• Richard Garfield claims Artifact floundered due to review bombing, not the model
    42 replies, posted
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/06/03/richard-garfield-artifact-interview/ “There was growing worry on the team. My perspective was that there were three problems – the revenue model was poorly received, there weren’t enough community tools and short-term goals in place online like achievements or missions, and, perhaps because of these things, there was a rating bombing that made it hard to get the message out about what the game offered to the player who it was built for. “There were oodles of reviews that were, ‘This game is great, but because of X I am thumbs downing it.’ My understanding is that there were also many cases of people buying the game so they could rate it, then refunding immediately. “The first is whether buying something will make you a champion. This is not true for Hearthstone, Magic, or for that matter, golf. It also isn’t true for Artifact. I am an OK player and a mediocre deck constructor in Artifact, and access to all of the cards won’t change that. I might be able to overcome the mediocre deck construction by copying someone else’s deck, but it won’t make me an excellent player. Likewise, I can spend thousands on golf clubs, but it won’t make me a golf champion." Entire thing stinks of "well the game was cheaper to play than MTG, so theres no issue with the business model"
It had a high cost of entry for a CCG. If that was it then it probably would've been *okay* But then you also had to pay for cards, with the rare cards being FINITE in number, no earning anything for free And you had to pay for event tickets, $5 for a bundle of 5 It flopped because your business model absolutely SUCKS and it's worse than most mobile games. Get your head out of your ass
Lmao review bombing is a sign that you're fucking up, not a sign that the customer is WRONG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAuR5bkIlQ
ive played a lot of hearthstone and i really enjoyed what little i played of artifact, but the business model was just insane i mean, hearthstone is fucking expensive to play but artifact has zero free alternative routes to obtain anything when the game already costs $20... how do you ever expect to capture an audience? also didn't help that balance was fucked despite a lengthy beta period
It was looking so great from the start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR4jPtrDCLo
there was a rating bombing that made it hard to get the message out about what the game offered to the player who it was built for. But in this case the what the game offered to the player was a bunch of crap and people expressed it by making negative reviews ofcourse what he probably means is "all the positive reviews are hidden because of the review bombing, therefore its not artifact's fault"
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/225943/7825c10a-bd11-48f5-bc59-cb0650c9f7ae/image.png
Well hate on artifact all you want, but that headline is completely misrepresenting what he's saying. And it's in the first lines of the article When asked about his reactions to the backlash, Garfield acknowledged that “there were also a lot of complaints about the revenue model, which appeared generous to Magic players, but stingy to players who expected free-to-play with grinding for cards.” “There was growing worry on the team. My perspective was that there were three problems – the revenue model was poorly received, there weren’t enough community tools and short-term goals in place online like achievements or missions, and, perhaps because of these things, there was a rating bombing that made it hard to get the message out about what the game offered to the player who it was built for. So yes he complains about review bombing, but he literally aknowledges the game failed because of the business model and its reception. Can hate on artifact without misrepresenting what he's saying for angry bandwagon points OP.
I can't be the only one who thinks that even outside the awful business model the game just looked bad? You had so much RNG in the base mechanics so it felt that the winner was basically determined at random.
I'd laugh my ass off if everyone that was playing was actually a bot trade scammin.
And you are just going to ignore that is literally a tiny sliver of his reason why the game failed? Majority of his complaints stem from the very tiny negatives while just tapping the elephant in the room. Compare that one line versus him saying: The RNG (in a fucking card game): “Some of the team, however, was worried that they misjudged the play and elements of the play, like the RNG, which had been tested for many years. I have seen many times people project complaints they have about one element of the game onto its gameplay, and I think this was generally the case here.” Review bombing: “There were oodles of reviews that were, ‘This game is great, but because of X I am thumbs downing it.’ My understanding is that there were also many cases of people buying the game so they could rate it, then refunding immediately. And even when talking about the model, he throws in that its also because of the lack of achievements and challenges: “There was growing worry on the team. My perspective was that there were three problems – the revenue model was poorly received, there weren’t enough community tools and short-term goals in place online like achievements or missions, and, perhaps because of these things, there was a rating bombing that made it hard to get the message out about what the game offered to the player who it was built for. Then the cherry ontop, he refused to say the game was pay 2 win when the core meta card was going for $13 at it's peak: My thoughts about his thoughts on the pricing structure are more mixed. He dismisses “pay-to-win” as “a sloppy term leveled at any game where you can buy components”. He’s not exactly wrong, but he’s also glossing over how paying for components makes you more likely to, um, win. At least in constructed play, as opposed to the draft mode where I’ve spent 95% of my time. If the man doesn't see how Artifact wasnt pay to win, then he obviously didn't have that much issue with the model.
I watched Kripparian throw hundreds of dollars at this game and not even be close to being able to play a single one of his theorycrafted decks, because he was missing all the best cards for them. That was when I knew this game was fucked and destined to die a lonely playerless death.
Audience: "We don't want this game period." Developer: "What if we change a few things?" Audience: "......Did, did you even listen?"
