Boom. Like an Alarm-o-Bot summoning down a Lord Jaraxxus (or all sorts of other horrible things), Blizzard Entertainment's wildly popular, free-to-play digital card game has finally arrived on the iPad (for everyone).
And arrived it has. Within one day of the game's official release, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has already catapulted to the very top of the App Store's "top free iPad apps" chart. It beat out Microsoft Word for iPad, the ever-frustrating 2048 number-merging game, and the Flappy Bird parody/alternative Flappy Smash.
Right around 90 percent of those reviewing the game have assigned it a five-star rating. Throw in the four-star ratings, and the percentage of people seemingly enjoying Hearthstone jumps up to right around 93 percent. That's a pretty good indicator thus far that Blizzard has a hit on its hands, but we already kind of expected that would happen.
Blizzard soft-launched Hearthstone on April 2, restricting the title to iPad owners in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It was soon the ninth highest-grossing app in Canada, eleventh for New Zealand, and twelfth for Australia, Venturebeat reported. Not too shabby for what amounted to a beta test of a free-to-play title.
"In Hearthstone, you play the hero in a fast-paced, whimsical card game of cunning strategy," the game's description reads. "In minutes, you'll be unleashing powerful cards to sling spells, summon minions, and seize control of an ever-shifting battlefield."
The app is free to download, and comes with a free pack of cards. But you have to pay for card packs. As PCMag's sister site, Geek.com, explained: "There will absolutely be a gap in deck strength between the new players and the veterans, which is what Blizzard is hoping will spur many newbies to shell out cash for packs."
Hearthstone currently sits at No. 17 on Apple's list of highest grossing apps as of this article's writing. As for what the game's players are purchasing, the top three in-app purchases for the title are, as you might imagine, packs of cards: $10 for 7 packs, $3 for 2 packs, or $20 for 15 packs. That might sound like pennies in the grand scheme of things, especially since players can earn new packs of cards just by playing the game. However, the free-to-play, purchase-cards-if-you-want format could end up being a fairly lucrative opportunity for Blizzard.