I forgot this game even happened

This is somehow the only video i have watched so far about The Artifact that actually explains the game mechanics indepth instead of handwaving it away like 'uhh it's like hearthstone but with 3 boards'. Thank you Nelvox.

You made me want to play this game more than Valve's entire marketing team ever did

I'll never forget watching Morbius on Twitch in the Artifact category. That is this games legacy.

Ricochet was no a failure per se. It was a tech demo for Half-Life SDK about how easy it is to get a custom mod working.

Artifact allowed anyone who bought the entry fee to play as many drafts as they wanted. Drafts are well-known to be the most entertaining way of playing a CCG, to the point where basically every other digital CCG more or less charges you by the game to access it.

In respect to the most important mode in the game, Artifact was dramatically more generous than any CCG before or since.

"Unlike other digital card games, Artifact isn't going to buff or nerf cards often, just like a physical card game!"

But physical card games often ban cards.

the biggest issue comes down to this:

"From the creators of Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Portal, comes a brand-new experince, the long-awaited... card game."
Valve's releases are way too impactful for that to not be a disappointment. While it might be one of the most fleshed-out and unique card games out there, revealing it in front of the world stage was a really, really bad play.

I remember being able to watch new full movie releases on twitch like John wick 3 and the avengers thanks to people putting this game as the tag lol
Edit: but then Charlie (Moist critical) made a video about it and it got shut down

It is not just a videogame store, it is THE videogame store.

Artifact anon from /v/, I summon thee.

I remember seeing the video someone took while at the live announcement. Hearing the disappointment from the vast majority of the audience told me this game wasn’t going to fare well.

I don't know how you are producing such high quality content in such a short time, we feel spoiled by you, a deep dive into the development of a game is wither it succeed or failed is one of my favorite content on YouTube, you make my day better whenever I see your video pop up, thank you good sir, keep up the amazing work ❤

27:27 "Something no other card game on earth had needed to solve" I mean, every card game kinda deals with this in the form of bans. A card is banned out of the only format it's playable in and your physical asset becomes worthless. But since perfect balance is not possible, you have to implement either bans or balance patching at some point. Which makes it confusing why Valve thought that a "no change" policy was ever going to be possible.

Asking 20$ for a digital card game is crazy. Having to pay extra for each run in competitive mode is even crazier

I feel genuinely bad for original Artifact's designers. They put so much thought and effort into creating the most unique, most complex card game ever... Only to be ruined by terrible marketing and delusionally greedy monetization.

Literally Checked The Artifact Category And Someone Is Streaming Some Anime Lol

I am one of those people who knew that, the way you put it, artifact wasn’t a scam but a tragedy, and i don’t remember anyone doing such honest and in-depth analysis of this game’s failure in many years. It’s truly one of a kind real life example of marketing not being able to communicate to it’s audience the benefits of a solution to a problem the yet to learn about (digital CCGs in the market being extremely restrictive in terms of giving you any authority over managing, trading and even downright owning your collection you paid money for).

I do like Underlords and Artifact to an extent.
I do like the fact that Underlords is basically a finished game.
I don't like how complex Artifact is when I play video games to relax.  The difficulty spikes between different decks is insane and made certain ideas impossible to work; zoo or siege mechanics for example.  They had ideas, but never really committed to them.

"If the game costs money what do I earn for playing it?" Absolutely bizarre question to assert was on everyone's mind

That game flew completely past me. I was actively playing magic at the time, maybe that is why.
But hearing you talk about it and looking at it with hindsight: this was doomed to fail. The failure however does not come from the game or even the announcement. It came from the monetisation strategy which is weird because DOTA 2 (and LoL) already solved the monetisation question: don't do loot boxes just give the player the tools to play the game (or in LoL's case give them the ability to buy exactly what they want to own). Loot boxes or booster packs are arguably the worst mechanic of MtG/Pokémon TTC/ect. but is kept because it earns money and is grandfather'd in. Imagine how the game woulda been if it had been: 20$ and you get the starter set with a set set of cards and a shop where you can just buy the cards you want for a set price. And if/once the players complain you just give them the chance to sell their cards back for 50%. Sure people are still gonna complain and do the math at how expensive a full collection is but at least that is a set price. Yes, new updates / cards have to be bought anew but that's just the price that (should at least) pay the developers. Suddenly nerfs and buffs are almost no big deal anymore (neither would be bans, btw). But no, they had to take a 20 year old already heavily critizised monetisation strategy and tried to apply it to a different medium and audience. Who could have foreseen that fail?