Is Artifact already a dead game?

TheYanger · Jan 2, 2019

Nappael said:
If that's true then my interpretation was wrong and I agree that should change.

I do not remember, but is it possible to skip the starting items entirely? At least until you do the tutorial later.

Not entirely sure when it counts as 'opening' the starter pack but, as I said the '74 minutes' is me just idle at the login on opening day because I was working at the time

Definitely hadn't opened the actual packs, it just opened the 'starting' pack.

Which when youi think about it is fairly preposterous since it's a fixed set of cards that everyone gets, it's basically a way to subvert their own 'for the consumer' refund system.

OMEGALUL · Jan 2, 2019

Dying doesn't matter too much, the playerbase is dwindling and Valve already made their money from the game. Won't be too hard for them to sweep it under the carpet and claim its spin-off experiment and that real games are incoming!

pls Valve

Anteo · Jan 2, 2019

TheYanger said:
Not entirely sure when it counts as 'opening' the starter pack but, as I said the '74 minutes' is me just idle at the login on opening day because I was working at the time

Definitely hadn't opened the actual packs, it just opened the 'starting' pack.

Which when youi think about it is fairly preposterous since it's a fixed set of cards that everyone gets, it's basically a way to subvert their own 'for the consumer' refund system.

Wait, doenst that mean you claimed your starting pack? I remember people saying you had to finish the tutorial but reject getting the packs so they dont go to your account (you could get them later using the options). If you got the packs in your account the refund would be denied

Bossman · Jan 2, 2019

The thing that killed the game for me was the fact that competitive modes cost real money to play.

Anteo · Jan 2, 2019

Bossman said:
The thing that killed the game for me was the fact that competitive modes cost real money to play.

Expert Play mode has been renamed to Prize Play mode btw. It seems it wasnt inteded to be viewed as THE competitive mode

Deleted member 1849 · Jan 2, 2019

Bossman said:
The thing that killed the game for me was the fact that competitive modes cost real money to play.

They don't.

Thankfully, Valve changed the name of that category to "Prize play" so people didn't confuse them. They were never intended to be the competitive modes. The new MMR and rank system also applies to the standard mode.

The initial naming was totally stupid.

Bitmap Frogs · Jan 2, 2019

Personally, I'm beyond done with f2p mechanics and juggling in-game economies as a metagame.

sir_crocodile · Jan 2, 2019

Lackless said:
Artifact will forever be haunted by its announcement.

First time I've seen this. There's like a handful of people clapping which makes it even funnier lol

DSP · Jan 2, 2019

this current version of it is dead yeah but they wont leave it like this. It can bounce back.

I think main thing that really hurt the game was mtg arena actually. Turns out mtg arena is a very good game and then they came out and said we have a massive $10m esport next year, that swayed a lot of players that were banking on artifact being the competitve card game with its $1m pool. Now artifact has the lowest prize pool. That's what happened with a lot of players/streamers, that's why it's dead on twitch. MTG Arena has been putting out features very quickly too, they already got their ladder out, now new expansion is coming out later this month, all in sync with paper. Wotc is not messing around this time. When is artifact's first expansion coming out? No one has any idea.

If they run this game the Valve time(tm) way, it will fail for sure.

Blade Wolf · Jan 2, 2019

Good thing it's dead, now please go back to making incredible first person shooters Valve. It doesn't even have to be Half-Life 3.

Also lol at the Rainbow Six Siege and CS:GO comparisons, this is a card game, a card game that has nothing special about it.

Alek · Jan 2, 2019

jon bones said:
Very true - R6: Siege & Street Fighter V are maybe the best examples of this.

Both always had a substantial active player base. SFV never 'turned around; at all in terms of its player base. Siege grew gradually in popularity, but it wasn't a failure out of the gate either.

I can't think of any live services that went from sub 2000k players, to become a major hit.

Warframe blew up over time, but again it wasn't unsuccessful at launch either.

Lucifonz · Jan 2, 2019

The player base is certainly on a steep steep decline. The game has numerous core issues but the micro transaction model is pretty bad in the current game's state for multiple reasons :

- it makes the initial purchase much less appealing knowing you may need to spend more before you've even started (double'y bad when the major competition is f2p with no entry barrier)
- combined with the in-game progression (or lack of) makes casuals feel unrewarded and uninspired to continue playing
- whether true or not breeds a demoralizing "that guy spent more money on the game" feeling for casual players trying to get into the game.

