Blizzard launches $25 Hearthstone card, players revolt

News
By published

"Half the price of Elden Ring"

Hearthstone
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Blizzard is charging a real-world $25 for a single Hearthstone card, and the community isn't having any of it.

As first picked up on by PC Gamer, the new diamond card for orc shaman Drek'Thar is stirring up quite a chatter over in online Hearthstone communities, chiefly because it costs 25 real dollars, but also because the only way to add it to your collection is to buy it with gold or real money. Usually, when Blizzard comes out with new diamond cards, they're bundled into an expansion or unlocked when you collect every legendary card from a set. Not this one though.

Hearthstone

(Image credit: Blizzard)

"Holy fuck. $25 for a single diamond card," reads a post from oneseventwo on the Hearthstone subreddit, which is packed with similar sentiments. 

"Yeah, no. I hate it," OneCartographer3641 said.

"I would pay $2-3 for that," offered byuballer2.

"No thanks. They can keep it. I'm not going to reward greed with my hard-earned money," user RXD_Titan wrote. To put it another way, "This single card is half the cost of Elden Ring," EwokNuggets pointed out. "This is gross and I don’t like it."

For the uninitiated, diamond cards are essentially just regular cards with purely cosmetic differences like 3D animations and a nifty border. They offer no advantages in gameplay whatsoever, and I reckon if they did, there would be a significantly more heated debate going on right now.

While they're undoubtedly in the minority, some folks are fine with the pricy card. As mentioned earlier, you don't necessarily have to fork up real-world money for the card; you can also buy it with gold, Hearthstone's in-game currency which you can earn by playing the game and completing quests. "I don't get the hate. It's a free-to-play game charging for a skin on a card they gave you for free, and you can get it using in-game currency," opines WickerBasement.

If you just can't get enough of the cards, here are some games like Hearthstone to check out.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.