Why I Left Hearthstone

Summary

The video script discusses the creator's journey with Hearthstone, including their departure and return, and their thoughts on the game and content creation. They share both the positive aspects, such as the game's enduring appeal and fun gameplay, and the negative, like repetitive content creation and community drama. The creator also explores other games like BackPack Battles and Valorant, highlighting the potential and creativity in different gaming niches, and contemplates their future in content creation.

Takeaways

• 🎮 The creator left Hearthstone due to the repetitive nature of creating gameplay content.
• 🔄 Despite taking multiple breaks, the creator returned to Hearthstone because of its enduring audience and their personal enjoyment of the game.
• 📉 The creator observed a decline in Hearthstone's viewership but noted the game still has a substantial and dedicated community.
• 💰 Monetization in Hearthstone is primarily through gameplay content, which can lead to creator burnout due to its repetitiveness.
• 📈 The creator found success with creating content for other games like Valorant, indicating potential outside Hearthstone.
• 👎 There's a noted drama within Hearthstone's community and from Blizzard, which has affected the creator's experience.
• 👍 The creator appreciates Hearthstone's fun gameplay and believes it's one of the best auto battlers available.
• 😓 The creator feels that Hearthstone's community can be negative and often focuses on the game's issues.
• 🆕 The creator enjoyed the novelty of learning new cards and mechanics when returning to Hearthstone but quickly became bored as the gameplay became repetitive.
• 🤔 The creator is uncertain about their future with Hearthstone, considering the competition from other content creators and the game's evolving meta.

Q & A

Why did the content creator leave Hearthstone initially?

The content creator left Hearthstone initially due to the repetitiveness of creating gameplay content, which eventually led to burnout.

What were some positive aspects of Hearthstone that made the creator stick around and eventually return?

Some positive aspects included the game's enduring audience, the fun gameplay, and the potential for creative content creation despite the challenges.

How does the creator describe the monetization model for Hearthstone content creation?

The creator describes the monetization model as heavily reliant on gameplay streaming and video length, with longer videos generating more revenue.

What was the impact of repetitive gameplay content on the creator's motivation?

The repetitive nature of gameplay content led to the creator experiencing burnout and considering quitting Hearthstone content creation multiple times.

How does the creator perceive the future of Hearthstone in terms of its player base?

Despite a decline in viewership, the creator believes Hearthstone will always have an audience and is unlikely to die out completely.

What are some examples of drama within the Hearthstone community mentioned by the creator?

The creator mentions drama such as changes in esports, monetization decisions, and controversies within Blizzard.

What does the creator appreciate about the Hearthstone game itself?

The creator appreciates that Hearthstone is fun to play and has a loyal player base, which contributes to its enduring popularity.

How does the creator feel about the community within Hearthstone?

The creator feels that there is often negativity and complaining within the Hearthstone community, which can be draining.

What other games did the creator explore during their break from Hearthstone?

During the break, the creator explored games like Valorant and BackPack Battles, and also did some freelance editing work for other creators.

What are the creator's thoughts on BackPack Battles compared to Hearthstone?

The creator finds BackPack Battles more creative and enjoyable, appreciating its mechanics, relaxed community, and the developers' active engagement.

What are the creator's current plans regarding Hearthstone content creation?

The creator plans to only post Hearthstone content if it feels fun and if there's a potential for the video to perform well, but doesn't see a strong reason to put in significant effort into it at the moment.

Outlines

00:00

🎲 Return to Hearthstone: Ups and Downs

The speaker reflects on their hiatus from creating Hearthstone content and shares their reasons for leaving and returning. They emphasize wanting to discuss both the positive aspects that kept them engaged with the game for years and the negative aspects that led to their break. They recount their journey as a content creator, starting with guide videos at the age of 18, and evolving to streaming gameplay for revenue. However, the repetitive nature of gameplay content led to burnout, prompting multiple breaks. Despite this, they acknowledge Hearthstone's enduring appeal and its seemingly immortal status in the gaming community, with a consistent audience and thriving Twitch and YouTube presence.