When you mix that with some other core issues like the matches taking way too long overall, I think Valve certainly have some work to do to turn things around.

Ricelord · Jan 2, 2019

Chronospherics said:
Both always had a substantial active player base. SFV never 'turned around; at all in terms of its player base. Siege grew gradually in popularity, but it wasn't a failure out of the gate either.

I can't think of any live services that went from sub 1000 players, to being successful.

what was the player count for fortnite before it had battle royle?

Alek · Jan 2, 2019

Ricelord said:
what was the player count for fortnite before it had battle royle?

Low I imagine, but before battle royale Fortnite was a $60 paid beta test. So I don't think it's fair to compare the two. They also ended up being very different games.

ZeroX · Jan 2, 2019

TheYanger said:
No you can't.

I play every day at a variety of hours and the only time I wait more than 30 seconds to find a game is when I'm at a 4 streak in draft or when I hit 7+ streak in Call to Arms.

Nappael said:
I disagree with ZeroX on being able to raise enough money to get your money back by selling cards though. That period has already died. Last time I checked the expected value from a pack was around $0.80. A seasons worth of packs isn't even close enough to make the $20 back especially after Valve's cut, but the tickets might do it if you are good enough to average 1 pack per ticket in prize play which is actually pretty difficult.

A season's worth will give you 20 packs, all you need are a couple good pulls and one or two ticket successes and you've broken even. Turning a high profit isn't easy now but a draft only player should make their money back.

Won · Jan 2, 2019

If you go after Twitch, then the whole genre is a walking corpse beyond Hearthstone.

MtG managed to finally have a decent product out there (and probably ate Artifact's lunch the most), but beyond that nothing is all that successful, no matter the IP, business model, gameplay, hype, etc.

And most of them deserve better. :/

Cirrus · Jan 2, 2019

I log in once in a while and play a game. I think it has its share of problems, both monetarily and gameplay.

I would caution anyone interested in the game to wait 6 months or so for the inevitable relaunch and see what changes they make to improve the game.

Daitokuji · Jan 2, 2019

Ricelord said:
what was the player count for fortnite before it had battle royle?

I remember they showed off Fortnite at one of Apple's events and it was the tower defense mode against zombies and I thought wow that game looks really lame.

MrH · Jan 2, 2019

I heard it was super P2W so I avoided it, plus it's not free, so it had no chance of competing with Hearthstone.

KrigareN- · Jan 2, 2019

As a former DotA 2 player (7k hours) I'd love to play it on my gorgeous iPad Pro, but it's still not available. IDK why that is.

CommodoreKong · Jan 2, 2019

Irate Bandit said:
You are correct lets use actual numbers.

Every day it's going down and down, Patch 1.2 only gave the game a slight bump and it was down again.

Only 2 things can save the game now

1) Change the business model
2) Support the game so much that people will play in droves

Yeah the 6469 24 hour peak player count is beaten out by TF2 at 64712 (which received no major content updates last year besides a small one in March and a time limited Halloween event) and L4D2 at 18929, not to mention DOTA2 and CSGO.

I'm sure Valve will continue to work on the game and work on bringing up the player count because that's the type of company they are (and I'm sure they want more of that sweet sweet Steam Marketplace Revenue) but at least in the early days Artifact feels like kinda a waste of development resources in a genre that was already overflowing with games attempting to be sold to a userbase that wasn't really interested in it (at least as the first full Valve game since DOTA2).

CommodoreKong · Jan 2, 2019

KrigareN- said:
As a former DotA 2 player (7k hours) I'd love to play it on my gorgeous iPad Pro, but it's still not available. IDK why that is.

Valve is actually a pretty small company (around 350 people, many of whom work on other projects). I doubt they had the development resources to port it to mobile at the same time as making the base game on PC.

Lunaray · Jan 2, 2019

I forgot this game even came out - just bought it. This seems to be a great casual one-game-a-day kind of thing. I'd love to for it to come out on mobile.

fertygo · Jan 2, 2019

Even on PC the game still quite demanding for card game standard. They need a lot of work to do for mobile version.

mutantmagnet · Jan 2, 2019

I finally got around to playing Artifact this weekend. I only played bots so far because I'm fine tuning my theortical decks and I'm having a ton of fun.

