My kids love freemium games.  I hate them.  When I purchase a game, I like to take ownership of the content and be free to play the game as I see fit.  So why has this game got me hooked and spending real money?

I fully expected to hate Hearthstone when I decided to play it.  And the first few times I genuinely did.  I played through the opening tutorial, which made it seem easy enough and then I played a few practice rounds and was able to win a few of those games.  Unfortunately, if you want to actually unlock new cards in this game, then you need to play it online.

Playing online awards you 10 gold for 3 wins and there is a daily challenge that also awards between 40 to 100 gold.  In order to unlock a pack, you need 100 gold.

So what’s the problem with that?  Simple, I stink at it, or at least I did.   Each game started and ended the exact same way.  I think I am going to win, and then I am crushed in the blink of an eye.  I turned the game off and didn’t play it for a good long time.  However, while looking online one day I read about an expansion pack being released, and for a limited time, the first piece of it would be free.  I figured, why not give it one more shot and get the free content just in case.

Once again, I started up the game and once again the pattern continued.  Frustrated and annoyed, I decided to look up some tips on playing the game.  After all, everyone I played against seemed to have no problem beating me so it must not be that impossible to get a win.  I ended up finding exactly what I needed, and after a little while, I started to win.

It’s not been over a year since I started playing Hearthstone and I have played it almost everyday since then.  The game does have a good amount of luck to it, but if you can build a decent deck and understand what the different mechanics do, then you will definitely win at least 50% off the time.  It’s a casual deck builder which provides some great moments and quick gameplay.  If you are the type of user who likes to methodically build your deck and would rather be able to win based on skill rather than luck most of the time, then Hearthstone may not be for you.  If however, you are ok with losing sometimes to chance, like crazy mechanics and quick games, then Hearthstone might be the game for you.