Hearthstone’s new formats and the rise of digital scarcity

One of the nice things about purely digital collectible card games like Hearthstone is that cards never have to go out of print. Sure, different cards are rarer than others by design—some significantly so. But unlike cardboard collectible cards—which are costly and logistically difficult to produce at scale indefinitely—there's no technical reason Blizzard can't keep producing digital copies of the entire set of Hearthstone cards for purchase by new players just getting into the game.

That state of affairs is set to change soon. With the introduction of a set of new formats today, Blizzard isn't only shaking up how Hearthstone is played but also how it's sold. The changes highlight how a form of time-limited scarcity is becoming more common even in the functionally limitless store shelves of online games.

New Formats?

The details of Hearthstone's new Standard format are laid out in great detail over on the Battle.net blog, but in short, Blizzard is splitting the game into two separate modes. The "Wild" format will let players use all existing Hearthstone cards as normal, while "Standard" play will let players only use cards from sets released in the last year or two. Players are free to play either or both formats, but Standard will be the only format sanctioned in Blizzard-sponsored tournaments, which should have a strong effect on the competitive scene.

From a gameplay perspective, this is a good way for Blizzard to keep the game fresh. For a while now, many regular Hearthstone players have been complaining about seeing the same basic deck archetypes continually dominating the deck selection "metagame" and the same overpowered cards appearing in nearly every deck. There might be a few variations here and there (especially when new sets of cards come out), but for the most part, high-level Hearthstone is becoming a somewhat predictable affair.

Cycling old cards out of the "core" format helps alleviate this problem. Overly powerful cards that seem to appear in every competitive deck get a chance to rest (bye bye, Dr. Boom) and new cards get a chance to shine, free from competition with the old guard. Blizzard also says the change will "give developers more freedom and flexibility when designing new cards and will help newer players wade into Hearthstone more easily." And it probably doesn't hurt that the new format practically forces players to continually buy more new cards to stay competitive, creating a more regular money stream for Blizzard.

Artificial scarcity

More than just encouraging players to purchase new cards, though, Blizzard is making it impossible to purchase some old ones. As laid out on the blog, "Adventures and Expansions that are not part of the Standard format will no longer be available for purchase from the Shop—this year, that includes Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes."

This is new territory for Hearthstone. Right now, a new player with enough spare cash (or time to earn in-game gold) can buy a complete set of every existing Hearthstone card. Starting in the spring, Blizzard will cycle out two sets that were released in 2014, making them unavailable for direct purchase. You won't be able to earn these old packs by playing in the Arena mode either.

Cards from those sets won't be completely unobtainable after the change; players will still be able to "craft" single cards from the discontinued sets by using "dust" created from the destruction of unneeded cards. This is a much less efficient way to complete a collection, though, requiring significantly more time and/or money than buying packs or expansions directly.

As time goes on, this change will make it difficult for newcomers to be competitive in the anything goes "Wild" format. The impending phase-out of older expansions and adventures will probably also lead to an end-of-cycle buying frenzy among players who are eager to get their hands on departing cards before they become much more difficult to obtain. Both of these effects are likely by design.

This will all seem familiar to players of cardboard collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering, where new sets cycle into competition and go out of print on a regular schedule throughout the year. Obtaining some of the rarest Magic cards from decades past can cost thousands of dollars per card in the secondary market, a much more serious markup than the semi-scarcity coming to Hearthstone (where single cards can't be directly purchased or traded anyway).

Collectors of all stripes are already used to the reality of "out of print" scarcity in the real world. 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. With Hearthstone's digital cards, it will actually be harder for Blizzard to stop selling certain expansions than if it had just left them on the virtual shelves.

A burgeoning trend

This kind of time-based limited availability isn't totally unheard of in digital games. Think of all those "bonus XP weekends" in online shooters, holiday-themed items that seem to infect every free-to-play game throughout the year, or even retired skins in League of Legends. Hearthstone's format cycling seems more wide-ranging than that, though; it's a systemized way of creating enforced scarcity of a theoretically limitless digital product through a deliberate, timed process.

The closest analogue out there right now might be Destiny, which cycles different exotic weapons out of its Xur shop every week. You can technically find most of these weapons, armor, and items elsewhere in the game, but the "buy it before it's gone" nature of the weekly shop inventory drives players to keep coming back and keep spending time and/or money on ever-better gear.

It's a game design and monetization strategy that's likely to become more common as online games-as-a-service struggle to stay relevant and interesting over time. There's nothing inherently wrong with the format, but keeping the underlying game balanced and engaging for both new and old players as items cycle in and out is going to continue to be difficult for games like these.

All in all, we probably need to start rethinking our usual image of the online marketplace for digital goods, especially in games. We usually think of the Internet as a limitless store, where inventories just increase because there's no shelf space to worry about and practically no marginal cost to offering up an additional downloadable item. Blizzard's latest moves with Hearthstone, though, are a reminder that game design and business interests mean digital goods can sometimes be nearly as scarce as real ones.