This is so unlike other card games where the random elements feel so minuscule it is a game of high skill.

If you never liked card games play Artifact because it's not your typical card game.

If you play a ton if tcgs give it a shot especially if you find the general sameness across different games to be a chore.

I am surprised how long matches take though. Even though I read up a lot on Artifact for weeks while waiting for release and ended up waiting a little longer due to personal issues a single match can be very fine consuming. 20 minute sessions aren't possible even against the dumbest bot.

I already see if I want to play 1 gauntlet or the other system that requires a ticket I have to set aside 3 hours.

werezompire · Jan 2, 2019

Didn't they change things so that it's free to play draft with the only penalty being that you just don't get cards afterwards (which is not much of a penalty since you're just playing draft)? And if you're playing a CCG with a draft option and not playing draft, what is wrong with you?

Sei · Jan 2, 2019

Horrible monitization.

It put me way off.

Dakkon · Jan 2, 2019

mutantmagnet said:
I already see if I want to play 1 gauntlet or the other system that requires a ticket I have to set aside 3 hours.

You don't have to play the ticket matches all in one go, you can play a match and then play the rest some other time!

mutantmagnet · Jan 2, 2019

Dakkon said:
You don't have to play the ticket matches all in one go, you can play a match and then play the rest some other time!

Is that so? I was left with the impression that 5 win streak mission put people together into a mini tournament.

Good to know that's a misunderstanding.

ZeroX · Jan 2, 2019

KrigareN- said:
As a former DotA 2 player (7k hours) I'd love to play it on my gorgeous iPad Pro, but it's still not available. IDK why that is.

The game isn't super well optimized yet. It still pushes PCs harder than it probably should, it'll take a while to get it on mobile but it'll be amazing when it is (and I believe the PC version already has touch support?).

werezompire said:
Didn't they change things so that it's free to play draft with the only penalty being that you just don't get cards afterwards (which is not much of a penalty since you're just playing draft)? And if you're playing a CCG with a draft option and not playing draft, what is wrong with you?

Yes there's infinite drafting and it's great.

Sei said:
Horrible monitization.

It put me way off.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

Turin Turambar · Jan 2, 2019

jon bones said:
It's a fantastic game with a playerbase big enough to get games constantly & instantly.

That can be argued. This thread is about how small the playerbase is. 3800 players when the OP made the thread.

From 3800 players in game, at least 80-85% will be in a game already, not in matchmaking, searching for a game. So the total pool of available players will be ~760. Now remove 1/4 of players with too high of a skill rating (in comparison to you) and 1/4 of players with too low of a skill rating, and you are left with 380 players.

That's enough for now, thanks to the fact it's a turn based game, and not a real time game so it can be played by people in Asia, America, Europa... lag is not very relevant. Otherwise you would have to divide the number again by three.

Still, I find pretty incredible how low the number is, for a Valve game, it's their first BIG misstep in game development.

Radishhead · Jan 2, 2019

I'm waiting for it to go F2P before jumping in.

TheYanger · Jan 2, 2019

Anteo said:
Wait, doenst that mean you claimed your starting pack? I remember people saying you had to finish the tutorial but reject getting the packs so they dont go to your account (you could get them later using the options). If you got the packs in your account the refund would be denied

It means I claimed literally the starting set of cards that every player gets. So, is it possible to play without claiming that? I have no idea. It doesn't validate that as an option: You have to know ahead of time that you're boned out of a refund even though you did not open anything that was random in any fashion. Not a single pack of cards.

Envision this Scenario: The new Call of Duty comes out (Pretend it's still on Steam), and you have no characters or loadouts, you have to redeem a 'start the game' bundle after the tutorial to actually get the base loadouts in the game. Once you do this extremely basic function, giving you THE BASE FUNCTIONALITY of the product, you can now not refund it. That's not any different.

It's disingenuous to pretend you can realistically refund the game: If you don't open a single randomized pack of cards you still can't do it, or at least I couldn't on day one.

ZeroX said:
I play every day at a variety of hours and the only time I wait more than 30 seconds to find a game is when I'm at a 4 streak in draft or when I hit 7+ streak in Call to Arms.

