Few people know what they think of the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood mobile game. Its reputation makes it bland, dull, materialistic and superficial – according to many serious gamers – and it is deplorable, not least because players can spend money to get ahead. The whimper only grew louder as reports indicated that the game made $1.6 million in its first five days and is on track to earn $200 million in annual revenue, according to one analyst.
While many gamers and game journalists struggled to figure out why anyone would spend money on a game made by and with a reality TV star, we’re not completely in the dark. First, casting shade on the topic is a value judgment about a particular set of interests and lifestyle. And at the meta level how people spend their free time. Let him who has deliberately lived every moment immersed in deep contemplation of the universe cast the first Angry Bird. Materialism in games probably doesn’t cause materialism in the street.
For someone else, Kim K is actually quite aware of his own materialism and glorification of social climbing and has a sense of irony about the world players can try to thrive in. One of the things you can spend money on in-game is new body parts.
Apart from the validity of the material, Kim K is just one in a sea of freemium games and in a growing group of extremely successful games. It’s not alone in the amount of derision it gets when it pushes its players to spend money – some of them hundreds of dollars, but many around $20. Even for those modest sums, they’re under attack for being “what is wrong with the world” and “disgusting”.
But even if Real Gamers pass judgment on players spending money in the Kim Ks and Candy Crushof the world they spend good money in their own freemium game. Spend money at Blizzard’s Hearthstone is the secret disgrace of some gamers, but in terms of reputation it seems pretty easy to walk the line among people who wouldn’t get caught dead with Kim K installed in part because of his semi-shameless money-making scheme.
So what should a freemium game do to make gamers feel good about spending money on it? We’ve asked for a few Hearthstone players about their investments, both in time and money, to see how much real gamers are spending on a real gamer’s game. Not everyone invests in currency, but those who don’t pay in other ways. Oh, they pay.
Josh Fjelstad, creative manager, BuzzFeed
Money spent: $100
Time spent: 70 hours
I’m not entirely sure what the total amount is, but I only started playing Arena because I read about the Hearthstone subreddit that it offers the most bang for your buck, but the qualifier is that you need to win at least four games to make it worth more than just buying packs. After experimenting with that and typically only winning three games before getting knocked out, I usually just buy packs now. I’d say $10 for Arena matches, $90 for packs (ugh).
You just get to a point where you understand the strategy and how to build an effective deck for certain heroes, but you just can’t progress further up the ladder without owning certain (often specific “epic” or “legendary”) cards. Unfortunately, it is simply faster to spend the money than to acquire gold and dust. In the beginning I played more, but nowadays I still play 3-4 hours a week.
Kyle Orland, Game Editor, Ars Technica
Money spent: $0
Time spent: 250 hours
In all, I’ve probably played at least 1,000 individual games and I’ve yet to spend a dime. Arena mode is actually my favorite way to play the game, and I tend to get packs at a lower gold price than buying them outright, so why pay money to skip the actual fun of playing ? I pride myself on not spending money on these games, it’s like a meta game to increase the difficulty for yourself. If they design them so that you want or need to spend money and if you can get around that and still have fun, you’ve beaten them at their own game. I made it to level 201 of Candy Crush without spending a penny. (Braid. – Ed.)
Sam Biddle, Editor, Valleywag
Money spent: $40
Time spent: about 24 hours
I think I’ve spent about $40 in the past few months? I’m still really bad at it Hearthstone. I don’t think spending much more money would make me much better at the game. I’m sure I’ll spend a bit more just because it’s fun to open the packs and see what you’ve got. It is a very comforting childhood experience. I think in-app purchases are a pretty awful trend in gaming, but I really mean it when I say that Blizzard has made in-app purchases feel rewarding and not like they’re trying to bleed money from you. It’s all pixels, but it’s very satisfying. It is absolutely possible to have a lot of fun with it Hearthstone and be VERY good at it without spending a dime. Blizzard built it that way on purpose, and it’s commendable.
Money spent: $115
Time spent: 70-80 hours
A quick search through my bank account shows that a total of about $115 was spent (God help me). Of all that, there was only one Arena run – salvaging that gold from daily quests is pretty trivial with a much better payout than spending it on packs. I spent $20 on Naxxramas. The rest is all on card packs.
My expenses are likely to drop significantly as I’m getting pretty close to a complete set. It gets to the point where all I need is dust to make legendary characters, and arena is better for that sort of thing. If they expand the core set after Naxx, that could change I think.
Aaron Zimmerman, Lyricist, Ars Technica
Money spent: $20
Time spent: 250 hours
I spent $20 on card packs when I first started, and I’m going to buy Curse of Naxxramas for another $20. Buying more card packs now would be a bad investment for my collection since I already own a majority of the cards that are currently released. It’s pretty easy to play without paying once you get started, especially if you’re good at Arena. I would say the adventures (like Naxx) are where people like me will spend most of their money.
Alexander Sliwinski, Director of News Content, Joystiq
Money spent: $50
Time spent: 33 hours
Between being News Content Director at Joystiq and finishing my Masters, I didn’t have much time to play games. Without the payment, it would have taken me at least a year to get the cards I have now, or to actually get lucky in the arena, which wouldn’t happen. The payment was enough to get me the cards I needed to make the most viable decks in the game. Those decks have helped me get through daily missions faster and become competitive in the Naxxramas expansion and against most of the players I meet.
In general, I played about 20 minutes a day Hearthstone since the game launched on iOS in April, even though I played it on PC at the time. I now refer to my iPad as the “Portable Hearthstone Device.” I don’t use it for anything else.
Greg Tito, Editor in Chief, Escapist
Money spent: $0
Time spent: 15 hours
Even though I love Hearthstone and talk about it regularly, I’m actually a pretty casual player. I don’t have any real money invested in cards or packs or arena, and I probably only play the game for about five hours a month.
Joel Johnson, Editor in Chief, Gawker
Money spent: $50
Time spent: 50 hours
I spent about $50 – mostly on maps and probably $8 on Arena – because I wanted to. Frucci beat me 10 times in a row with one card game. He has this one deck that is just brutal. I haven’t had a chance to build a deck to counter it.
Adam Frucci, Editor, Splitsider
Money spent: $50
Time spent: “10-15 hours”
I spent $20 on the new expansion levels, probably $20 on maps, and another $10 or so on the arena. I go through bursts of a few days where I play a lot, then I don’t play it for a few weeks until I remember it’s there and I get sucked back in. I beat Joel with two decks – a Warlock deck that comes preloaded with cheaper cards and then backed up by some mid-level cards that boost the cheap ones, and a Priest deck that’s more balanced but weighted down to take advantage of the healing powers of that class, with some potential high-hitting combos built into it. They’re good decks, but Joel is horrible, so it’s pretty easy. Please print that Gawker kingpin Joel Johnson is terrible Hearthstone and that his sister beat him playing her second ever game.
Total money spent on nine players: $425
Total hours spent: 805 hours