Artifact, Valve’s Dota 2 trading card game, has been rising quite a few eyebrows with its monetization details.
When developers start talking about bringing complex and strategic gameplay unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before, you should worry. Games like that also come with many other issues that drag that spectacular gameplay down. For example, it seems certain people on a certain subreddit thread weren’t sold on Artifact and its monetization. Now, CCGs these days don’t always have very user-friendly monetization if you don’t spend money on the game. Hearthstone, for example, is very hard to get into if you’re a new player and want to play without spending a dime. This Valve’s TCG takes it to a whole new level.
Here’s how things will work in Artifact. There is no way to get card packs for just playing the game. You can by playing Expert, but Expert requires a ticket in order to play. Now, when you win three times in Expert you get your ticket back. Win 4 times and you get one card pack. If you manage to win 5 times you get two packs. Pretty simple, don’t you think? Well, not so much. The only other way to get card packs is to buy them or trade with other players on the marketplace. Hardly a user-friendly environment.
This really is a difficult game to understand, and exceptionally difficult to master. Since you can only lose two times in Expert before you get kicked out, we reckon that many players will lose money. The ticket is one dollar by the way.
Basically, Valve made it so that without spending money, you can’t progress much in this game. Keep in mind that Artifact is a $20 title. But, is it strange for games today to require more purchases even after you buy the title? No, and that is a horrible fact, one that isn’t changing in the future we’re afraid.