05:00

📉 The Drama of Hearthstone

The paragraph delves into the ongoing controversies surrounding Hearthstone, such as changes to the esports scene, monetization decisions, and internal drama at Blizzard. These issues have led to a sense of unease and uncertainty about the game's future. Despite the game's resilience, the regular negative news takes a toll on the community's morale. The speaker also contrasts this with the game's fun and engaging nature, which keeps players coming back. They discuss the community's perception of Hearthstone as a game that might be rigged to favor spending, and how this affects the overall sentiment towards the game.

10:00

🎒 Discovering Backpack Battles

The speaker talks about their experience with Backpack Battles, an indie game they found more enjoyable and creative than Hearthstone. They highlight the game's mechanics, which allow for more strategic depth and variety, leading to a higher skill ceiling and a more relaxed gaming experience. They also appreciate the positive and wholesome community around Backpack Battles, as well as the active engagement from the developers. Despite the game's current decline in popularity, they remain hopeful for its future, especially with upcoming features like real-time matchmaking and a mobile version.

15:02

🔄 Exploring New Horizons in Content Creation

In the final paragraph, the speaker discusses their current content creation endeavors, which include working with other Hearthstone creators, editing, and exploring new games like Valorant and Deadlock. They reflect on their return to Hearthstone for a brief period, driven by nostalgia and the excitement of learning new game mechanics. However, they quickly grew bored as the game's dynamics became repetitive. They also observe the saturation of Hearthstone content creators and the challenge of standing out. The speaker is uncertain about their future in content creation but remains open to exploring different games and opportunities, such as editing for other creators or trying out indie games.

Keywords

💡Hearthstone

Hearthstone is a digital collectible card game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. In the video, the creator discusses their history with the game, including the reasons for leaving and returning, as well as the challenges of creating content for it. Hearthstone is central to the video's narrative as it is the game the creator has spent years making content for.

💡Content Creation

Content creation refers to the process of generating various forms of content, such as videos, podcasts, or written guides, typically for online platforms. The video's creator talks about their experiences creating content for Hearthstone, highlighting both the positive aspects, like teaching others about the game, and the negative aspects, such as the repetitiveness leading to burnout.

💡Gameplay

Gameplay in this context refers to the actual playing of a game, which can be recorded and shared as content. The creator mentions that gameplay videos are popular among viewers and tend to generate more revenue on platforms like YouTube. However, they also express their frustration with the repetitive nature of creating gameplay content for Hearthstone.

💡Burnout

Burnout is a state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion caused by intense and prolonged stress. In the video, the creator uses the term to describe their feelings after consistently creating repetitive gameplay content for Hearthstone, which eventually led them to take breaks and explore other games and content ideas.

💡Drama

In the context of the video, drama refers to controversies or issues within the Hearthstone community or by the game's developers. The creator discusses various instances of drama, such as monetization decisions and the cancellation of esports events, which have negatively impacted their mood and perspective on the game.

💡Backpack Battles

Backpack Battles is a game that the creator has been playing and creating content for as an alternative to Hearthstone. They find it more enjoyable and creatively expressive, with a more relaxed community. The game represents a shift in the creator's content focus and their exploration of new gaming experiences.

💡Community

Community here refers to the group of players and fans who share an interest in a particular game. The creator contrasts the Hearthstone community, which they perceive as often negative and complaining, with the Backpack Battles community, which they describe as wholesome and positive. The community's atmosphere plays a role in the creator's enjoyment and content creation.

💡Esports

Esports refers to competitive gaming where players participate in organized, multiplayer video game competitions. The creator mentions Hearthstone's esports scene, discussing the cancellation of events and the broader impact of such decisions on the game's community and their own content creation.

💡Monetization

Monetization in the context of the video refers to the strategies used to generate income from content creation, such as through advertisements, sponsorships, or in-game purchases. The creator discusses how certain monetization decisions by Hearthstone's developers have been controversial and affected their content creation.

💡Valiant

Valiant, presumably referring to Valorant, is a first-person shooter game developed by Riot Games. The creator mentions starting a Valorant channel and achieving significant view counts on their videos, indicating a successful exploration into content creation for a different game and showcasing the potential for growth outside of Hearthstone.

💡Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. The creator talks about returning to Hearthstone and experiencing nostalgia, which is a common theme when creators or players revisit games they have a history with. It reflects the emotional connection that can exist between individuals and the games they play.

