So I barely followed any of this new Artifact release, I watched Tom’s stream and was like NOPE.
But what I noticed on Steam is the game’s player numbers on the Steam Stats page is quite low.
I also didn’t follow Hearthstone so maybe the player base for CCGs is smaller?
Well, I think the player base for CCGs is smaller than other games, in general. Hearthstone is also the exception to the rule, it’s a bit like WoW vs other MMOs.
But I also think this game performance is surely a disappointment for Valve, it’s notably lower to any other game they have made.
It’s kind of a niche product at the moment – It costs money, it has a relatively high level of complexity, and games can take a bit longer. It’s also got some bad press about the pricing structure. But this is Valve, so it’ll be supported for a long time. I hope they don’t muck around too much with the base game, but they could certainly iterate on it a bit.
Also, they’re apples and oranges, but Counter Strike Global Offensive had lagging player counts for a long time (it sat well below CS 1.6 for something like a year after release), and now it regularly fights for the top spot. As long as there are people at Valve interested in Artifact, it could have a long tail.
I also thought of CSGO! It was mostly ignored for a long time, but Valve updated and updated, and finally it picked up steam (har har). Valve knows how to support a game for the long run.
Although… it’s a bit different, because they always had the playerbase of CS 1.6/CS Source as potential customer to do the jump.
Exactly! They’re also in different genres – action games are a little easier to “click” with people, they’re more interesting to watch and stream, etc. So it’s hard to tell if Artifact is going to follow a similar trajectory or not.
But, like, Valve put out a Half-Life 1 patch last year. If there are only two people left playing Artifact, Valve will still be putting out balance patches.
That $20 barrier to entry!
I don’t think it’s the price as much as it is the lack of RPG progression. EVERYBODY does XP and rewards systems these days, even if it’s only cosmetics that lots of players won’t actually use despite grinding for them. Shipping a game without any kind of progression tracking in this age was a huge mistake. Perhaps they were worried about people thinking a progression would grant cards or something, but if so they needed to figure it out.
It’s not $20…I drop that on a few beers on game night, and I don’t even get virtual cards! It’s the fact that damn near every other entry in the market is free to try. Artifact seems to be somewhat different, sure, but it’s not earth-shatteringly amazeballs, so why pay for it when Heartstone/Eternal/Magic Arena are damn near the same thing and require no entry fee? Artifact needs to be amazingly different and great if it’s gonna get the online TCG market to pay up front, and it’s just not that from everything I read here and elsewhere. Now, if you’re really anxious to get MOBA in your TCG, then I can see why you’d pay. But for someone mostly interested because it’s a TCG? I can spend my $20 on the beer and play something else.
In good news, at least the game is no longer losing 5k peak players / day! Of course, it’s only because they’re down to 10k concurrents, so…
Also, this is pretty hilarious:
Apparently the exploit was alternating buying the Valve Complete Pack on Steam and removing Artifact from your library. Every iteration would add 10 packs and 5 tickets to your inventory, and buying it through the Complete Pack would give a 55% discount.
I think Artifact should make at least the tutorial free-to-try. Maybe a little bot play with preconstructed decks, too. I get that they don’t want to give away packs for free, and I could see keeping the casual draft and other most fun modes behind a paywall. But why not let people in for a look-see?
I think the game plays a lot better than the first impression it creates for spectators. When I first watched Artifact, I was underwhelmed: the art didn’t wow me, and the three boards were hard to follow. And actually playing my first couple of games felt the same way. But after 2 or 3 games it started to click, and I really got into it. The three lanes make for lots of hard and interesting decisions on when and where to place things. The item shop is a neat idea, though I wish they’d give us more incentive to use pricier items. I like pairing heroes with signature cards. The four colors aren’t so innovative, but they add a layer of welcome complexity. Draft mode is awesome.
I like Hearthstone and Eternal and Gwent too, and I’ll probably revisit all those and other card games. But to me Artifact is a different and more complex beast than any of them, and that’s with just a bare-bones first card set. With a larger universe of cards, this game could really be a great brain-burner. Now if only it would add more robust PvE features…
Artifact 1.1 has arrived. The most pleasant surprise from my point of view is a solo gauntlet mode, against bots of increasing difficulty. Alas, it’s constructed-only for now, but I wonder if Valve is paying attention to stats indicating that 13-14% of Artifact players play only against the AI.
The patch also adds open tournaments: you can join one on the fly and play. Also, a free-for-all tournament mode, in which you play as many or as few games as you want. Plus, relevant to our inaugural Qt3 tournament: the tournament creator can now adjust number of players etc after tourney creation.
Other new features: opt-in chat and emotes; two new Call to Arms event decks; a win-streak leaderboard for some modes; color-blindness support; bug fixes.
The next patch, due next week, will focus on progression.
Complete patch notes here, and below: https://playartifact.com/dec13update
Wait, is “use only common cards” a tournament option? Maybe that’ll be the next QT3 tournament.
Good on Valve for being quick and responsive. Not that I think it was necessarily a good approach to say “throw it out there and have the community tell us what they want,” but they certainly are quick to iterate on their game.
I’m looking forward to every unit, all three towers, and my opponent calling me racial slurs in-game.
Heh, I half-dread the new chat features. I may not opt in to chat with strangers. Will be nice for the Qt3 tournament, though.
Yep! For constructed tournaments, you can choose commons, or commons+uncommons, or mono-color only, or 4-color decks only, or the default. Also there’s a constructed option for Call to Arms events; not sure what that means. I agree, one of those options could be fun for our next tournament!
I think that means using the preconstructed decks, so you don’t actually need to own the cards in them.
https://waypoint.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/j5za97/artifact-isnt-a-game-on-steam-its-steam-in-a-game
I noticed I had Artifact in my library, which was weird because I hadn’t bought it. I thought maybe it was free weekend thing, but I saw that it wasn’t. What happened?
Ah ha!
What’s doubly bizarre is that Artifact was only part of the Valve Complete Pack for a few hours, since the bundle discount broke the economy. But I guess this means they just removed it for new purchases.
Bah I don’t write in Vice but I said that from the first day :P (in fact you can see my post way above in this same thread) : Artifact always seemed to me the result of a internal brainstorm session in where they had the goal to improve the profits of the steam marketplace. They didn’t pick a CCG, genre where they never have shown any interest, because Gabe got addicted to one or anything like, they picked that genre because it had the maximum compatibility with their business plans, of promoting trading in their marketplace.
But good article nonetheless!
In other news, I see the game is right now on position 59 of the most played O_o
Maybe you should write for Vice.
Or join the vice squad.