Why Gwent is not popular?

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I've been asking myself this question for a couple of months now: Why CDPR are not marketing harder Gwent? The conclusion I came up to is that they strive for perfection and enjoyable experience across all factions! If they wanted a huge boost with Homecoming they would have given the game to popular card-gamer streamers, they would have paid for more prolonged ads and some PR opinions and threads about Gwent. None of that happened except the YouTube ads that no one was seeing because of ADBlocks! Let's not lie to ourselves that CDPR did everything they could with the marketing when HC came out. On the contrary, they did almost to nothing! And that's because they test their game! Beta was part of a larger experiment of how the playstyle should work and what's the sweet spot for balancing! 3 rows and lots of thinning, along with hyper-synergy was not the way to go because of lots of different reasons!
-first: EXTREMELY hard to balance,
-second: pre-decided matches,
-third: decks consisting only of synergy cards making the other 70% of the cards not even an option of this playstyle of decks

With HC they shook those weaknesses, however they didn't test enough the HC version of Gwent, so the existing community of Gwent got through a second Beta cycle with HC and with the first expansion CC and SY introduced we started to see what was good before and what's good now, how the cards should be balanced and how the game should play out! This community went through a lot of changes along with the developers of the game but I believe only for the better!

Now imagine working as a Co-founder/Founder of CDPR: you own one of the most beloved franchises in the history of gaming, and you are struggling to market a game that is as good as Gwent? I mean compare the art-style, the voice actors, the depth and mechanics this game has to other franchises. It's not coming close to anything! MTG is something I can debate about that is close to Gwent in those departments, but in Gwent, I don't have to sell my left kidney so I can play the next expansion on a competitive level and play in tournaments! So what CDPR is doing right now is completing the game with the help of the community, balancing cards, rushing on new factions and making the game to reach its highest potential so that when Mobile comes out, they can focus their resources not on a new expansion to keep the game fresh but on aggressive marketing and streamers, ads, pr, etc. Because when you have a game where all factions are viable with lots of different playstyles that are competitive your game will always be fresh and you will preserve the current player base and the newcomers will feel like they have a choice of how they want to play the game, not only net-deck Gudrun and spam one playstyle!

After so much brainstorming I couldn't find any other reason than that CDPR want this game to be as balanced and as fun as possible with as much variaty as leaders there are in Gwent, before marketing it to other people. Everything in this game screams perfection! From the art-work to the unorthodox playstyle, it's all-around a ONE OF A KIND experience and I am CERTAIN that there is an untapped Gwent community out there that simply don't know that this game exists!
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rrc

Forum veteran
I kind of agree to your point. I believe that even the official tournaments are held back for a long time so that when the tournament happens, the game is kind of balanced. So many pro players are constantly complaining about the void of tournaments (and announcements) but CDPR just brushes them off. Some of the vehement supporters have moved to other games like Underlords or TFT mainly quoting that Gwent doesn't offer anything for the pro players (to participate in tournament and make money). Even the streams are suffering.. hardly 1k people ever watch streams. All because of (or mainly because) of the void of official tournaments and pro players have been screaming at CDPR about it.

May be this July balance update was planned long back and they wanted to have the tournament when all factions' bronzes are as good and as strong as SK bronzes. I sincerely hope after September we would be having regular tournaments and gather the interest of the public.
 
May be this July balance update was planned long back and they wanted to have the tournament when all factions' bronzes are as good and as strong as SK bronzes. I sincerely hope after September we would be having regular tournaments and gather the interest of the public.
Yea and also to further this point CDPR as a company wants to see if the game will succeed to a degree after mobile release and all the changes they did throughout this year. I assume they will give another sponsor streams to Kripp, Trump, thijs and other popular streamers and give the game a second chance after the beta. However, if the September tournament does not succeed and mobile is not a popular enough product and does not make money I assume they will just put the game on life-support...
 
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Thanks for your kind words! All I can say is we are doing everything we can to make Gwent the best it can be and am getting pretty excited about everything we have planned.
I love your game and every decision you've made makes sense for both sides of the spectrum, I don't have the patience to see what you are going to bring in the near future! The upcoming bronze changes are like a mini-expansion for Gwent and the community is positive that this change will bring Gwent to its former glory! Keep up the amazing work and love talking to you guys! You are great!
 
Because the game in beta was entirely different from HC. And it was bad. Most people from Beta left because they couldn't recognise Gwent anymore, and I felt the same. I haven't played it ever since. Especially with leaving out cards like Radovid and Dijkstra. And changing everything to two rows.
 
With the release of Syndicate i started to play Gwent again, easy climb to prorank and enjoyed it (Only faction i didn't use during the climb was NR). Looking forward the bronze-buff patch, really hope they make weather good again.
 
Because the game in beta was entirely different from HC. And it was bad. Most people from Beta left because they couldn't recognize Gwent anymore, and I felt the same. I haven't played it ever since. Especially with leaving out cards like Radovid and Dijkstra. And changing everything to two rows.
This post is not a comparison to beta Gwent! I really want to avoid discussions of that sort and avoid that "beta is better than HC" subject! We had already a thread that was focused on this comparison it was closed. Let's stop with this and move on. I see you are still invested in Gwent if you are talking about beta 1 year later!
 
