Everybody knows the name Blizzard Entertainment. The simple mention of the company brings about, for many, a sense of grandeur in game development. There are very few developers who are able to match what the developer has managed to achieve over the past decade. However, Blizzard's lust for cash may end up stifling the impactfulness of their newest title: Heroes of the Storm.
The first of the issues facing Heroes of the Storm is the "talent gating" system that Blizzard uses on character progression. This makes some of your characters' talents unavailable until you reach account level 30–effectively forcing you to play characters up to level 4, which takes a fair amount of grind. While this doesn't necessarily have any big monetary implications, it's a definite burr in the saddle for most players.
Fans, however, have expressed their disapproval of Blizzard's multiple, layered microtransactions–objecting to the high prices of new characters in Heroes of the Storm in particular.
One Redditor did the math, and here's what it costs to buy every current hero in the game with in-game gold VS USD:
Cost to buy every hero with gold: 217,000 gold
Cost to buy every hero with USD: $226.27
In essence, you're looking at playing with one character at a base power level until level 30, unless you opt to spend money on the game. There are definite free-to-play options available, but they seem to sap some fun from Heroes of the Storm, which while still in its infancy, holds a lot of promise.
Update: Talent gating is being removed from Heroes of the Storm, as per a Blizzard post:
