This book just exposed the sad truth behind Hearthstone’s downfall
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- Опубліковано 10 жов 2024
- Today we take a look at a summary of Jason Schrier’s “Play Nice” which is a book that delves deep into the history of Blizzard and dedicates a section towards Hearthstone. We go over what lead to the game’s launch, it’s meteoric rise, the monetization pressure put on by Blizzard, the departure of Ben Brode, and the Blitzchung incident.
Jason Schreier “Play Nice”: www.hachettebo...
Reddit summary thread: / ive_been_reading_throu...
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Long story short : Finance people sucking the fun out of Blizzard teams and games for more green. Gosh I hate that.
I mean, we already knew that
Of course, it always those finance people.
That’s how every corporation *must* operate under capitalism.
The worms are there to turn the value produced by the workers into profit for the shareholders.
Yes and gamers are white knights for these people. The average blizzard gamer is quick to simp for the people shitting in their oatmeal. Gamers are idiots
Gamers need to stop. Seriously these finance people know you’re all stupid. What’s the last game you didn’t buy? You buy it all. They own your ass boy
The idea that Hearthstone has consistently been "low priority" from Day 1, despite making the company hundreds of millions, and that greedy executives like Kotick have been fighting against it for the most shortsighted reasons honestly explains a LOT.
TL;DR
- Finance executives kill Blizzard games trying to milk money out of players
- Gets rewarded by such actions because whales buy all their slop without question
- Blizzard becomes exclusive whale milking company, everyone who actually make a good product gets shut down or leaves
what mean of whales u put there? *edited: btw thanks for the tldr :)
@@rayhanrabbani2323 People that drop huge sums of money on the game.
@@rayhanrabbani2323zeddy lol
Whales are victims and game devs are most often creative people who want to make games, not milking machines. The finance vampires at the top are the problem, I don't think it should be diluted by also blaming people who have gambling and/or impulsive problem those rich ghouls directly target for financial exploitation.
@@Lovyxia Not all whales are victims.
Yes, some are, due to behavioural/mental health problems. But many aren't.
Many whales have the capacity to say no and do other things with their money. But they just shell out to trashy business practices anyway because they don't care.
Like, the epitome of this was Diablo Immortal where streamers were saying that no-one should buy into the P2W aspect of the game... Whilst dropping $100,000+ on it themselves...
Greedy executives are driven entirely by money. If a decision they make doesn't make them money, they change it.
This is explicitly why HS devs tell us to make noise about things like the lack of board, about the tavern pass, about things like the Golden Harth Stonebrew etc. Since they have to show the execs that their decisions will cost money instead of making it.
Yet this stuff is all rendered moot when at the end of the day their balance sheet shows millions of dollars in revenue from the whales who just buy everything without care.
In my experience working with executives and board members (of which I have more years than I would like) there are no more short sighted and myopic idiots anywhere on this Earth. "Failing up" sums up all of them and nepotism/inherited wealth are the downfall of companies in this country. Activision/Blizzard is no different sadly, even after the buyout.
So basically, everything that everyone suspected was going on behind the scenes was, in fact, going on behind the scenes.
RIP og Hearthstone. Back when strategy actually mattered rather than who can kill who faster
Go to bed you talking dumb
thats like not true whatsoever 💀 back when ben brode was a game director the game had the worst pay to win pack system it ever had, it was a completely random shithole with stuff like og yogg in competitive hearthstone, balance changes happened once in a year... thank god he moved on to create an even greedier tcg game to milk marvel fans
og hearthstone cards were very simple and plain. the gameplay you miss had the best turn 4 where you play a 4/5 card
"rather than who can kill who faster" did you play a different game? because I'm pretty sure defeating your opponent has always been the goal lol
@@MrConstiii I mean who can pretty much otk by turn 4-5 rather than go back and forth and fight for the board and have it go to turn 10+
I wish they'd bring back Duels, it was my only reason to keep my wild cards and it was my MOST played mode, now I don't play HS as much and I have sadly disenchanted most of my wild legendaries. (I've been playing since Kobolds)
ye same, it gave them money, but bugs happend often with new expensions so. they could had improved it so much but dunno
10:00 brode was always a greedy salesman
He constantly lies to the audiance by laughing. Even when things seem like toxic mechanics.
Reminder that Jason Schreier knew how blizzard was treating employees and didn’t report on it until after they got sued, because he didn’t want to lose his access. Screw him.
I never thought I would miss some new dungeon runs that bad....
Why cinema is dying? Why music isn't as good as used to be? Why most AAA games are bad?
Artist need to pay bills just like us and companies have made anything they possibly can to destroy high budget independent project and now those artist are nothing but employees and they no longer make art they make products.
I miss the old hearthstone
Well all do but it’s ruined unless people like zeddy talk shiii to em and make a stand
it was harder to get gold/packs/dust on the start of the game. And now you can get in legend for free! Now the game is the most free to play as ever. I like how the game is now more than it was in the past.
@@impkiller5932yeah i agree, as a returning player, it's been a real pleasure to be able to just build cool decks without worrying too much about any dust shortages. Sure, the game has its flaws, but their approach to make money from cosmetics rather than from cards is very good imo.
@@impkiller5932 I think the problem is the game's balance. Getting a neptulon on turn 1 at least back when I played it in 2022 should be a red flag to any developer.
@@impkiller5932 While this is true, the game was much better because it wasn't the village bicycle of Blizzard game directors. It's become such a mess with how what Hearthstone actually is constantly changing because different game directors with completely different interpretations and visions of the game leading it, especially with modes team leads making fun and inspired game modes only to leave before the fruits of their labor ever come close to fruition like we've seen with Duels and Twist.
Hearthstone used to be and feel distinctly Hearthstone. Now it's a weird blurry soup of conflicting ideas and design philosophies that just makes it a game where cards and things happen and stuff where everything is an absolute mess. As a game designer, it feels like a grim warning of what happens when artistic vision is lost. It's like the videogame version of a skinwalker that stole your friend's body, Hearthstone is dead and has been replaced by this bizarre zombie amalgamation using its rotting skin and its name.
So the whole time people were joking about HS being made by a “Small Indie Company” ,;that was a lot closer to the truth than anyone could’ve guessed.
Lmao everyone but you knew
Who's going to tell them that's where the joke came from
I always had that aching feeling that money hungry suits were behind this. Blizzard and Team 5 seem like genuinely cool developers, and looking at how Hearthstone started out as a passion project and evolv-- no, DEVOLVED into what it is now is just sad. They had the world in their hands but decided to put it in their pockets instead.
Ben Brode did not liked the direction of monetization, so he moved on to Marvel Snap?….. something doesnt add up
He did not like the direction of the COMPANY and he wanted to spend more time developing games and less time in meetings.
At Blizzard, he was forced to go to meetings about monetization and had to continually persuade execs to keep the game going (Since execs simply wanted to go full on milking WoW and nothing else)
At Second Dinner, he's likely a full time developer and someone else deals with the monetization and justifies the games continued existence.
A) You work on something with love and have to fight to keep it alive because no one believes / the suits want it canned. Later the same suits turn around, AFTER your love baby they wanted to cancel has met with incredible success, and hound you to uber-monetize it.
B) You work on something you've been specifically hired for & know from day one it's going to be uber monetized.
I can see why Ben would choose option B, much less frustrating.
unfortunately, thats just how it is in the video game industry 😔 video games made $347B last year in the global market, making it one of the most profitable industries to be in. that attracts all the scummy and greedy CEOs. and unless you are an indie dev, you ~will~ be working for those CEOs. they ~will~ control your passions. im sure ben broad went to marvel snap truly believing it would be a fresh start and the moment he signed a contract they showed him its actually more of the same
They sucked the soul out of hearthstone. In the early days you could tell there was love put in it, with every expansion announcement being a celebratory time with multiple videos and creative ideas. Now we rarely see that happen, and not just with hearthstone. We are at a point where we are celebrating the bare minimum of what games used to be like, with games like Wukong, Elden Ring etc.
Yes, no new board, but all old boards are available now. And guess what... they broke the boards so not all "clickables" work as they should. But hey, that bug will eventually be fixed in about 2-3 expansions or so.
Fixed, you're optimistic :D .
@@1ben10234 Well i have some faith left, not alot but 1-2% or so 🤣
The sad truth is that Hearthstone was built from the ground up to make you spend money on it at regular intervals.
I need some help guys. I also can’t read because I play hearthstone, but I’m also a twitch chatter which means I can’t hear either. What was this video about?
once again, another case of greedy corporate suits in boardrooms meddling where they have no business being
Its funny that Brode left Hearthstone because of the change in culture and would then go join the most predatory-designed card game of them all that is entirely designed off casino-mechanics. lol . Ah, what could have been.
I only play hearthstone because I enjoyed duels, would have left about a year ago if not for duels
Dude just read us the thing out loud, Zeddy, the content god
This is not about Bubbling Book?
hi , off topic i tried fight over me in the tavern brawl and its bugged
I miss when wild wasn't plagued by 40 hp control decks. The devs are complete idiots
Dungeon Runs kept me interested in Hearthstone itself.
Don't sell yourself short Zeddy, we all know you can read, you read things wrong, but you still read them
Blizzard just loves getting rid of their best people. Ben Brode. Chris Metzen. They just dont give a fuck
damn, i hope zeddy will read this book and he felt he had to get the "scoop" and make the video asap. making content with a thumbnail featuring a book you haven't read is kinda fucked up.
Between World of Warcraft being this cancer that took and gave back so much money and attention that no other games of blizzard could ever compete with and titan just being 100% drain and 0%, hearthstone never stood a chance.
I hope bilizzard becomes the next nokia
These money people don't understand anything about games so when they try to monetize anything it just goes to shit
The book costs less than the Rag mythic skin
Also they can monetize dungeon run like they do for Arena. You can spend gold to enter a leaderboard version of dungeon run where depending on how you do you can earn rewards and you get put on a leaderboard against other players.
Isnt it telling that everytime a "Sad truth behind blizzard" for any of their properties is concerned is always a thumbnail of a goblin. Doesnt matter what content creator or what game its about. I WONDER IF THERE IS A PATTERN OR SOMETHING
Let’s just face it. 2024 Hearthstone problem is the lack of new player. The game design shifted towards a more complex set of rules and hard to understand meta to appeal to old player instead of attracting new ones. Plus, China is the real market of this game. They absolutely failed trying to pay content creators like Day9 to bring in more players in and they won’t insist 🤷♀️
the OG wow tcg was awesome , after HS got plenty of steam rolling they should have reintroduced the real cards, main reason i quit HS for MTG
What happen with snap is pretty obivus. Ben Bro get what he wants at first but when the first month of snap happens and he talks time to time about "making the cards more easy to get" Second Dinner saw an incoming problem: Solo mode Adventure in a game like snap are really not worth invesment. We know how easy is trick Snap Bots and if you make them better they will be pretty though to beat.
So Second Dinner only way to make money is to keep the strong cards begin their paywall (Battle Pass) and soft paywalls (The keys). Phone games are about micro transactions. HS by default has a system that make people being able to not pay at all and keep one deck or two on the meta. The reason we have more and more explosive cards is exactly what everyone can figure: Keep the people chasing meta deck, keep people buying packs.
How snaps worth? Keep People trying to figuring the meta as much as they can with the cards they get from the rng. Keep people spending 5$ at month atleast for the BP to have atlast 1 meta card every meta.
Man you have bad english
Marvel snap is not worse in monetization, I have around 95% of the cards as a free player, without a single purchase. Hearthstone? I maybe have about 80%. So there that, I play both daily, and Snap is more generous.
have you been playing from beta or smth???
@@goggypoggy he must be a troll or a paid actor. in marvel snap u cant keep up with card releases even if you purchase season pass every month
Huge cap
@goggypoggy I have 273 cards unlocked, and 25 missing. I am collection level 14121. I have been playing since release, not in beta. I am trying to be maximum efficient with spending in order to have all cards, I spend gold on token deals instead of buying variatants.
I've gotta agree with this. Snap is only more expensive if you want everything Day 1 every time. If you just manage your resources efficiently and play regularly, you'll eventually have access to every card. Albeit not day 1. Of course you usually need to sacrifice cosmetics to make this happen so there is a trade off.
Thank you
Next story gonna be about that one pencil pusher dude not part of the creater circle that hated zeddy and wouldnt allow him early game acces.
A joke btw.
Dont worry guys blizzard cant easily Sue Jason for exposing them since they are just a small indie company.
Yup, WoW and Diablo 4, let's give them awesome cinematics and Hearthstone has them taken away along with the free board/music cause they are the red headed step child of Blizzard.
8:05 I disagree. Dungeon Run was likely pulling players away from normal Hearthstone, but not attracting players who have not played Hearthstone
You need things to carry between each expansion. If people hate an expansion because of certain deck archetypes, dungeon run players will stick around to play that while the team addresses other issues. I think dungeon runs, if not too expensive, make a lot of sense for long term monetization
Maybe too much of a personal experience, my brother downloaded the game for dungeon run and then left and never returned, never interested in standard, and not returning anytime soon. (maybe because back then they gave no packs at the starts, maybe with catchup packs it would've been different to bridge the gap)
@@noahdacheese839 The main thing is having a pool of players in the game though.
Like, there's a reason why quests are only (Mostly) completable in actual games, with recent event quests specifying "Ranked". They want people in the pool of players so they get matches. Not sitting in PvE modes not helping matchmaking (See also their repeated nerfs to PvE exp grinds)
Having modes get fast queues is highly desired because otherwise it creates a cascading effect where people quit playing because of bad queues and then queues get worse ad infinitum until the game dies.
@@tarille1043 I can understand wanting PvP games, but limiting it to Ranked specifically is very annoying. Casual constructed should earn event XP for sure, and arguably including Arena would serve their goals too.
@@synchronium24 Well, unless they're having the problem that the meta is so unfun that people are not playing ranked...
That would cause them to need to push people into ranked with their quests in order to populate the matchmaking.
new card coming plz...
#BringBackDungeonrun
The problem is there's an expansion every 6 months and that too much. Cuz eventually you're going to run out of ideas. The problem also is the lot of you who think we need new stuff every week, like no mf enjoy the current meta is you life so sad you want something new here. I'm ok having patches but new expansions every 6 months are a problem.
If unhappy customers bled out the dev team, they'd care more about our experiences.... or they'd leave the business.
Due to the status of games at this point, both are equally acceptable.
over monetization? dude, the game itself is free'er than ever (minus the board situation) its only cosmetics that are overpriced
This changes nothing
It is the same thing as always. We're just watching money under different lens.
guys just quit. Game sucks no reason to play my god
Snap is not worse monetization than HS. Your take on that is so bad. They are exactly the same.
Hey Zeddy, maybe you should take a break playing HS and try out some other games, if you are just getting toxic instead of feeding Blizz more money for a product you don't enjoy anymore.
hearthstone is the best game ever
BLIZZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You "believe" he summarizes the Vicious Syndicate podcast? Two clicks would take you to his post history to confirm it so you don't use such wishy-washy language. Also, too lazy to read the book for literally your career? Yikes.
Whales ruined it
first omg
Same with Wizards of the coast and Hasbro hasbro keeps forcing WOTC to squeeze and squeeze more $$$ and it's brutal Magic is falling out as well
It's a game of pushing out content for addicted players to fork out their $$$ if you actually pay the game they try to use you as a cash cow and bleed you dry or as much as possible
The downfall is the game literally blows. You know it’s not fun. The meta is seriously bad. Please don’t admit it’s fun to play these wash your ass decks. Every deck is a control deck. Facts this game is pure RNG. You don’t want to hear this but there’s little to no skill left here’s what’s your draw? Flip a coin it’s just as good a game as hearthstone.