Artifact Won’t Be Cheap To Play

Valve have recently released a FAQ on their new game, Artifact, and it breaks down just how expensive the game really is

Artifact Won't Be Cheap To Play
Valve's newest game, Artifact is set to release on November 29th and has recently had a FAQs page released. Within said page are many hints to how the game will function along with the costs that are going to be associated with the online trading card game (TCG).

As you can see on the Steam web page the game is going to cost a mild $19.99USD. Which is strange for a TCG as many are free to play such as Hearthstone and Magic The Gathering: Online. As per the FAQ Artifact will also have ongoing optional costs such as card packs, draft mode, the community market and event tickets. Further down the line the line I'm sure there will be other ways to spend money such as cosmetics.

I will try my best to explain the prices of each element of Artifact in the simplest way possible.

Artifact Price

With the base game being $19.99USD you are entitled to a few things. Firstly, access to the game itself. Alongside access to the game you are given 10 card packs that include 12 random cards including 1 hero, 2 items, and at least 1 card of the highest rarity. You also get 5 event tickets and 2 starter decks.

Card Packs

Card packs can be purchased additionally for $1.99USD. Whilst there is currently no "bulk pack", I'm sure that Valve will add a way to buy multiple packs at once for a discounted price.

Event Tickets

These are your keys to prizes in Artifact as they will allow you to enter challenges and earn card packs. They are sold in bundles of 5 for $4.95USD but you can earn more through completing challenges.

Gauntlet

I've saved speaking about gauntlet until now as it can be confusing upon first glance. Essentially gauntlets are challenges you can undertake at the cost of event tickets that could result in you winning card packs and tickets back. For example you could be given the gauntlet (challenge) of winning 3 matches before losing 2. If you complete the gauntlet you are rewarded with 1 event ticket, the more you win before losing the more prizes you can gain. This prizes include things like card packs.

These gauntlets actually fall under 2 types, casual and expert. Casual gauntlets are free to enter but do not offer prizes. Expert gauntlets cost event tickets but offer prizes as a reward. They are even broken down further in the image below.

Draft Mode

The Keeper Draft gametype will set you back a bit more money than other game modes as you will have to pay 2 tickets and 5 card packs to enter. You are guaranteed all the cards you unpack though so you won't be at a complete loss.

Community Market

My personal favourite feature of Artifact is that it integrates the Steam Community Market in a way that allows players to sell cards to one another. This means that even if you are unable to pull cards that you want you can simply sell old ones and buy the ones you need. At launch this will be the only way to transfer cards between accounts/players but hopefully in the future you will be able to trade with your friends.

Free Stuff

Whilst Artifact is very taxing on our wallets there are free aspects to the game (once you've bought it that is). Casual gauntlets are one of these features alongside with bot matches, private lobbies, open play and tournaments.

A unique feature of Artifact is that it allows users to create tournaments with custom rules entirely for free. At launch only Swiss and single-elimination tournament structures will be included but it is likely that more will be added in the future.

Conclusion

This shows that Artifact won't be the cheapest TCG to play and many would-be players are sceptical of the risk of "pay-to-win" associated with this monetization. The game isn't cheap and many online TCG players prefer the model they know will work. A free game with a unique twist where you can buy card packs if you choose, but we all know that Valve likes to change things up. We will have to wait and see what the future holds for the newest online trading card game.

-Blane Zemunik

5 Comments

  1. Avatar photo

    The card collection is actually the cheapest damn collection in any TCG you could play. Most of the cards can be bought for 0.30 – 0.05$ piece. You can literally buy ALL The cards in the game currently for like 70$, and thats counting in the 5 – or so expensive cards (2 – 10$ (Axe is 10$ and constantly going down, while being the most expensive and powerful card in the game). You can easily spend 1000 dollars on ONE EXPANSION Hearthstone and still MISS CARDS (See Kripparian). Not to mention you need to keep up with 3 expansions + base collection to be competive. Only a retard looking at 1 card price (Axe) can somehow figure out this game is “expensive”. Boi, I spent the starting 19,99 and an ADDITIONAL 0,98$ and Im owning competive games easily. The ticket system thats basically like Hearthstones arena obviously costs you money, but you dont have to play that mode, as constructed is fine as it is.

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  2. Avatar photo

    how on earth can you call those features of the game ‘free’???? it’s like saying if you buy X car for $100,000 you can then DRIVE it for FREE afterwards! i can’t believe you’re saying there are “free elements” after paying a base price of 20 bucks, which is just playing the game in like 3 different modes. that’s the bare minimum to be expected..

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  3. Avatar photo

    They will NEVER allow trading with friends because of the exploit.People will just keep making multiple accounts to get the rares.

     

    You could still do this if VERY lucky and very risky.Example get some rare,sneak it onto the sell option at the lowest price and quickly buy it with your main player before anyone else notices.I know there were auto bots players used in the old days of MTGO so i assume sneaking anything by players will be near impossible.

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  4. Avatar photo

    Which is bizarre considering Gabe was quoted saying they wanted to steer away from p2w.

     

     

    20 bucks is a steep barrier for a cheesy card game. Especially one that will continually ask for more along the way.

     

     

    When’s the last time valve released a game?

     

    A real game too not just a remake of an old mod. This reeks of money grab.

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    • Avatar photo

      You will probably never read this reply, but someone else might. Valve QUIT making games AGES AGO. And they even stated it. And as far as I know they stated around 6months ago; that they want get back into making games (CS:GO and Dota2 cant last forever :d), so yeah, they havent released games, because they havent been working on games (See Valves unique workmodel, its an unique one). They will be releasing games in the future.

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