The free-to-play online card game avoids "black hat" tactics to keep players happy

Aug 26, 2014 07:11 GMT  ·  By

Blizzard confirms that the intended free-to-play strategy for its Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft online card game is a "white hat" one, focusing on upfront tactics instead of using cheap ones performed by plenty of other so-called "free" games on the market.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is one of Blizzard's big experiments, despite the fact that it was created by a very small team from inside the large developer. It represents the first true free-to-play experience from the studio, allowing players to compete with one another in a virtual card game. They can earn new cards by completing in-game quests or by straight-up buying them using the in-game story with real-world money.

However, the game doesn't have that distinct free-to-play but pay-to-win feeling, as Production Director Jason Chayes explains that the strategy is a white hat one, versus the black hat tactics employed by other free games online.

"We talked about this idea of white hat black hat from Westerns, and for us one of the goals we set for ourselves was that we wanted to do microtransactions with a white hat," he tells GamesIndustry.

"What that came down to was that everybody who was playing the game was playing the way they wanted to; there were no specific gates or things that were preventing you from progressing, you get access to the content over time. Maybe you get it a little bit faster if you choose to spend money, but we really wanted to make it a very fair and legitimate way to play for people who never wanted to give us a dime."

Sure, a lot of players can opt to spend real-world money and upgrade their decks right away, and such a thing has certainly been done, but the overall Hearthstone design isn't focused on just having the best deck.

"We saw maybe a week or two after we launched - I think it was in China - that there were already players that have a full set of cards including all the golden cards," Chayes adds. "So that obviously represents a very significant investment and something that you can certainly do, and if you want to be the first on the block to have the uber collection that's possible, but it's not what we designed the game for as a primary case."

"One of the main things is we just want to make sure that there's not a lot of pressure to go one way or the other."

Hearthstone has introduced some new ways of paying for content, through the Curse of Naxxramas single-player expansion, but players were allowed to go through it in timed intervals so not even then were people forced to pay up.

Hearthstone screenshots (5 Images)

Hearthstone isn't a regular free-to-play game
Hearthstone screenshotHearthstone screenshot
+2more