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It will be very interesting to see what Valve have up their sleeve for this one, as their card game Artifact seems to be dying.

How does the saying go? You only get one chance to make a first impression. Well, Valve made a number of missteps with the release and so not many will come back to it. When you consider the fact that in 2018 over nine thousand games released on Steam there's a ridiculous amount of competition for everyone and Valve aren't above that.

First, take a look at this (thanks SteamDB):

Artifact went from a high point of over sixty thousand players to around only two thousand in the space of about two months. It's bleeding players, quickly, and that's quite alarming. When you adjust the chart on SteamDB to look at it over a single month of "Players every day" it's showing a sad downwards trend. Unless they do something drastic, the player-base is likely to die off completely within another three to six months.

So where did it go wrong? In my opinion, Valve's decision to initially release it with zero progression and no way to earn anything without some form of extra payment was a poor one. In my original review, I did note that it could be a "deal-breaker for some" and that likely attributed to people not coming back. Valve did add some progression and unlocking systems with the "Build Your Legend Update" but the damage was already done. By the time the update was released Artifact had already lost around fifty thousand from their players per day.

It certainly hasn't helped that the Artifact team has gone a lot quieter. Take their Twitter for example, during December they put out around thirteen tweets to keep the community going. How about January? None. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I think Valve could honestly learn a lot from other developers at this point, a lot of games are successful not just because the game is good, but because they're constantly messing with the community and Valve has a history of being too quiet until they do something.

The biggest problem for Artifact now is the players that remain will be dedicated players that have likely honed their skills rather nicely. Anyone jumping in now and playing online is probably going to get their arse thoroughly handed to them and likely not come back often if at all.

Truthfully, as excited as I was for it, my own feelings on it have fizzled out as well. I can't quite put my finger on why exactly, since I do like the basic gameplay of it. It certainly doesn't help that people I was going to play with have also parted ways with it. A community just didn't build around it and so if Valve wish to keep it alive, their only real option left is likely just to make it free to play. It will be interesting to see what they do.

None of that is addressing the elephant in the room, which is that Valve vastly overestimated their pull with gamers. I've said it before and I will say it again, Valve are sitting on some IP that would seriously turn heads. If they put out a Left 4 Dead 3, Portal 3 or Half-Life 3 (or all of them) this would be a very different story. Not because I'm some sort of mad fanboy or something, they're just what most of their actual fans seem to be waiting for.

You can find Artifact on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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bradgy Jan 23, 2019
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I'm sad about this. My time with the game has been a lot of fun, and IMHO you get $19.99 of content without having to buy any further packs or spend money on the marketplace.

I read a comment about this yesterday that said basically: this game isn't for anyone.

Dota players don't want it, it's a different genre.

Hearthstone/Gwent players don't want it, there's a price to entry and you can't grind for cards.

Magic players don't want it, it's not the original and the best.

Valve fans don't want it, they want <insert beloved IP 3 here>.

I agree that the launch and marketing could have been handled better, emphasising the buying of specific cards you want and not having to grind might have helped, as would have more prominently mentioning the refund "policy" up front. It all seems to have left a sour taste in people's mouths.

I think it will require a drastic reworking to make it F2P, as the business model seems to have been developed to avoid this, but I don't know what else will drive player numbers back up.

Add me on steam if you want to play sometime :)
Kimyrielle Jan 23, 2019
So they made a game for an already over-saturated market (how many card games did we see the past 2 years or so?), compete against a firmly entrenched product (Magic The Gathering), and in a genre they have no experience with, while about 90% of their fan-base was hoping for something completely else (HL3)...and somehow thought that would go well?

I call that optimism!
salamanderrake Jan 23, 2019
They over gimmicked the game with the three lane bullshit, no one ever wanted that, if they would have kept it setup like magic the gathering, it would have shot off.
1xok Jan 23, 2019
Best dying game ever made. :)

Artifact quickly became my favorite game. It even replaced CSGO. I have to go back a long way to the past to find a game that sucked me in so fast. Of course, many people on Reddit badmouth it (without really knowing it). That's because it doesn't conform to the norm. It's the first real online Magic where you can really buy single cards not only packs. There is no ingame currency.

I've now played 200h hours and spent about 60 euros on cards. Everything is very clear and transparent. No hidden costs. Meanwhile you only pay a fraction for the cards, because nobody wants them. People prefer to follow the predatory business model of Hearthstone and other rip-offs, because they are "free-to-play". People don't get the bill until they're already in the middle of the game. And then people are really asked to pay. Over and over again. And people obviously love being cheated like that.
slaapliedje Jan 23, 2019
maybe I am the odd man out, but I just don't 'get' CCG games that are digital. It's not like you can actually collect anything, it's all 1s and 0s.
1xok Jan 23, 2019
Quoting: slaapliedjemaybe I am the odd man out, but I just don't 'get' CCG games that are digital. It's not like you can actually collect anything, it's all 1s and 0s.
Playing is much more important to me than collecting. I don't know with whom I could play Magic at the moment, except with myself.
Blue22 Jan 23, 2019
personally I have 0 interest in competitive virtual card games like Artifakt or Hearthstone, looks like I'm not the only one.

BUT if I was a mobile gamer, I think I'd be interested.
sarmad Jan 23, 2019
It would probably do better if it was sold as an actual physical board game. Why would anyone play a board game on a computer rather than a table?
psymin Jan 23, 2019
My brief thoughts on Artifact

* It should be F2P
* Cards should be able to be traded between players
* Deckbuilding should be allowed w/o the game client (web interface maybe?)
* Needs a mobile app

If this were a physical card game, it might be a better experience.

The game itself is unlike any other CCG I've played. It is great!

I'm terrible at the game, however :)


Last edited by psymin on 23 January 2019 at 8:33 pm UTC
1xok Jan 23, 2019
Quoting: sarmadIt would probably do better if it was sold as an actual physical board game. Why would anyone play a board game on a computer rather than a table?
Artifact is unplayable as a physical game. You play on three boards and you can quickly create over 100 cards. It's almost impossible to do it all by hand. A simplified version could be played. It's called Magic: The Gathering. :)

Quoting: psymin* Deckbuilding should be allowed w/o the game client (web interface maybe?)
There are numerous pages for deckbuilding. For example:
https://www.artifactfire.com/artifact/deck-builder
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