Highlights

Content creator explains his hiatus from Hearthstone and his eventual return.

Acknowledges both the positive and negative aspects of Hearthstone that influenced his decision to leave and return.

Mentions that despite the repetitive nature of gameplay content, he enjoyed creating Hearthstone guides and other content forms.

Explains that longer videos on YouTube are more profitable, which incentivized him to create gameplay content.

Reveals that the repetitiveness of creating gameplay content led to burnout and multiple breaks from Hearthstone.

Discusses the enduring appeal of Hearthstone, despite perceptions of decline, noting its 'immortal' status.

Highlights the drama within Hearthstone's development and community as a detractor from the game.

Contrasts the fun and engaging nature of Hearthstone with the community and development drama.

Notes the prevalence of negative community discussions and a superiority complex among Hearthstone players.

Considers the high skill expression and depth of Backpack Battles compared to Hearthstone.

Describes his enjoyment of Backpack Battles due to its creative expression and relaxed community.

Shares his experience of working with other Hearthstone creators and starting a Valorant channel.

Expresses his surprise at the success of his early Valorant videos and the potential for content in different niches.

Mentions his experimentation with various games and content formats during his break from Hearthstone.

Reflects on the nostalgia and fun of returning to Hearthstone, but also the quick return to boredom due to repetitive gameplay.

Considers the oversaturation of Hearthstone content creators and the difficulty of standing out.

Contemplates his future in content creation, including the possibility of focusing on editing for other creators.

Provides an update on his current situation and the various games he's been playing and creating content for.

Transcripts

I realized I've actually never done a

video explaining where I've been why I

left hearstone why I now kind of came

back uh and and all my thoughts on the

game and on content creation this sort

of [ __ ] so if you're interested in

knowing that why I left what's wrong

with the game and and everything like

that you know this is the video for you

so I'm basically going to go over why I

left Heartstone but I'm not just going

to State all the bad things about the

game cuz there's a lot of good things

about the game that made me stick around

for so long and then now made me return

and come back so I'm going to switch

between like the good things and the bad

things about making content for

hearstone that I've noticed that made me

quit that made me come back all the [ __ ]

and then like what I've been doing in

the meantime and what other games I've

been trying out and why so basically I'm

going to start with a bad thing about

hearstone that uh made me quit multiple

times while I was actually just a

full-time content creator for it so I've

been making in case you guys don't know

and you're more recent to the channel

I've been making content for hearstone

for years and years I don't know exactly

when I started but I think it was around

when I was 18 that's like 7 years ago

but I made like guide videos at the

start and explained how hardstone Works

cuz I really like the game and I got

pretty good at it so I wanted to teach

people and I did like podcast I did all

sorts of stuff PG review I like coached

people but then of course uh the best

way to make money in hearstone as a

content creator is gamep playay is

getting really good at the game uh and

streaming the game for many hours and

just posting gameplay cuz it's easy to

post easy to make a lot of people want

to watch it it gets like more views than

guides almost which is kind of crazy and

it's easy to pump out you can't pump out

the quality guide every day gameplay you

can and they make more money simply

because the videos are longer and in

case you guys don't know longer videos

on YouTube make more money than shorter

videos so anyway if you want to make

full-time content for H soon you're just

a gameplay Creator who can throw in like

guides and stuff like that but the issue

with that is that it gets really

repetitive and really boring like I like

playing the game but I like making

content a lot as well and when the

content you have to make for the more

most part is like playing the game day

in day out posting game play to me that

burned me out many times out of

hearthstone and made me consider

quitting and so I took many breaks I

kept returning but the repetitiveness of

what is playing Hearthstone is

eventually what made me look for

different games as well I hope that

makes sense but yeah I'm not saying you

cannot make creative content for

hearstone cuz look at Ren Ren is the

best example of someone who was able to

create cool ideas for hearstone and

bring it to a massive audience and keep

doing that but yeah it's hard to do it

at the level that he does it

consistently now a good thing about

Hearthstone is that it looks like the

game will always have an audience I've

said like many times the game looks like

it's dying I've done many discussion

videos about this and many other people

in Twitter as well that horon is in

Decline the viewership is going down

it's all going to be like go to [ __ ]

