Unfortunately it seems that playing Hearthstone this year could potentially cost players a lot more real-life money. In a calculation put together by Redditor FliccC (via Engadget), it has been calculated that if players were to purchase 90% of Hearthstone’s cards in 2017 using real-life money, it would cost them about $670. This is versus the $440 or so in previous years to buy the same percentage of content.
Of course since it is entirely possible to gain new cards and Hearthstone packs without real-life money, there’s a good chance you could spend much less than what’s been calculated. However for more hardcore gamers who don’t have the patience or time to farm gold, the increase in costs of about $230 is actually pretty huge and is about 50% more than what they paid the previous year.
Some gamers might be able to justify paying this much for a game that they love to play, but in case you can’t, then maybe it’s time to bite down hard and just start farming all that gold if you’re trying to avoid spending as much real-life money as possible.