Note: This is an internal communication meant for ABL community members, as such it should be considered propaganda. It is reposted here in purely for the possible interest of those on the outside looking in.
Oh wait, Artifact 2.0 isn’t out yet. Lets address the first part first. Artifact in its current state is well and truly dead. Player count is laughable, streamers have gone to autochess or even worse fates, and zero communication has come from Valve. This combination of factors is disconcerting. However, these may just be some negative externalities of good things. I do see one solidly positive bit of news: Richard Garfield & friends have been “let go” from the Artifact team. Let us try to get into the Volvo mindset a bit and see why this is good and why we are left to suffer in cold silence.
Exhibit A: Artifact Blog Post from Dec 20, 2018 (the most, ahem, recent post)
“A common pattern in physical card games is to design around the goal of never changing cards, and to only make card changes or bans in extremely rare cases. Our initial approach to the game was to follow this type of methodology and keep balancing changes as a last resort...Further consideration also made us realize [card immutability] was the wrong approach from the development side.”
The attempt to emulate the physical printing of cards in a digital game shows the heavy influence of the old school Garfield crew. While no doubt others in the development team bought into this idea, the ability to change cards, as explained later in the dev post, is one of the great advantages of digital medium. Post-launch, all the predictions and presuppositions of old think was put to test and failed miserably.
I strongly suspect Garfield was a driving force behind card immutability and thusly blamed for the cost of the card buyback program. This is probably why his consulting firm continues to provide consulting for free. Valve doesn’t want to listen to them anymore and Garfield is desperately trying to salvage his reputation by clinging onto a game that will eventually be successful.
“Once we shifted over to this new mindset, it became obvious to us that it was a more natural fit with how we tend to develop games.”
Keywords: new mindset. Yes, there must have been a post launch roadmap. Yes, an expansion was probably mostly done and, by now, already due to be announced or released. Clearly this has all been put on hold. Why? Because it was tainted by old think. If I was at the helm of Volvo, I wouldn’t believe incremental changes will bring life back into the game. I would reevaluate everything after such a disastrous launch.
Valve is going back to the drawing board and this is a good thing. This means when they do come back, their plan/roadmap will be one drawing from the experience of their incredibly successful CS:GO and DOTA 2 development. Successes that far exceed everything Garfield & friends have created in aggregate.
Exhibit B: Jan 28 2019 Patch “still in it for the long haul”
Initially, I laughed at the card item price changes. I wondered if they changed the item prices just to be able to say “still in it for the long haul”. In retrospect, they changed 18 cards - all without a buyback and without outrage from the card holders. I think this was part of a continuing test, to see if card immutability really mattered to the player base and clearly it did not. That update, however small, was appreciated by the community and confirmed the development direction they are taking. It even spawned a fresh “long haul” meme.
Despite this, player count continued to dwindle. Their proof of concept, testing incremental and dynamic changes, succeeded. The player base, however, had already reached a critical point where a small update did not bring up player count. Small updates with “frequent” balance passes is now probably cemented into the Artifact gameplan, but demonstrably more is needed to remedy low player count.
Memes aside, what does “the long haul” mean to Valve and for us, the small community left who still plays Artifact. First, let us look at Valve. It took, at the very least, 10 years to build the DOTA 2 competitive scene to where it is now. The International is the premier esports event in the world. Valve was founded in 1996, 23 year ago. We must understand Valve is a business and as such, operates at the pace and timescale of a business. Next Thursday is not a realistic expectation for any real change and it doesn’t matter which week we hope and pray.
You can have a social media manager blasting out tweets and memes all day, but at the end of the day, your core product needs to be strong. Silence from Valve on Artifact for 3 months, 6 months, or even 12 months is just how they do business. They don’t need to rush their product because they are one of the most successful privately owned software companies ever. They spent 4 years developing Artifact and I doubt they will rush things now just to revive low player count from a failed launch. The second time around, they want to get it right. I believe they will.
The meaning of the long haul to us, the players: silence. Right now I suspect even Valve doesn’t know what the exact future of Artifact will look like so how can they tell us anything meaningful? Silence is hard. With no guidance from Valve, it becomes incredibly difficult to commit time, energy, and money. You can see this with all but one tournament group ending operations.
Conclusion
Artifact Bitcoin League, a project I started for lulz and for casuals, is the last remaining tournament group. With over $5k USD/BTC awarded so far, another $2k prize pool tournament this weekend and every month, I certainly feel like I am throwing bitcoins into a wishing well (or perhaps fountain). ABL will run for at least one year with a total budget of 25k and zero expectation on profitability.
We are the winter soldiers of Artifact. For those who haven’t studied US history, General George Washington’s Continental Army bitter winter encampment at Valley Forge was desperate. The dream that was to be the United States literally almost froze to death in the winter of 1777. Washington repeatedly mailed the US Congress for support but was given none. Thomas Payne would write "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country". The winter soldier, in contrast, will not desert, will not give up, and will soldier on in the worst of times.
Artifact Bitcoin League and the many volunteers who run it are now the winter soldiers of Artifact. The pall bearers of Artifact. A dead game, but carried by our combined strength is a dream that still lives on.
We will carry the burden for as long as is needed for Artifact 2.0 to rise up and take its manifest destiny.
See you on the frozen river,
-Opsy
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