Few people know what to make of the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood mobile game. By reputation it’s boring, vapid, materialistic, and shallow—according to many serious gamers—and is deplorable not least because players can spend money to get ahead. The wails only grew louder when reports indicated that the game earned $1.6 million in its first five days and is on track to make $200 million in annual revenue, according to one analyst.

While many gamers and gaming journalists struggled to figure out why anyone would spend money on a game made by and featuring a reality TV star, we aren’t totally in the dark. For one, casting shade on the subject matter is a value judgment of a certain set of interests and lifestyle. And on a meta level, how people use their leisure time. Let he who has lived every moment deliberately immersed in deep consideration of the universe cast the first Angry Bird. Materialism in games probably does not cause materialism in the streets.

For another, Kim K is actually pretty self-aware of its own materialism and glorification of social climbing and has a sense of irony about the world it gives players to try and thrive in. To wit, one of the things you can spend in-game money on is new body parts.

The validity of its material aside, Kim K is just one in a sea of freemium games and in a growing puddle of extremely successful ones. It’s not alone in the amount of derision it gets for goading its players into spending money—some of them hundreds of dollars, but many around $20. Even for those modest amounts, they get attacked for being “what’s wrong with the world” and being “disgusting.”



Yet even as Real Gamers pass judgment on players spending money in the Kim K’s and Candy Crushes of the world, they are spending good money in a freemium game of their own. Spending money in Blizzard’s Hearthstone is some gamers’ secret shame, but in terms of reputation it seems to walk the line pretty easily among people who would not be caught dead with Kim K installed due in part to its semi-shameless money-grabbing.

So what’s a freemium game gotta do to get gamers to feel good about spending money on it? We asked a few Hearthstone players about their investments, both in time and money, to see how much real gamers spend on a real gamer’s game. Not everyone is investing currency, but those who don’t are paying in other ways. Oh, they are paying.

Josh Fjelstad, Creative Manager, BuzzFeed

Money spent: $100

Time spent: 70 hours

I’m not totally sure what the overall amount is, but I started off only playing Arena because I read on the Hearthstone subreddit that it offers the most bang for your buck, but the qualifier is that you have to win at least four games to make it more worthwhile than simply buying packs. After experimenting with that and typically winning just three games before being KO’d, I usually just buy packs now. I’d say $10 on Arena matches, $90 on packs (ugh).

You just reach a point where you understand the strategy and how to build an effective deck for certain heroes, but you just can’t make it further in the ladder without possessing certain (often specific “epic” or “legendary”) cards. It’s just faster to spend the money rather than acquiring gold and dust, unfortunately. I played more in the beginning, but these days I still play 3–4 hours a week.

Kyle Orland, Gaming Editor, Ars Technica

Money spent: $0

Time spent: 250 hours

Overall I’ve probably played at least 1,000 individual games and I have yet to spend a penny. Arena mode is actually my favorite way to play the game, and tends to get packs at a cheaper gold rate than buying them directly, so why would I pay money to skip the actual fun of playing? I kind of pride myself on not spending money on these games, it’s like a meta-game to increase the difficulty on yourself. If they design them so you will want or have to spend money and if you can get around that, and still have fun, you have beaten them at their own game. I made it to level 201 of Candy Crush without spending a dime. (Braggart. - Ed.)

Sam Biddle, Editor, Valleywag

Money spent: $40

Time spent: about 24 hours

I think I’ve spent around $40 in the past couple months? I’m still very bad at Hearthstone. I don’t think spending a lot more money would make me profoundly better at the game. I’m sure I’ll spend a little more just because it’s fun to open the packs and see what you got. It’s a very comforting childhood experience. I think in-app purchases are a pretty awful trend in gaming, but I really do mean it when I say Blizzard has made the in-app purchasing thing feel rewarding and not like they’re trying to bleed money from you. It’s all pixels, but it’s very gratifying. It’s totally possible to have a lot of fun with Hearthstone and be VERY good at it without spending a dime. Blizzard built it that way on purpose, and it’s commendable.

Steve Unwin, Editor-in-Chief, VaynerMedia

Money spent: $115

Time spent: 70–80 hours

A quick search through my bank account shows around $115 spent in total (god help me). Out of all that, there was only one Arena run—saving that gold from daily quests is pretty trivial with way better payoff than spending it on packs. I spent $20 on Naxxramas. The rest is all on card packs.

My spending is likely to drop off pretty significantly, as I’m getting fairly close to having a complete set. It’s getting to the point where all I need is dust to craft legendaries, and arena is better for that kind of thing. If they expand the core set after Naxx, that could change, I suppose.

Aaron Zimmerman, Copy Editor, Ars Technica

Money spent: $20

Time spent: 250 hours

I spent $20 on card packs when I was first starting, and I’m going to buy Curse of Naxxramas for another $20. Buying more card packs right now would be a bad investment for my collection since I already have a majority of the cards currently released. It’s pretty easy to play without paying once you get going, especially if you’re good at Arena. I’d say the adventures (like Naxx) are where people like me will end up spending most of their money.

Alexander Sliwinski, News Content Director, Joystiq

Money spent: $50

Time spent: 33 hours

Between being News Content Director at Joystiq and finishing off my masters, I haven’t had much time to play games. Without the payment, it would have taken me at least a year to acquire the cards I have now, or to get really lucky in the arena, which wasn’t going to happen. The payment was enough to get me the cards I needed to make the most viable decks in the game. Those decks have made getting through daily quests faster and made me competitive in the Naxxramas expansion and against most players I meet.

Overall, I’ve spent about 20 minutes a day playing Hearthstone since the game launched on iOS in April, even though at the time I played it on PC. I now refer to my iPad as the “Portable Hearthstone Device.” I use it for nothing else.

Greg Tito, Editor-in-Chief, Escapist

Money spent: $0

Time spent: 15 hours

Even though I love Hearthstone and talk about it regularly, I’m actually a pretty casual player. I’ve invested no real money on cards or packs or arena, and I probably only play around five hours a month on the game.

Joel Johnson, Editorial Director, Gawker

Money spent: $50

Time spent: 50 hours

I spent about $50—mostly on cards and probably $8 on Arena—because I wanted to. Frucci beat me with one deck like 10 times in a row. He has this one deck that is just brutal. I haven't had a chance to build a deck to counter it.

Adam Frucci, Editor, Splitsider

Money spent: $50

Time spent: “10–15 hours”

I spent $20 on the new expansion levels, probably $20 on cards, and another $10 or so on the arena. I go through bursts of a few days where I play a ton then I don’t play it for a couple of weeks until I remember that it’s there and I get sucked back in. I’ve been beating Joel with two decks—a Warlock deck that is frontloaded with cheaper cards and then supported by a bunch of mid-level cards that buff the cheap cards, and a Priest deck that’s more balanced but is weighted to benefit from that class’ healing powers, with a bunch of potential high-hitting combos built into it. They’re good decks, but Joel is terrible so it’s pretty easy. Please print that Gawker bigwig Joel Johnson is terrible at Hearthstone and that his sister beat him while playing her second game ever.

Total money spent across nine players: $425

Total hours spent: 805 hours