basically the game is going to be dead

in a couple years but people have been

saying this literally like eight years

ago already that the game is going to

Die the game will never die like right

now I multiple harson streams open that

have thousands and thousands of viewers

live harston always had a massive twitch

category a lot of massive live viewers

and even on YouTube if I take a look at

like the latest gameplay videos of

people and like other creators so many

views still like so many people are

still always interested in hardstone

content it blows my mind I don't think

the game is ever dying so I think anyone

can just stick with hardstone and

probably do it fulltime for like I don't

know many more years to come so that's a

good thing about the game it's one of

the few games that seems Immortal even

though it is declining like very slowly

and it does go downhill the pie is just

so big everyone can still get a slice

from it if that makes sense so now into

another bad thing uh there always seems

to be some drama there were so many

videos I had to make about like them

cutting East Sports cost or just

canceling Esports or like higher ups

firing people or like drama within

blizzard I mean everyone knows the big

drama that happened many years ago it

always go through some [ __ ] um I

remember the monetization decisions that

they made how much money they charge for

stuff and like the a lot of things are

always questionable and we're always

thinking this is the end of it do you

remember run Stones when they were

introduced mercenaries I saw some [ __ ]

about twist like a new format that is

completely being butchered there's

always is some [ __ ] happening it's like

every couple months it's like [ __ ]

