Dear CDPR: please, stop killing the game

This is a followup to this post from about three or four months ago. The title may sound melodramatic but this is intentional, I am trying to draw attention. Feel free to downvote or say get good etc, I'm just trying to get an analysis out there.

Is Gwent dying?

My last irl friend who I introduced to Gwent stopped playing the other day. The reason he cited? "Just got sick of facing that Renfri chick all the time, it got boring." This is not some rando who was just incompatible with the game or something, this is a dude who is a huge witcher fan and CCG fan, and who played Gwent for quite a few months and reached Pro rank. And for the first time, I feel like doing quitting as well. This is obviously just two random players, but I believe the issue runs far deeper than that. I love Gwent and I want it to be good and fun but lately I get sadder and sadder looking at the state of the game, which is why I am writing this as a sort of (likely futile) cry for help.

This is the Steam charts page for Gwent. It is pretty obvious the trend here. Now I realize that this doesn't account for mobile players who make up a lot of Gwent's playerbase. And I am not saying Gwent is doomed or sinking or whatever. Queue times are still fast and the player count is still relatively healthy compared to many games. Also, it is impossible to know internal trends regarding player count, online interest in the game/content about it, etc, because I do not have access to much info and I'm not trying to write a research paper here.

But it does seem like there is an obvious general decline, both in player count and in opinions on the game, both here and elsewhere online. Yes this reddit is notorious for complaining, but I have heard similar things about Gwent from my irl friends, other forums/reviews, and even pro players and content creators (if there's anyone you should listen to it's probably them).

What is the problem with Gwent?

I'd like to discuss for a moment what makes a multiplayer live-service game popular and successful. Imo these are the most important things, not necessarily in order:

• Advertising
  • Gwent has virtually no advertising, I don't think I have seen an ad for the game in like 3 years. In fact, my friends who are Witcher fans had literally no idea that there was a multiplayer standalone Gwent until I told them (you are welcome CDPR! I made you guys like 20 bucks because one friend bought a journey and one bought a starter pack!)
  • Part of this may be because it is a fairly niche game being based on the Witcher, and card games are not extremely popular to begin with. However, games like Hearthstone or LoR are still successful and the Witcher as an IP is pretty strong (and CDPR as a company is big enough to compete).
  • Thus, imo there is not really an excuse to not even advertise the game in like, the Witcher 3 main menu, or even Cyberpunk which has some exclusive goodies for Gwent. It just feels like a massive blunder when there are many who would likely enjoy Gwent but just don't know it exists.
• Quality and Engaging Core Gameplay
  • In theory, Gwent's core gameplay is extremely strong, and Gwent is very friendly to new players with lots of cards and goodies. Gwent's art, design, sound, etc is absolutely top tier.
    • The 3 rounds system is unique and encourages a skill > RNG gameplay where you can bluff and outplay your opponent.
    • In fact, Gwent addresses many of the problems people have with other card games such as them being pay to win or annoying RNG-fests tailored towards kids
  • Unfortunately, this strong base is marred by problems
    • I am not going to discuss specific balance issues here. All I will say is that for some months the balance has been deteriorating rapidly and greatly damaging the experience. As someone who has played for several years now, I can confidently say that I am having the least amount of fun in Gwent I have ever had
    • Gwent can be intimidating for beginners due to the large amount of mechanics and effects
    • Gwent is tailored to a mature audience, which I personally really appreciate but likely misses out on the vast audience of kiddos who are happy to use mommy's credit card to buy Gems in Supercell games or whatever
• Content Updates and Additions
  • In my opinion this is where Gwent MASSIVELY misses the mark. All of the top multiplayer games have a steady stream of content, but Gwent's recently has been sporadic, weak, and actually often did more HARM than good (more on that in a second).
  • Gwent has an okay amount of new cards and cosmetics, but for a while, new cards have actually narrowed the variety in gameplay, because they are so obviously overtuned that they make older cards obsolete creating unfun metas that drive people away
    • I'm not sure if the expansion packs rake in good money, because people really want the new OP cards. And a bit of powercreep is probably unavoidable. But the release state of some cards was LAUGHABLY unbalanced by any assessment which I believe does more harm than good (I am told cards like Renfri were initially even stronger and we have the Pro testing discord server to thank they were tempered for release, which is kind of terrifying)
  • Gwent has regular events which are awesome. But the monthly patches have been weaker and weaker recently, in terms of both balancing existing problems, as well as buffing/reworking old archetypes to viability, which was supposedly the main goal this year
    • Gwent also does not add much new cosmetics, which is surprising to me as this is the main form of monetization for many games and there are SO MANY opportunities for great cosmetics, even low effort ones