I think you missed the bold part of my quote, I was talking about the refunds.

Turin Turambar · Jan 2, 2019

ZeroX said:
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

Yawn all you want, it won't make the game more popular magically.

I just know one thing: if EA would release a big action pvp game where you buy your weapons and items in a piecemeal fashion, all with microtransactions, it would be called a p2w hell by everyone, from the highest rooftops. People would orgasm while writing long tirades about evil EA in forums.
SOMEHOW, if the genre is turn based strategy, in the form of cards, people allow it, because they have been conditioned by previous games for decades that it's ok (oh yes I also played Magic on my youth...), even if in reality it's the same business model. The fact a game is in real time vs turn based don't change a thing, nor it changes anything that one item is a 3d weapon and another a 2d card.

Deleted member 1698 · Jan 2, 2019

Turin Turambar said:
Yawn all you want, it won't make the game more popular magically.

I just know one thing: if EA would release a big action pvp game where you buy your weapons and items in a piecemeal fashion, all with microtransactions, it would be called a p2w hell by everyone, from the highest rooftops. People would orgasm while writing long tirades about evil EA in forums.
SOMEHOW, if the genre is turn based strategy, in the form of cards, people allow it, because they have been conditioned by previous games for decades that it's ok (oh yes I also played Magic on my youth...), even if in reality it's the same business model. The fact a game is in real time vs turn based don't change a thing, nor it changes anything that one item is a 3d weapon and another a 2d card.

Amidst the yelling someone might yell "can you sell your weapons?" and someone else would yell "no" and then someone might yell "well that is the difference then".

That is a lot of yelling, but you'd get there.

ZeroX · Jan 2, 2019

Turin Turambar said:
Yawn all you want, it won't make the game more popular magically.

I just know one thing: if EA would release a big action pvp game where you buy your weapons and items in a piecemeal fashion, all with microtransactions, it would be called a p2w hell by everyone, from the highest rooftops. People would orgasm while writing long tirades about evil EA in forums.
SOMEHOW, if the genre is turn based strategy, in the form of cards, people allow it, because they have been conditioned by previous games for decades that it's ok (oh yes I also played Magic on my youth...), even if in reality it's the same business model. The fact a game is in real time vs turn based don't change a thing, nor it changes anything that one item is a 3d weapon and another a 2d card.

The fact that it's a completely different game and genre absolutely does matter. Also that the initial game price + tier 1 deck is cheaper than a $60 game and the equivalent in two F2P card games, you can sell your cards after and you literally can't P2W in 2/3 of the game modes.

.git · Jan 2, 2019

Lactose_Intolerant said:
Games take too long, so you don't want to keep playing after like 2 games.

That's been my experience

Couldn't agree more. Enjoyable game, but only for the first few games.

elyetis · Jan 2, 2019

ZeroX said:
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

And many people will still agree. Just like most people would disagree that say, Fortnit is bad monetization just because "if you buy everything it actually cost more than a 60$ game" ( I guess, haven't played the game since it's release ), while it's true, it does not make it a good argument for most of the player base.

Artifact has a good monetization ( well compared to the competition ) if :
- you like constructed and would have spent money on it in other card game ( I do not in Arena for example ) where it would likely cost you more
- you only want to play Draft ( and Draft stay free with the expansion ), then you can sell all your cards so the game almost didn't cost you anything ( I did )... and while that's a good option.. it's inherently stupid compared to just making a F2P version of the game available with only access to Draft since the current system mean :
--- put you at the mercy of the RNG regarding how much money the game ended up costing you
--- lead to a huge amount of card in the market wich is exactly what I've seen most people who defend the monetization with no card to unlock by playing / daily quest etc.. at release were supposedly against ( except that could lead to an increase in demand since more player would be attracted to cnstructed, which is not true with people just selling all their cards then only play Draft ).

And I leave out the "what could have been", a card game with a monetization model close to dota 2's.

Rolodzeo · Jan 2, 2019

With Hearthstone and Arena I don't have time to play another CCG, tbh. I think many people are in the same spot.

Hassansan · Jan 2, 2019

It seems like the 2nd most thing people criticize after the pay model (and the main problem I have with the game personally) is just how long and exhausting the matches are.

