesn't mean that WoW is becoming free to play by any means. What it does mean that this is a way for not only people with high amounts of gold they are not using to get a reward for it, but also a way for those who need a quick boost of gold if they have been away from the game and off the inflation curve.

Blizzard also hopes this will reduce the number of people being hacked for the gold 3rd party site gold suppliers because there will be a safe and non ToS breaking way for people to get a hold of gold for the game.

Now because this is going to be Blizzard set value this isn't going to be able to be taken over from those who are trying to create a market on the auction house. Truthfully I see this as Blizzard's way of giving back to players who have accumulated wealth by spending a lot of time playing their game and therefore giving them an option to keep playing without costing them real money.

So as you probably figured out I like the idea and applaud Blizzard for making this happen.