While the legal case of John Doe 1 through 100 is still ongoing, with the first of the bunch identified through a “whois” search by Twitch, we have Richard Garfield saying that one of the reasons that Valve’s card game Artifact failed to retain players is due to fan negativity surrounding the card game.
At this point, anything is going to be an excuse used to defend why Artifact has failed. With a plethora of issues looming about the game, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the trading card game has lost close to 100% of its player base with only a tiny fraction still visiting the game from time to time.
If you don’t know who Richard Garfield is, he is a mathematician, inventor, and game designer best known for Magic: The Gathering. In 2018, Valve and Garfield released Artifact late in November on PC via Steam.
The card game in question bled players like a wounded soldier with a lost cause. In other words, recovery is slim, and a healthy future is grim.
Fast forward to today, and we have Garfield saying that Artifact‘s demise is due to fans wanting Half Life 3 and not getting it and therefore rallying up negative vibes to detour the intended players base that Valve and Garfield wanted for Artifact, thus leading to this very moment.
You can hear all of the above in a new snippet that website GameInformer posted on their YouTube channel. Garfield’s claim can be heard at the 1:13 mark:
If you didn’t watch the video, when Garfield answered the question about what surprised him the most regarding Artifact’s launch, the dev replied and said, “Nothing really” since he’s skeptical of fan reception on paid services and free-to-play models. However, he believes Artifact is a “really good game” that’s not for everyone, and the people it was intended for steered clear from the card game due to all of the “negativity.”
Lastly, Valve and crew are moving forward with development on Artifact while keeping their heads-down — focusing on addressing as many issues instead of shipping updates. This process of experimentation and development is said to take a “significant amount of time.”
Artifact the game is out now for $19.99 on PC via Steam.
