Update 8:58 PM EDT: Added some strings.

Buying Arcane Dust? Blizzard Gets Around Loot Box Regulations in China

This evening a new patch hit the Hearthstone CDN for the Chinese servers. Included in this patch are some minor text adjustments and an interesting couple of new images which change the store over to a "purchase Arcane Dust" mode.

This is very likely only to ever be China only change.

It has been confirmed that players in China now purchase Dust from the in-game shop.

Upon purchase of Arcane Dust, players receive a gift from Blizzard with Card Packs equal to the amount of Arcane Dust Purchased.

This is to get around the new gambling laws (see speculation section below) surrounding loot boxes in games.



Thanks to nobravery for the image provided via iyingdi.com.

Datamined Images

A new file for the StoreSwitchButtons was added which contains a CN suffix. This is usually an indicator that this image is only going to be used on clients which connect to the Chinese server. This file has an Arcane Dust Jar button in the usual spot for the button for card packs (see difference below).

In addition to this image, a StoreFrontIcon was also added for Dust to match the button above.

New Strings

There's some great new strings available.

Quote from HearthPwn GLUE_CHINA_STORE_BOOSTER_GIFT - Gift:

{0} Packs

- Gift:

{0} Packs GLUE_CHINA_STORE_WELCOME_BUNDLE_GIFT_1 - Gift:



10 Packs

- Gift:



10 Packs GLUE_CHINA_STORE_WELCOME_BUNDLE_GIFT_2 - 1 Legendary Card

- 1 Legendary Card GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_DETAILS_HEADLINE_DUST - Dust Bundles:

- Dust Bundles: GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_NAME_DUST {0} |4(Dust,Dust) with {1} {2} Gift |4(Pack,Packs) 0=quantity of dust, 1=quantity of packs, 2=pack type

GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_DETAILS_FIRST_PURCHASE_BUNDLE_DUST 10 Dust which also includes: 10 Classic packs and 1 random Classic class-specific legendary minion Each pack has 5 cards, with at least 1 Rare or better Dust can be used to craft cards in the Collection Manager

GLUE_STORE_PRODUCT_DETAILS_DUST Your Dust comes with a set of packs Each pack contains 5 {0} Hearthstone Cards and at least 1 card will be Rare or better Dust can be used to craft cards in the Collection Manager



Speculation

Update: This isn't speculation anymore since it's now live. Leaving this information because its important.

Out of pure speculation, my guess would be that this could be a backup plan in case Chinese regulatory agencies aren't happy with the way Blizzard presented the drop rates of cards thanks to the Loot Box regulations law. Should China ultimately want more information on the card packs, forcing people to buy dust instead of card packs would be a good way around giving up their secret sauce. It's even possible that you buy some arcane dust and as a reward, Blizzard gives you "free" card packs along with that purchase as a "bonus". Time will certainly tell!

What Do You Think?

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