Blizzard announces “freemium” online trading card game

BOSTON—Blizzard confirmed that it is working on a new small-scale game titled HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft at a conference at PAX Friday. The game is a collectible-card-style game played online and will be Blizzard's "first free-to-play" title.

The model is "something we've wanted to experiment with for a while... A lot of people at Blizzard have played CCGs for a really long time," said Rob Pardo, chief creative officer at Blizzard. But the company wanted to focus on making a trading card game that's more accessible and "not just something that us hardcore nerds would play."

The game is based on Warcraft lore and will have 300 cards at launch, with five cards per pack. Blizzard has yet to determine pricing but estimates that each five-card pack will cost "around a dollar." The game will also employ a freemimum model: players can earn packs by playing, but their progress will be slower than someone who simply buys packs outright.

Cards will come in the WoW-like strains of "common," "rare," "epic," and "legendary." Blizzard has designed an animation for "unwrapping" packs of cards online where each card is dramatically turned over and announces itself if it is of a higher designation than "common."

When building a deck inside a section of the game called "The Forge," users can disenchant duplicates and cards they don't need from packs and use the arcane dust generated to build the cards they need. Many cards can be used multiple ways (e.g. the player can use a card to draw two cards or restore 8 health to another card). Hero cards have specific powers they can use once per turn.

PAX East attendees will have access to a HearthStone demo of the game on the show floor, where Ars Gaming Editor Kyle Orland is on the ground. Stay tuned for his first-hand impressions of the game.