Yes, some people do, I like it as well, but why do you feel entitled to it?
I will see how skin prices changed tonight or tomorrow (didn’t have time to play the game since patch) so cannot comment on current prices, but what I said was consistent up to this patch and I stand behind my claims (I am active player since alpha).
What you have to realize tho is that free online games doesn’t have some direct way how to monetize development and maintenance costs. With standard games you pay when you purchase it and that’s considered as a payment for the product and its development time. With games like WoW you also pay monthly subscription which is considered a fee for maintenance and continuous development costs.
But what to do with free to play games? You need something to cover those things. And you either go with nasty practice of offering in game advantages such as better weapons or more powerful skills for money, or, like HotS, you offer only cosmetics.
Now it’s obvious that cosmetic items itself might be cheap to create compared to costs of the whole game and if you would pay to cover only costs of creation of legendary skin it might be as low as 1-2€, but company needs to cover also maintenance and development costs with this. And also feed the investors, otherwise they just cancel the game, they are not charity unfortunately (and yes, sometimes their demands are killing the industry, but that’s other story).
So as long as Blizz do not offer any “auto attack boost” or “self heal item” for gems, I’m ok with any price they decide to put on their products. Ultimately, I as a customer vote with my wallet. And if they are unable to get my cash they might re-evaluate their pricing (like they did in current patch and finally allowed nearly direct payments for skins again). If they are unable to adapt to market demands or if it’s impossible to cover costs by market demands, they just close the game and I’m fine with that option as well.
Or that. Personally i dont need to as Nazeebo who is my most played hero i dont play anymore and Samuro i only play when the team doesnt play any useful finisher/sololaner.
Speaking of our next few releases, you probably noticed that our Lunar New Year seasonal event hasn’t hit yet, but fear not – that’s just because we’ve reimagined it as our Spring Event. Last year we had a ton of fun with our unique seasonal events like Nexomania in Summer, The Fall of King’s Crest in Fall, and Toys in Winter, and we’d like to continue exploring fun new universes and themes to coincide with each season moving forward. Stay tuned for all the details on our Spring Event next month, and know that we’ll not only be bringing back our previous limited-time Lunar New Year content, but we’ll also unveil an exciting, all-new skin theme to round out this year’s event.
Which, frankly, was glaringly obvious from when the Fall Event hit earlier than it previously had.
Since they incorporated the Lunar Festival into a spring event, if it’s not called Lunar Festival (that basically should be ongoing by now since the lunar new year started some time ago) it isn’t a Lunar Festival.
So… you’re saying that Hallow’s End was cancelled because with had a Fall Event (Fall of King’s Crest) with the same contents, Sun’s Out, Guns Out was cancelled because of the Summer Event (Nexomania)?
Hardly the same as the original premise of this post.