another another [ __ ] bad decision or

they're ruining the game but this keeps

on happening it feels really bad I hate

I I hate it but the game stays alive of

course the game will always survive like

some sort of Co cockroach like there can

be a [ __ ] nuke dropped on it and it's

still going to have a player base but it

still feels bad to receive that kind of

news on the regular so I that was just a

mood swing that I kind of wanted to get

rid of a good thing about hearts soon is

that the game is actually fun uh

surprise surprise but people play the

game because they enjoy it for the most

part or because they're hooked could be

dead but I enjoyed playing the game like

when I returned right now I actually

enjoyed playing Hearthstone even though

for a long time I didn't so a good thing

is that the game uh is fun I don't know

I just wrote down game can actually be

fun as a good point do it this in for

whatever the [ __ ] you want a bad thing

is that there is also drama within the

community a lot whenever I scroll on

Twitter it's usually usually like I

still follow a love of heartsome people

it's always like people complaining

about the state of standard or of wild

or of like some broken thing in

Battlegrounds there's always something

happening uh and I feel like most

communities have this but with

Hearthstone I notice it especially where

there is always something wrong um

within the game or the community also

the comment like I've made content out

for multiple different games uh the

common action for hearstone is usually

the worst people are always complaining

about something broken or like pointing

out tiny Miss plays and then they people

have like this superiority complex where

they have to be right and they know it

better and uh they have like a lot of

people also think the game is rigged

like I feel like the majority at this

point keep telling me that it is rigged

in favor of you having to spend money

even right now in these few videos I

posted I had like a comment of a guy

saying yeah you got [ __ ] there because

you didn't pay for the battle pass a

good thing again it's one of the best

card games and ala Battlers out there

and there's a lot of ala Batts a lot of

good ones but still hardson

Battlegrounds will always be up there

when it comes to the visuals and when it

comes to just the how it plays I've done

a video trying many different Auto

Battlers even right now I've been trying

a few but none of them feel as clean as

hardstone ever will again hardstone is

from like a massive company they have

their resources to make it and it's one

of the is is it the most popular card

game online I'm not 100% sure it's one

of them at least probably magic is going

to be up there as well but if you're

looking to play a card game many people

are going to go to hardstone it's great

for casuals many people play it on their

phone so another reason why the game

will always be big and will have a

player base and now one final bad point

that I'll discuss is that yeah like I

said content for it is very dry and

stale I always had like a need to make

cool content that's how I started out

this Channel with guides and stuff like

that and different many different

formats but the best content will always

be gameplay uh for the most part if

you're just streaming horse on

Battlegrounds right it's the most

consistent easy to do especially if

you're looking for Revenue uh so yeah I

wanted to experiment more and I wanted

to do more than just post gameplay every

single day of a game that I didn't even

enjoy playing that much anymore after a

while so uh basically a combination of

all of this is why I stayed why I left

why I keep going back but eventually I

decided to take a break from harstone

and try some other [ __ ] what I did

meanwhile was working for some other

harstone creators so for a few people I

helped with titles thumbnails I did some

editing for a while also did some

editing for people outside of

HearthStone for some valerant creators

so I've done just some freelance stuff

for other people because I do think it

gave me a good fundamental like basis to

help other creators with their content I

also started a valant channel and this

was probably the biggest breakthrough

because I made a video like one of the

First valant videos I made now has

600,000 views which is pretty good and

not too much later right now I have a

video that has 1.5 or 1.6 almost million

views for valerant a game that I'm not

that good at and I'm not an established

Creator in but it just showed me that

there is so much potential and good

content in different niches outside of

hearthstone if I can just upload a

couple valerant videos and on average to

do hundreds of thousands views I'm like

why the [ __ ] am I posting gameplay and

playing Battlegrounds right but of

course it's not going to be that easy um

I tried more big projects on valerant

some of them flopped and then I'm just

questioning is it even worth the time

where's the consistency but just hitting

that massive number on those few videos

makes me think that there is more in

this than just the hearstone gameplay

also many of you probably know but I

started playing backpack battles this is

a small indie game that got released I

got in it early

uh and I'm posting mainly gameplay for

it but this kind of gameplay feels

different than posting gameplay for

Hearthstone which I'll explain a little

bit but backpack battles has actually

been one of the more fun Auto battles

I've ever played I actually enjoy it

more than Hearthstone and it has a

really cool Community as well so let me

quickly talk to you about backpack

battles even though you're watching this

on horizone channel and you might not

care it's important to know the

difference between the two games so you

can understand why I moved to it and why

I think in the future it will actually

maybe do better than hearstone bold

assumption very H take I don't care

first of all the game feels really great

I think it has more creative expression

because I can play the game for hours

and hours and keep coming up with new

different Bulls almost on the daily

every day I play I have something new

that I'm playing and that is because of

the way that it works and Heartstone you

have like uh key pieces that you need to

hit you need to hit certain minions to

scale a composition around there's like

s bolts that you can play and tier list

and all that sort of stuff right and

backpack battles you can match almost

anything together in a backpack and make

it work so there's a million cool

interactions that you can still explore

possibilities and they're adding more

and more so at the start of backpack

this was not the case there were like a

couple builds that you kept forcing but

the deaths have been adding so much [ __ ]

