Runestones - The New Hearthstone Premium Currency - Good or Bad for Players and the Game?

In this video, I take a look at everything we know about Runestones. Runestones are the new premium currency for Hearthstone that you can only buy with real money. They will be used in all Hearthstone game modes.

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[NezzFtw]

Premium currencies are always some kind of psychological manipulation tactic, you tend to think twice before buying a jpg for 10 dollars but when the same jpg costs "runestones" you don't make that connection that easily

[andygol]

Most governments are now investigating micro-transactions for lootboxes or packs and similar stuff. By allowing you to buy packs directly for money, they are technically allowing a form of “gambling”. But what if you were not buying packs at all? You are buying currency, which you can use to buy cosmetics and whatnot, and also packs. So you are not technically gambling. This is kind of a clever solution a lot of other games are adopting.

[cardsharpHS]

The main point to doing this (other than allowing lower cost items to be sold) is to obfuscate a user's spending to some degree. And - although it hasn't been mentioned - I would assume the Runestones will be sold in bundles of increasing amounts, and not only "to exactly match" the items that are selling. Bundles that offer an incentive to make higher virtual currency purchases. The old free-to-play shtick of low amount 'clutch of Runestones' offers nothing over what you're paying for in monetary terms, but the bigger 'Chest of Runestones' gives you +300 Runestones of added value, or whatever. Why else go to all this trouble almost ten years into a game's life, if if this isn't the plan? If a user is planning on regularly spending on the game anyway, I can see it being an upside for frequent purchasers because you'll get small discounts (added Runestones the larger the bundle you stump up for) and also end up with spares over time that will eventually contribute towards the cost of a future item. Yes, you've actually already put the money in for a percentage of that, but when you can see a new item selling for 8.99 and think, oh I have x amount of Runestones sat there so it will only cost me 4.99, it feels good to the user.

[JMarchel]

A lot of people seemed to comment without actually watching or paying attention to your video. I appreciate your nuanced consideration, old guardian!

[jackal]

I think the idea is to confuse how much things are, later will be easier to exploit

[YamianGodlike]

They say the bundles will match "top selling products" meaning if you buy anything else, you will have extra runestones. And once you have extra, it will be near impossible to match the exact runestone cost of another product so you will be pushed into buying more and more. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave you some amount for free when this launches just so you always have some and "need to buy" just a little bit more...

This is also a way to hide the real money cost of any item since you don't see $$$ anymore but just some virtual currency.

Sorry, Blizzard (and others), you lost so much credibility over the last few years that I will always expect a scam.

[diseaseburden]

Always the most informed video responses. Thanks as ever OG x

[Dasvidanyaful]

Its the where it rounds it up that i have issue with, e.g. "i have to buy 1000" when i only say want 600 which means i got 400 doing nothing, whereas that crazy thing called money has exact totals and i only spend what i want...

[YellowBunny]

Is there any information on the exchange rate between Runestones and pride and accomplishment?

[persath]

Premium currencies are anti consumer in 2 major ways they serve to detach the price from the product, so ur never quite sure how much it costs, and to force u to spend money u don't want to spend to buy the item u are interested in. The bundles are always sized in a way that they are either not enough or way to much for what u want to buy. IE. if a skin cost 100 the 1st pack will be 90 and the 2nd 145 and so on, so u can never just spend them all. As for transaction fees they are a non-issue as they count as an expenses and can always the deducted into the taxes, specially for a corporation the size of activision/blizzard.

[teabonezen]

Love the video explanation, thanks Old Guardian!

[davewatkins]

Good video. One silver lining - if you live in a country with high inflation then rune stones will be inflation proof.

[thomaswayne]

Good PSA, OG. Just commenting for the algorithm.

[zedoplantao]

If all prices will stay the same, why even change to runestones? Sounds suspicious

[LAMNguyen-sdmo]

Iam Quitting 100% If runestone is the new currency. Pay to win sucks.

[MrMintaur]

Something they can do is have a sale where they offer an enhanced rate of dollars to runestones for a limited period. Neverwinter does this to get money in occasionally.

[onetruequeen]

One additional consideration that might have made the Bnet balance option not work for attempting to accomplish the tiny transaction goal is that Hearthstone is not exclusively a Bnet launcher product. The mobile distribution lives on various App Stores - Amazon and Google Play for sure, I assume the Apple version also. Each of these stores use their own currency that users buy outside Hearthstone and then make in-app purchases with that. The transactions fees Blizzard might be avoiding here are from all of those sources as well as the usual credit card fees that also impact normal Bnet purchases.

[_Enerdor]

Although I apreciate your "general information" videos, I much rather prefer your videos about gameplay. A pity there's so little content. Thanks anyway!

What are your toughts on the Old Gods comp?

You usually avoid legendary heavy comps (ps: bless you) but since a lot of us players got all 4 for free, maybe you could share your opinions?
To me they feel like an improved explorers: not efficient but fun to play around with interesting synergies, and almost unbeatable in normal.
But there might be a more efficient way to use them

[Ghytiees]

Nail in the coffin for me. I will be uninstalling and never playing again. I will now be playing LoR and Shadowverse.

[Nagassh]

I think my stance on this depends entirely on if they decide to hand Runestones out occasionally as part of events.
Handing out Bnet balance would be... odd, since that could be used in other games, whereas Runestones are limited to HS - it'd be nice to see some dripfed to players occasionally.
If that isn't done then I agree with everything you've said - there was no reason not to use bnet balance, though I wouldn't be surprised if some suits thought it didn't look right not to have HS specific currencies like every other mobile game.