So what should be done? + the Money Problem

It seems that the flagging development of Gwent is because it is not making enough money. To be honest, I am not a financial genius and I have little real experience in the field, and I also have no idea the internal state of Gwent/CDPR. But I am a Compsci/Business student and I have played a lot of video games and seen how the successful ones monetize. I'm not sure if it's intentional or CDPR just doesn't care about Gwent, but the monetization in Gwent is pretty woeful with the exception of Journeys (please release more journeys!).

• Gwent is almost TOO rewarding for free to play players. I am prepared to be crucified for this, but it is just a fact. You can get basically anything you want in terms of cards in a reasonable time just for playing which is lovely and user friendly, but sadly out of date with the industry.
  • I am not saying to make the game pay to win, I'm just trying to assess what is different between Gwent/competitors and other games
• Gwent needs sweeping balance changes. There are dozens of cards which are massively overtuned, this can be seen at a glance. And on the flip side, there are hundreds of cards which are completely and utterly useless. In most cases, a complicated rework is not even necessary- just number tweaks which could be done in a few minutes would help a great deal.
  • I believe this would help player retention a lot, as well as high level play. I would happily take no new cards for a long while if it meant they actually put effort into balancing existing ones. This seemed to be the outlook early 2022, but started to go down the drain with Forgotten Treasures onwards.
• Gwent does not focus enough on COSMETICS! Games such as Fortnite, Rocket League, recently Overwatch get away with mediocre/formulaic/rarely changing gameplay because they crank out vast amounts of monetized cosmetics. Obviously they need the player base to begin with, and shooters/a driving game are very different from a CCG. But there is something that irks me a little bit:
  • Gwent's art, sound, and the cosmetics we do have are absolutely FANTASTIC. Objectively among the best of any game I have seen. The cardbacks, boards, leaders all are really great because you see them in game, your opponent sees them, voicelines and animations are skin-dependent, overall it is awesome.
    • The only things I have bought myself have been cosmetic, because I never felt pressed to buy gameplay-related stuff and I wanted support the devs + play as my favorite Witcher characters
    • However, the Gwent shop is terrible for encouraging people to buy stuff. You go into an unintuitive menu that has a bunch of random sections, with the cosmetic section being named "Ornaments" which doesn't make much sense. "Customization" or a different term would be much better, as would the shop being more pushed to the forefront in the UI in general.
    • I have literally missed cosmetics I would have 100% bought, such as original Gaunter, because there was just a one time popup and then no indication that it was a thing and where to buy it. Also there are sometimes very expensive bundles (40+ USD) with no option to buy individual items, which has on multiple occasions prevented me from buying something like a coin, cardback, or skin. Thus making CDPR $0 instead of $5 or whatever they would have priced the individual item at.
  • CDPR seems to take a quality over quantity approach to cosmetics, making them extremely detailed and artistically impressive. This is commendable, but I honestly don't think this is wholly necessary, and the Witcher has a lot of content which would be perfect for Gwent and would take less or even virtually zero dev time. For example:
    • Tracks from the mainline Witcher games/Thronebreaker as Gwent music tracks
    • Alternate Art for cards based on the art from W3 Gwent or Thronebreaker
    • Card borders similar to the ones in Rogue Mage (there is already a mod that makes this a thing)
    • Coins or cardbacks based on iconic witcher factions/characters/locations, or imagery that already exists in Gwent. It is honestly kind of crazy that we don't have coins or cardbacks with just the faction or leader ability symbols, cardbacks with stuff like Redanian or Temerian flags, SK clan shields, SY gang sigils, etc. I would buy a cardback that was just the Temerian lilies because well, "Temeria! That's what matters!"
    • I think if CDPR put the effort in for more small monetization regarding cosmetics, perhaps with a combination for small stuff being Meteorite Powder (since it appears to be a pseudo-premium currency) and higher quality items being real money, Gwent could make a lot of cash. At least it would from me.

To sum up, I love Gwent and I hope its course is righted. I don't want to see it die like other games I've played, and I hope CDPR at least does something, anything before it's too late.

If you disagree or have another opinion feel free to attack me in the comments or whatever. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

-A depressed and disappointed Gwent lover