over time and so many cool mechanics as

well where throughout the game you can

choose like different paths to go

towards and then it can nudge you in a

direction and there's again there's so

many interactions I still want to try

and I've played the game for hundreds

and hundreds of hours that I think

there's just way more creative

expression and cool stuff you can come

up with than with Hearthstone in

hearstone it's all like Ed around a a

few pieces and a few ways that you can

play the game and because of that I also

think there's higher skill expression

like I don't want to say the game is

harder to play than hor some

Battlegrounds cuz that's I don't know

exactly if that's going to be true but

it feels like there is way more to think

about in that game you have infinite

time Turing turns as well so you can

literally go into the tiny minuscal

details of why a play would be better

than other play economy is a really

important aspect like you have many ways

to gain more gold or to save gold going

into next rounds the way that sale items

work also nudge you into different

directions so you can work with sales in

the shop to buy maybe [ __ ] you normally

wouldn't again this going to be giving

you more creative builds that normally

you wouldn't be able to get but because

you got a sale item you can I just love

the mechanics in the game and I think

there's so much to think about and so

much cool [ __ ] you can do that I have

been preferring it way over Hearthstone

and lastly it's very chill again you

have no turn timer the rank system is a

bit wonky I hope they rework it but

there is no like try hard feel you can

try hard if you want but it just feels

way more laidback way more relaxed I

never raged as much in backpack as I did

in hardstone even though there is RNG

there is Randomness there's like

percentage based stuff I cannot get mad

at backpack like I do with hearstone and

every time I look at hearstone streamers

uh I know 50% chance that they're raging

and that they're tilted 50% chance that

they're actually enjoying the game

that's what it feels like for backpack

it's completely different also the

community is really nice comments are

always very wholesome and positive

compared to hardstone where a lot of it

is compl compling it just seems like

people are generally happier again I

don't want to put hesome in that battle

of a light you guys are hesome players

as well I'm not saying everyone is like

this I mean as a general observation

that's what it looks like okay I'm not

don't take any of this personally the

devs also care a lot same with

Hearthstone but it feels like again the

higher ups in Hearthstone make decisions

that kind of ruin the game while this is

more of an indie game so it's just

managed by literally two people they're

very active in Discord they're open for

communication I've talked to them

they're they're pretty chill and they

want to push out as much content as

possible they like their game and they

want the best for it and you can tell

there's a lot of updates currently

happening it's still I think in Pre

Early Access still release should be

happening by the end of this year and

they still have a lot of really cool

things planned so I keep staying hopeful

for it one downside though is that the

game has been dying so I was able to do

it fulltime for a bit but the game was

on a rapid decline even though it came

out of B it spiked for a little bit but

it was only a couple weeks and it was

back to being down so right now it's a

bit tough to make content for it full

time but because they have so many big

things planned for example real- time

matchmaking doesn't exist now they're

going to add that which means we can

start hosting tournaments and start

doing cool [ __ ] like that they're also

going to have mobile they don't have a

mobile version yet but once they have

that I think they game will do really

well so I think at full release it's

going to spike again and I hope it stays

a little higher than it does right now

but if not the game is kind of dying I

might have to look for something new

again that's just the way it goes I

guess if you like Bank on like a small

game to blow up and doesn't you're in

this weird spot and meanwhile I've also

been trying like more valerant content

some dadl as well I don't know if you

guys have heard of dadl is a new game

from Val I enjoy it a lot uh there's

again some cool creative stuff you can

do like making balls but overall it's

just a shooter I've just been

experimenting this time that I've been

away from hearstone basically that's why

I returned to Heartstone for a bit now

with a few gameplay videos The Nostalgia

it's just fun to pick it up again I I

felt like I was going back in time it's

also fun learning new things I love

exploring new things and figuring out

like all the new cards and the new

builds and stuff but once I learned most

of the new builds and the Trinkets and

everything and the interactions I

already started getting bored of it

because I started having games that were

just kind of repeats of games I already

played and I started seeing the Met

already of what people play in the end

game and what to play around and what to

buy like things already started becoming

repetitive even after just playing the

game for a couple days it feels very try

Hardy and less variation than backpack

maybe I'm a bit spoiled and also when it

comes to content like my game play I got

a lot of wholesome comments I appreciate

everyone who said they're happy to see

me back uh but it seems like right now

especially there's so many like you can

put it fish in the sea when I did hor

Stone content I was one of the not that

many people that uploaded gameplay uh I

was one of the few doing guides but

right now there's many more people doing

guides there's so many more people

uploading gameplay and getting good

views I feel like for me to make a

return it doesn't make a lot of sense

there's a lot of people that have been

at it longer that have a bigger

community that people are going to watch

I'm just uh I'm I'm just a guy that is

kind of washed at this point but

basically that should answer your

question I don't think I'll be posting

more hardstone gameplay only if I play

it more and I fun and I feel like a

video will do well I'll post it but

there's no real reason for me to like

put more effort and time into videos

that don't do well if that makes sense

so yeah that's my current situation I

don't really know what's going on I

haven't been knowing what's going on for

like a year part I kind of dipped out of

and I can't really return to I feel like

uh I could try more backpack but I'm

banking really on like the fil release

doing well I could start editing more

for other people that's the safest

option I can do thumbnails and titles

and editing for other people which is

what I've been doing as well I've been

trying some variety like trying indie

games uh deadlock valerant I don't know

uh I so I've just been kind of lost that

is uh the update that is what I think of

hearthstone why I returned why I left

what I've been up to why I've been

playing backpack uh there's probably

some [ __ ] I missed but yeah just an

update video cuz I've never done one and

I've left multiple times and done many

things and I have to keep re explaining

what I do so now I can just post this

video and that's it uh yeah I felt kind

of weird making this video there's a

reason why I never did an update video

but hope you enjoyed it nonetheless all

right take care have a good day