Is Hearthstone pay to win?

[Super Kami Dende]

I win very often, yet I've never spent a cent.

[Every Pwny]

Yeah, sure you can play for free, but it will take you months to get a decent deck. If you play HS like 5 hours a day for months and are good at arena you can earn a decent amount of gold to buy packs with. Other than that you will be hugely behind and you will need to play A LOT if you want to be able to climb ladder without paying. It's pretty much pay to win unless you have the time to play a lot for a long amount of time.

[crakerjack]

It would really help if you first understood what P2W is. Pay to win is only and I repeat ONLY when an advantage can only be obtained via spending real money. If you can get the same item/thing with in-game currency, then it's not P2W. Doesn't matter how long of a grind or how many hours you have to invest... If you can obtain it w/ in-game currency, it's not pay to win. P2W only applies if said upgrade/advantage could only be obtained by paying X amount of real currency.

[Twoddle]

You know what? Everything's pay to win. Life is pay to win. Don't believe me? Try to live in a house or apartment without paying the mortgage or rent. Try owning a car without paying the car payment. Try eating without paying for your food, or getting clothes, or books, or TVs, or anything, without paying.

There. Does that end this "is this thing pay to win" stuff? Life is pay to win. Don't be surprised when a computer game is.

You're making the mistake of thinking having lots of money is winning. Millions of people sponge of the system and live happy fulfilling lives without paying anything. Life is a game and you can live it for free if you want to.

[Deleted]

It's basically the spiritual successor of WoW TCG. It's a TCG without the trading. I think people are lucky enough to have the ability to earn packets for free by winning. But, paying for packs also doesn't give you an advantage - it just gives you a broader choice. I could get a better set of cards in 1 pack than someone who paid for 20.

[rda]

It would really help if you first understood what P2W is. Pay to win is only and I repeat ONLY when an advantage can only be obtained via spending real money. If you can get the same item/thing with in-game currency, then it's not P2W. Doesn't matter how long of a grind or how many hours you have to invest... If you can obtain it w/ in-game currency, it's not pay to win. P2W only applies if said upgrade/advantage could only be obtained by paying X amount of real currency.

No.

When people ask whether the game (typically advertised as free to play) is pay to win, what they want to know is whether they will feel equal to others who spend money without spending money - ie, whether money give in-game advantages. It doesn't matter if such a sold advantage can also be obtained in a few weeks/months of grinding. That's it.

HS is pay to win. WoW largely wasn't, at least until tokens.

[Twoddle]

It would really help if you first understood what P2W is. Pay to win is only and I repeat ONLY when an advantage can only be obtained via spending real money. If you can get the same item/thing with in-game currency, then it's not P2W. Doesn't matter how long of a grind or how many hours you have to invest... If you can obtain it w/ in-game currency, it's not pay to win. P2W only applies if said upgrade/advantage could only be obtained by paying X amount of real currency.

Pay-to-win can also mean you can gain an advantage over someone right now by paying.

[Deleted]

no.
i can beat any deck a newcomer creates with a common deck (cept face hunter)

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Pay-to-win can also mean you can gain an advantage over someone right now by paying.

no it cant.

[Nikkaszal]

Yeah, sure you can play for free, but it will take you months to get a decent deck. If you play HS like 5 hours a day for months and are good at arena you can earn a decent amount of gold to buy packs with. Other than that you will be hugely behind and you will need to play A LOT if you want to be able to climb ladder without paying. It's pretty much pay to win unless you have the time to play a lot for a long amount of time.

Nope. Made a brand new account, two weeks old, paid nothing, rank 13 currently.

[rda]

no it cant.

Says who? You? OK.

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Nope. Made a brand new account, two weeks old, paid nothing, rank 13 currently.

Anything up to rank 5 can be achieved by just investing time, because of the star imbalance on win / loss.

