Blizzard on Hearthstone Microtransactions

The publisher is in for the long haul, not interested in making a "quick buck."

Hearthstone producer Yong Woo revealed that the desire to keep the game running for a long time motivates Blizzard to price items in the free-to-play game fairly.

"Universally we’ve been getting feedback that our pricing is very generous," Yong said in an interview. "To us, that’s important. For us, we’re here for the long run. We’re not here to make a quick buck. I want to be playing and working on Hearthstone 10 years from now and from that end, instead of focusing on maximising immediate profit, Hearthstone is really about being able to play it how you want to."

Yong's statement was repeated by production director for Hearthstone Jason Chayes. "We talked about this idea of white hat black hat from Westerns, and for us one of the goals we set for ourselves was that we wanted to do microtransactions with a white hat," he said. "When Blizzard approaches a game it's with the intention of making something that's going to be around not for a month or two or a year or two but something that we're really into for the long haul. A game that we plan to support for many many years to come, and that's certainly the case with Hearthstone."

Since Hearthstone was launched, the group within Blizzard that is responsable for the creation of the game, Team 5, has grown from 15 to more than 30. Team 5 is now working on player feedback, and creating new content to keep player engaged. Hearthstone recently received a single-player expansion named Curse of Naxxramas, which was released on July 22.