Blizzard Wants You to Play Hearthstone for the Next 10 Years

World of Warcraft is slowing down, but it had an amazing run since it launched in 2004. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard hopes, will enjoy the same kind of longevity.

According to Hearthstone producer Yong Woo, the desire to keep the game running for a long time motivates Blizzard to price items in the free-to-play game fairly.

"Universally we’ve been getting feedback that our pricing is very generous," Yong told IGN in an interview. "To us, that’s important. For us, we’re here for the long run. We’re not here to make a quick buck. I want to be playing and working on Hearthstone 10 years from now and from that end, instead of focusing on maximising immediate profit, Hearthstone is really about being able to play it how you want to."

Production director for Hearthstone Jason Chayes reiterated the sentiment in an interview with Games Industry International. "We talked about this idea of white hat black hat from Westerns, and for us one of the goals we set for ourselves was that we wanted to do microtransactions with a white hat," he said. "When Blizzard approaches a game it's with the intention of making something that's going to be around not for a month or two or a year or two but something that we're really into for the long haul. A game that we plan to support for many many years to come, and that's certainly the case with Hearthstone."

Since it launched the beta, the group within Blizzard that created Hearthstone, Team 5, has grown from 15 people to more than 30. It's now working on responding to player feedback and creating new content to keep players engaged. The most significant content added to the game so far was the single-player expansion Curse of Naxxramas, which released on July 22.

For more on Hearthstone, be sure to check out our previous coverage.