[PenguinChan]

Everyone can get any card in the game besides certain card backs and certain gold cards by just playing the game outright. There is no feature you pay that gives you an advantage over a non-paying individual, who is F2P. But does that make the current state of F2P enjoyable / viable? Most likely not, I don't know how well the new player retention rate will be in a year from now; let alone a few. The game didn't have any systems in place to really promote F2P past RNG packs, and the amount you get a day is pathetic unless you are an arena hero.

It's slightly better with Naxxramas and Blackrock but the barrier for a new player to save up and gain access to all the cards needed for half decent decks in normal / rank is absurd. And I'm not talking just effective and cheap decks (These exist, and usually are of the aggro variant); I'm speaking about the more wild and fun types of decks. They are quite costly most of the time, or require Naxx or Blackrock... Which is a huge bummer for newer players.

[Deleted]

Says who? You? OK.

says common sense rabeta
pay to win means you pay to get an advantage like +dmg pack or a new more powerful weapon or more xp/lvls
not faster access to cards.. a new players with epic and rare cards generally speaking cant beat an experienced player

[Leszy]

Hearthstone is both pay to win and free to play, and at the same time it is neither free to play or pay to win.

The question is where is the line between free to play and pay to win. Actually there is larger gray area between free to play and pay to win games, like StarCraft for example. So what is the definition of being pay to win and what is the definition of free to play? There is no such thing. For someone to be pay to win means that you can get any kind of advantage, no matter how small, by money. For someone else pay to win means that there must be something behind paywall you cannot get without paying money. For someone else it might be something totally different.

Both of those are fine definitions of pay to win. But neither of them are _THE_ definition, because there is no one universally agreed definition of what pay to win means. If there would be one, we would not need to argue of this. Same goes to definition of free to play. This means for someone Hearthstone is free to play, for some other it is pay to win, and for someone else its on the gray area of not pay to win, but not free to play. And they all are right.

So instead of asking if Hearthstone is or is not pay to win, you should ask what is needed to be pay to win or free to play, and why.

[Tenris]

Hearthstone is both pay to win and free to play, and at the same time it is neither free to play or pay to win.

Thank you Schrodinger. How's the cat?

[haxartus]

If you bought 20 packs with money once and then a 100 packs with gold, are you a F2P player or a P2W player, and do you have an advantage over a F2P player ?
Also if you are a F2P player but you have played since the beta and you have all the cards, you have a clear advantage over P2W players, so the game is not actually pay to win, it's play to win.

[rda]

says common sense rabeta
pay to win means you pay to get an advantage like +dmg pack or a new more powerful weapon or more xp/lvls
not faster access to cards.. a new players with epic and rare cards generally speaking cant beat an experienced player

I don't know where you get this idea that more xp/lvl is pay to win but faster access to cards isn't.

[Deleted]

Every player can get Ysera, but the game is pay2win in the sense that buying packs for money can significantly speed up the process unless you've got godly RNG.

[Solmyr13]

Can't believe it's still going.

If I pay $1000 can I get rank 1? Yes
If I pay $100 can I get rank 1? Yes
If I pay $0 can I get rank 1? Yes

If I pay $1000 can I make a deck of all legendaries? Yes
If I pay $100 can I make a deck of all legendaries? Yes
If I pay $0 can I make a deck of all legendaries? Yes

Is every card available to me no matter what I pay? Yes
Is every card available to me if I pay nothing? Yes

Other than bypassing invested time is there any other benefit given to me by buying packs with real money? No
Does time = skill? No
Does money = skill? No

Could I get to rank 1 using strictly free cards and packs I get through dailies? Yes

I went ahead and bolded the important part for everyone.

[rda]

Could I get to rank 1 using strictly free cards and packs I get through dailies? Yes

Eventually, yes.

In other news, you can have ten thousand dollars, saving a dollar a day, it will just take some time.

[Solmyr13]

Eventually, yes.

In other news, you can have ten thousand dollars, saving a dollar a day, it will just take some time.

Exactly. Doesn't make the game pay to win. Pay to win would be like you get to Rank 1 but you have to pay 5 dollars to get into legend and compete for top spot. This isn't that way at all.