In Artifact 2.0, you can’t buy cards. Period.
So when Valve decided to take down Artifact, one of the primary complaints that players had against the game was the way it was monetized. You couldn’t get new cards from just playing the game, and instead, you had to buy card packs like you would in real life. But unlike in real life, you couldn’t trade those cards to other players to get the cards you wanted.
This meant that the richest players had the best decks because they could afford to buy as many packs as necessary to make the best deck while everyone else had mediocre decks that couldn’t compete.
There were a lot of other problems with Artifact, but being “pay-to-win” was the big one. Valve eventually changed Artifact to allow players to trade cards, but by then it was far too little too late and the game was taken down to be completely redesigned.
Fast forward to today and we’re getting details on just what that redesign entails. And what it entails is a monetization mode completely divorced from purchasing cards.
“We have some ideas about what we’d like to sell, but none of them are cards/packs,” writes Valve in their recent announcement, confirming the only way to acquire new cards is by playing the game.
This is huge and is bound to make Artifact fans happy. Check out the Steam page for full details on Artifact 2.0 and how you can get in on the closed beta.
Source: Steam