If they had had trading -- not the Community Market, but trading -- it might have gone differently. If they hadn't relied on lootboxes as the sole mechanic for player progression, it might have gone differently. If they hadn't inexplicably tied it to Dota 2, completely alienating everyone who doesn't obsess over Dota lore, it might have gone differently. If they opted to provide some way to gain free cards -- even if they are locked to your account -- it might have gone differently. If they had decided to change any of these elements in response to feedback, maybe it'd have gone fucking differently.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/297971/f5c1c808-c257-446b-90b6-1cf5a50c7432/image.png https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/297971/8075088e-a5f2-406b-be8b-9594fe311709/image.png According to your headline, he said the business model isn't responsible, only review bombing is. He said the business model, people's appreciation of the game relative to that business model, AND the review bombing are the mains reasons the game failed. Your headline is misrepresenting what he's saying There's plenty fair reasons to dislike artifact, you don't have to distort the facts to find new reasons to be mad, and i'd rather have factual SH headlines thanks.
Dense mofo
Review bombing is one, so is all the other ones I listed by his own quote. He even went back to say the model's issue wasnt that it was P2W, but the card collecting. Hes ignoring the root of the problem and blaming everything else. The model is P2W and he vehemently defended.
https://youtu.be/_n5E7feJHw0
Your headline says he claims the business model isn't responsible, when he literally lists the business model first when asked why he feels the game failed. The headline is objectively misleading. Do you understand the difference between personaly thinking something is fine, and recognising most people weren't into it based on feedback you received. Stop dancing around this, make better headlines.
this seems to be what I'm hearing. Game would have probably done fine as a tabletop card game are valve greedy? is this a greed issue??? I don't know, maybe it was being too traditional? but people saw it coming a mile away
Nah, he said people's perception of the business model was negative. Those are weasel words. Those are words you use when you're shifting responsibility onto others for perceiving your garbage as garbage.
Sure, that's still not saying "the game didn't fail because of the business model and entirely because of the review bombing" which would be delusionnal and truely not listening to any feedback. The headline is still misleading to what he said.
He says that perception of the model caused issues, and then because of review bombing, somehow they were unable to correct this perception. I agree that he didn't solely list review bombing as the reason Artifact failed, but he makes clear that review bombing is, apparently, the single real issue that brought Artifact down. If only they hadn't reviewed my game negatively, I could've convinced them that they wanted to open lootboxes as the primary method to progress in the game!
Unless I'm just misunderstanding, how does using Dota 2 lore alienate people? Going by that logic Yu-gi-oh being based on the manga alienates everyone not obsessed with it. Same with Hearthstone and Gwent.
Yeah that was my weakest point. It absolutely alienates me, but I also have no interest in card games (sans Slay the Spire, which obviously doesn't really count) or Dota 2. It certainly does nothing for people who don't play Dota 2, and it didn't seem to really do much for those who do.
And are you just going to ignore him saying the model wasnt p2w? That was the issue with the model, hence he said that wasnt the issue. I cant list literally every single thing he said was wrong with the game in the title, so I picked out the dumbest one. He says he knows why the model wasn't good while ignoring the reason WHY its not good.
I'd argue otherwise. The fact I even know about the product is the fact it's related to dota 2. The reason I didn't buy it is simply because I'm not interested in card games, and I heard reviews saying the monetization model sucked so I had no desire to try it out. If they had made an action platformer or hero shooter based on the dota 2 universe then I'd definitely give it a try. I don't think it being in the dota 2 universe really alienated anyone, just the game itself.
The issues with the game were only made worse by valve's vague and infrequent communication. The game was poorly received and all they came out with was vague stuff about being in it "for the long haul". They have virtually no voice in the discussion around the game and so the general outlook on the game became dominated by all the talk of how it sucked and valve didn't care.
We're probably going in cirlces at this point, but still don't see how he says that and I think youre misintepreting what hes saying there were also a lot of complaints about the revenue model, which appeared generous to Magic players, but stingy to players who expected free-to-play with grinding for cards. This makes it clear he gets the business model wasn't attractive to most people who didn't play MtG. He lists it first, doesn't mention the review bombing. He understands the model in itself isn't what most people wanted and that's a core reason the game failed. “There was growing worry on the team. My perspective was that there were three problems – the revenue model was poorly received, there weren’t enough community tools and short-term goals in place online like achievements or missions, and, perhaps because of these things, there was a rating bombing that made it hard to get the message out about what the game offered to the player who it was built for. He sees mutliple reasons for the failure of the game, and explicitly says the review bombing came after people were disapointing with 1 the revenue model and 2 the lack of community tools. According to him : Product was flawed -> people not into it -> review bombing -> game failed harder. “There were oodles of reviews that were, ‘This game is great, but because of X I am thumbs downing it.’ My understanding is that there were also many cases of people buying the game so they could rate it, then refunding immediately. There he does complain about the review bombing, (but doesn't claim it's the single reason the game failed). That's probably happened for some reviews. Wether you think it's fair or not is up to you, I think it's clear why devs wouldnt be into people doing that. “Some of the team, however, was worried that they misjudged the play and elements of the play, like the RNG, which had been tested for many years. I have seen many times people project complaints they have about one element of the game onto its gameplay, and I think this was generally the case here.” Here he's saying "people were mad with the business model, so that anger translated to poor apreciation of the gameplay itself" and I think that's fair, a lot of people did that.
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