
Hearthstone’s new formats and the rise of digital scarcity - barney54
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/hearthstones-new-formats-and-the-rise-of-digital-scarcity/
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mbrd
> In Hearthstone, on the other hand, there's no practical reason that Blizzard
> couldn't keep selling its entire line of cards directly for as long as the
> game exists.

There's no _technical_ reason why they can't continue to sell all of the types
of cards however they aren't introducing scarcity for the sake of it, or as
(just) a money grab.

When they design a new card they have to ensure that it fits with the other
cards in the game, tweaking the effects it has so that it isn't too powerful
when combined with existing cards. This becomes increasingly difficult as the
number of cards increases. The "Standard" mode changes announced today make
their job a lot easier as they only have to consider the last 2 years worth of
cards (+ classic + basic cards) when designing new cards.

IMHO this will be a net positive for the game.

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kartan
The article gets quite short on my expectations. It just notes that
Hearthstone is doing the same things that "Magic: The Gathering" does. And
they notice - I disagree - that is completely different because Magic has to
deal with physical cards while Blizzard has digital ones.

> it's a systemized way of creating enforced scarcity of a theoretically
> limitless digital product through a deliberate, timed process.

This is the theme that will have make a memorable article. Our economic
systems have been dealing with scarcity for a long time. The increase in
production and reduction of scarcity was one way of measuring an economic
system success. I really would have liked a talk about how for the last
decades we have designed scarcity as an expanding business model and what it
will mean for the future of economy.

