Artifact 2.0 Won't Force You to Buy Cards

You’d think Valve, still high off the release of Half-Life: Alyx, would spend a little more time talking up the game and the future of the Half-Life franchise (not that they haven’t done that plenty already, mind you), since talking about Half-Life 3 is about as close as we can hope to getting it. But rather than doing their third or fourth victory lap, the folks at Valve have decided to use what remained of their spotlight to actually talk about Artifact, their well-made but disastrously received digital card game based off DOTA 2.

In a recent blog post, the folks behind the game have detailed how they’ll be updating it in the future to make it less crap hopefully. Some of the changes include being able to access all three lanes at once and adding a new Draft mode to help you test out new heroes. Still, most of the changes, it seems, are hidden behind the games closed beta, with permission to access it being handed out apparently at random.

That said, the biggest change coming to Artifact 2.0 is the fact that the much-maligned system of forcing people to buy new cards and decks is apparently getting the boot. Now, instead of spending money on the actual cards you need to play the game, you can earn all the cards you want in-game. In-game purchases will still exist, but apparently they won’t include the ability to buy cards.

Presumably, this also means you won’t be able to sell cards either.

While forcing players to buy cards did have its defenders (mostly arguing that it was cheaper to buy your way to success in Artifact than any other online card game) I think most people can agree it doesn’t feel right to pay 20-something bucks for a game, then having to spend beyond that to get the most out of it. Can you imagine if all triple-A games operated like that?

Can you?

Can you imagine?