When I noticed I was asking myself if I am ready to commit to the next match every time before I clicked play I decided to bounce.

708 · Jan 2, 2019

elyetis said:
"what could have been", a card game with a monetization model close to dota 2's.

I'm really surprised Valve didn't do this. They could launch the game with the current $20 price (with completely free draft and preconstructed), but give access to the base version of all cards. And then monetize it with cosmetics. There are so many cosmetic things they could (and still can and probably will) monetize: Hero/Spell arts, effects, imps, board etc. I mean sure they would make less money, just like how Dota 2 is making less money than LoL, but Dota 2 is still making a lot of money and so could Artifact.

Ushay · Jan 2, 2019

How is it compared to GWENT, because I play that a lot and really enjoy it.

elyetis · Jan 2, 2019

708 said:
I'm really surprised Valve didn't do this. They could launch the game with the current $20 price (with completely free draft and preconstructed), but give access to the base version of all cards. And then monetize it with cosmetics. There are so many cosmetic things they could (and still can and probably will) monetize: Hero/Spell arts, effects, imps, board etc. I mean sure they would make less money, just like how Dota 2 is making less money than LoL, but Dota 2 is still making a lot of money and so could Artifact.

Exactly.

Then take the opportunity to make some cross game event between Artifact and Dota 2 as a way to attract player to both games, with no price of entry would be able to make use of the big player base from dota 2 and try to make them then also become an Artifact player ( and vice versa ).

Serious Sam · Jan 2, 2019

Irate Bandit said:
You are correct lets use actual numbers.

Every day it's going down and down, Patch 1.2 only gave the game a slight bump and it was down again.

Only 2 things can save the game now

1) Change the business model
2) Support the game so much that people will play in droves

Great post. I'm so tired of "Twitch numbers don't mean anything" excuse posts that are going around here all the time. How I wish we had similar player count stats for Battlefield V.

Ravelle · Jan 2, 2019

Twitch doesn't represent a user base, if anything the less viewers it has the more would be playing.

Forkball · Jan 2, 2019

I always wondered if a card game could survive solely on aesthetic monetization. I know it flies in the face of how card games have made money for decades now, but if anyone could pull it off I think it would be Valve.

.git · Jan 2, 2019

werezompire said:
Didn't they change things so that it's free to play draft with the only penalty being that you just don't get cards afterwards (which is not much of a penalty since you're just playing draft)? And if you're playing a CCG with a draft option and not playing draft, what is wrong with you?

I don't play draft simply because I have no idea which cards I should be picking.

Bossman · Jan 2, 2019

Ricelord said:
what was the player count for fortnite before it had battle royle?

It sold over 1 million copies before they even added the Battleroyale mode so it was a pretty big success

https://www.shacknews.com/article/101063/fortnite-celebrates-1-million-players-with-survival-mode

Deleted member 16849 · Jan 2, 2019

Serious Sam said:
Great post. I'm so tired of "Twitch numbers don't mean anything" excuse posts that are going around here all the time. How I wish we had similar player count stats for Battlefield V.

To be fair Twitch numbers don't really mean anything. Black Ops 1 actually has a few thousand plays concurrently on Xbox 360/One alone (even as an Aussie i'm able to find matches within 20 seconds) which destroys most of the Steam active playbase but yet there is less than 40 viewers as of this post. Counter Strike: GO is one of the biggest games out there but the Twitch numbers don't reflect that. The Steam numbers however don't lie but more and more non Steam games are hiding their stats. It was easier to track things during the Gamespy days, there is a tracker for Battlefield 1 however.

ZeroX · Jan 2, 2019

Snacks said:
I don't play draft simply because I have no idea which cards I should be picking.

I mean that's what practice is for. You learn what to take and what to avoid.

But there's draft tier lists out there if you need the help, the basic idea is to pick the best cards of any colors (and only S or A tier heroes) from the first two packs, and then look at what your strongest two colors picked so far are and focus on those colors.

And if you still don't feel that's enough, just watch some of Lifecoach's drafts, he's extremely thorough in explaining every pick.

Irate Bandit said:
The Steam numbers however don't lie but more and more non Steam games are hiding their stats.

I might be wrong, but doesn't the player count not show the Chinese Artifact players because they use a different client or something?

Is Artifact already a dead game?

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