Trivia / Artifact

• Author's Saving Throw:
  • Before launch, the game was massively criticized for its greedy business model. Two commonly mentioned points in particular were Draft mode being only accessible by paying real money, and card packs containing starter heroes (which are useless and worthless since you and everyone else already have them). In response, Valve announced that a free casual Phantom Draft mode would be made available, and that duplicate cards could be turned into tickets, giving them a use.
  • In order to avoid devaluing cards, it was announced that balance patches would be kept to a minimum. When the game was released, this decision proved unpopular as several Game Breakers such as Axe, Drow Ranger, and Cheating Death were found, leading to concerns that Valve were prioritizing the health of the Player-Generated Economy over the actual game itself. With the "Build Your Legend" update, Valve changed their view and decided to be more involved in the game's balance, buffing the Low Tier Letdowns and nerfing the High Tier Scrappies (while also offering the option for those who bought affected cards to refund their purchase).
  • To further solve the criticism of having to buy card packs in a non-free game, it was announced that (as part of a complete rework of the game) the whole concept of buying cards would be scrapped in favor of earning cards through play, and then on top of that, the original, pre-rework version was made free-to-play and all players were given all cards for free (the reworked version is also F2P, but requires cards to be earned by playing, although they also cannot be bought). Players who paid for the game and cards had their cards converted into Collector's Edition cards that can be traded on the marketplace, and were given the ability to earn more Collector's Edition card packs, to avoid making their past spending completely pointless.