It's official, the sticky thread killed the discussion on pack pricing and the value of expansions.

An incredible amount of analysis and debate has already been done by this community, but I feel a need to being the topic of pricing and expansion value back to life. The sticky thread that the mods made to consolidate the discussion effectively killed the conversation that so many of us were actively, and passionately participating in, despite the fact that discussion on that thread was great. All of us redditors work in a similar way, we click new links, and move on from ones we have already seen, especially when the comment section becomes static, which is why the sticky thread effectively stifled our pleas. Let's all post threads about this issue once again to help keep it at the forefront of our community, and hopefully facilitate a change without having to speak with our wallets.

I personally feel that Activison-Bilzzard and Team-5 is not interested in hearing and helping us with this issue until their revenues are affected, but that seems like an issue for multiple reasons:

1. Speaking with our wallets and not buying expansions to wake Activision-Blizzard up will require to many avid players of this game to essentially stop playing for months at a time. All of us here know that playing on ladder without the proper tools is absolutely infuriating, why would we do this to ourselves on purpose?

2)Many people use video games, and Hearthstone specifically, as an escape from the issues that we have in our personal lives. This ties in with my first point a lot, but if is worth restating that foregoing the tools that us players need to enjoy the game is unacceptable, especially for those who rely on this game/platform to maintain their sanity.

3)Choosing to sit out of an expansion as a community could have lasting effects on the health of the community and, in turn, the job security and funding of Team-5. I feel that of us do not want to inflict damage to Activison-Blizzard and Team-5 to just simply enjoy the freedom of having a full library to build decks with. It would be cruel, and saddening to see people loosing jobs, or receiving pay cuts because we want to participate in all of the aspects of a game that we all care about.

4. This is admittedly an assumption, but I believe that Blizzard's largest source of revenue has historically been WoW. The monthly subscription fee for WoW is $15 and the expansions, which come out roughly two years apart, is $60 on release. Since the shortest expansion was 21 months in length, I will use that as the time between expansions for calculations.

$60 / 21mo = $2.86/mo for expansions (yes I am aware that this is a lump sum payment)

$2.86 + $15 = $17.86/mo to consistently play on the newest version of the game

$17.86 * 12mo = $214.32/yr to play WoW

I do not have a link to the comment, but I distinctly remember seeing a post where a user calculated the total value of Un'Goro, after dusting all excess cards to craft the remainder of the library, to be $400. We have two more expansions this year and even if they do not include a second legendary for each class they will be valued at nearly $200 (this is another estimate, but is, in my opinion, a conservative one) which puts the yearly cost to play Hearthstone around $800. This is simply unacceptable. WoW has PvP modes, PvE questing, co-op dungeons, massive 40 person raids, a massive 3-D world with monsters of all shapes and sizes that are always there for you to explore and fight at your whim. Hearthstone has PvP, with PvE has to be paid for separately, except for the few weeks during the year were we are lucky enough to co-op/PvE brawls that do not even last a full seven days. The content to payment ratio seems off here.

In Conclusion:

I cannot play this game enough to grind out packs every day, most of us can't, so we need to be able to use the small amount of excess money that some of us earn to fill our libraries and play some nice, relaxing games of Hearthstone to unwind from our stressful lives. I understand that some people in the community are perfectly content playing one deck for an entire expansion and enjoy slowly grinding their way to perfection in that deck. Cool. Great. You do you. No matter what happens with pricing in the future, your play experience will remain relatively unchanged. As for me and many others, that is not fun, I want to play all of the classes, all of the quests, all of the archetypes, and all of the play styles.

Lets all use this thread, and make many others, to have a respectful, fact based discussion about this issue that so many of us feel so strongly about. Please remember that millions of us play this game, and that we all have different perspectives on the subject. Read, listen, think, and respond with factual evidence that can help us to come to a solution that can make all of us happier as a community, and as individual players.

Edit: TL;DR:

• Skipping an expansion is not an option for those who love this game, and is thus not the way that we are going choose to facilitate change.

• Some people use Hearthstone as an escape from personal issues, which is why the previous point is so important.

• By speaking with our wallets and skipping an expansion, Activison-Blizzard and by extension Team-5 could be hurt and people could lose their jobs. This is shitty, a majority of us do not want to see that.

• The yearly price of WoW is approximately 1/4 of the price of Hearthstone, and has significantly more content. This is both nonsensical, and unacceptable.

• Please read the quoted paragraph above regarding the nature of discussion that will help our community.