This post is not a comparison to beta Gwent! I really want to avoid discussions of that sort and avoid that "beta is better than HC" subject! We had already a thread that was focused on this comparison it was closed. Let's stop with this and move on. I see you are still invested in Gwent if you are talking about beta 1 year later!
[ . . . ] But at least now you know why quite a few players left. Sure, you can move on from it. But stop asking questions like 'Why is it not popular anymore?' or 'Why is it not getting promoted?', because CD projekt lost hardcore player base after HC.
 
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Guest 4305932

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It doesn't need to be saved. Now it as a future.

About OP question I think they are not yet confident about the general state of the game. After the big faction rebalance, the return of pro scene and the mobile release i think we will see more advertisement. Plus for now the main focus of CDPR is probably Cyberpunk.
 
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Doing nothing with the game for 6 months didn't do them favors in terms of popularity. Then when homecoming arrived the launch wasn't so great and the game still needed plenty of work. If they can get the game in a strong state that feels balanced and then put a lot of work into advertising it we might see it become popular again.
 
[ . . . ] But at least now you know why quite a few players left. Sure, you can move on from it. But stop asking questions like 'Why is it not popular anymore?' or 'Why is it not getting promoted?', because CD projekt lost hardcore player base after HC.
It's a rhetorical question if you haven't read the post, I answer the question that is probably on the minds of some people and I just make some suggestions as of why this is the case.
First of all, I don't ask the question "Why Gwent is not popular ANYMORE?" because Gwent's peak was not so big in Beta to say now that HC is so much worse. In general, Gwent does not receive the popularity that it deserved neither with Beta nor with HC! Second, the fact that there was some outrage by some people doesn't mean CDPR "lost" hardcore player base because a lot of people play and support the game to this day and a lot of new blood comes as well! Finally, I don't know how many times I am going to say it but I am getting tired of discussing the beta fiasco. Beta Gwent suffered from a lot of problems, the fact that there is some vocal MINORITY that brings beta to this day is just boggling my mind and it makes every discussion about the game negative for me. Focus on the present and stop mourning about the past. Thank you!
 
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It's a rhetorical question if you haven't read the post, I answer the question that is probably on the minds of some people and I just make some suggestions as of why this is the case.
First of all, I don't ask the question "Why Gwent is not popular ANYMORE?" because Gwent's peak was not so big in Beta to say now that HC is so much worse. In general, Gwent does not receive the popularity that it deserved neither with Beta nor with HC! Second, the fact that there was some outrage by some people doesn't mean CDPR "lost" hardcore player base because a lot of people play and support the game to this day and a lot of new blood comes as well! Finally, I don't know how many times I am going to say it but I am getting tired of discussing the beta fiasco. Beta Gwent suffered from a lot of problems, the fact that there is some vocal MINORITY that brings beta to this day is just boggling my mind and it makes every discussion about the game negative for me. Focus on the present and stop mourning about the past. Thank you!

Why try to ban discussion about Beta? Beta lasted twice as long as Homecoming has. It had like twice the players too. It's a huge part of Gwent's history. If you cant handle that people liked that game better that's fine, but don't try to shut everyone down from talking about it.
 

Guest 4305932

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Why try to ban discussion about Beta? Beta lasted twice as long as Homecoming has. It had like twice the players too. It's a huge part of Gwent's history. If you cant handle that people liked that game better that's fine, but don't try to shut everyone down from talking about it.


But maybe at a certain point people should understand that beta will not return and keep repeating "beta was better!!" like a crazy obsessed ex doesn't help any actual discussion We are still talking about a videogame, I'm really sorry that you don't like it but come on. The dude op is responding to wrote the first post in a year just to say "beta good, HC bad". Op discussion is not about beta, there's no need to make every discussion you go in about beta. It's gone , it's time to deal with it.
 
Why try to ban discussion about Beta? Beta lasted twice as long as Homecoming has. It had like twice the players too. It's a huge part of Gwent's history. If you cant handle that people liked that game better that's fine, but don't try to shut everyone down from talking about it.
Look, I am not trying to "ban" (not only because I can't) but because it's a good discussion to have. That being said when we try to compare/remind ourselves of the Beta days there are always attacks on the developers/people who like HC or simply on the current game itself! I want to avoid this discussion not because I don't like it, on the contrary, I think sometimes it helps appreciate what was good back then and look towards those changes, but we always end up in the same wagon with quotes like "Current Gwent sucks"; "Half the players are gone"; "Bring back beta Gwent" etc.

Devs have already responded about their feeling of Beta Gwent and were very delicate, yet firm that Beta Gwent will stay a single-player experience in The Witcher 3 Universe and there are no plans right now of coming back. So you see when there were so many discussions about this topic I find it pointless to kick a dead body hoping for an answer, of course, you are always open in doing so, I will and I can't stop you!
Hope this clarifies my previous answers on the subject!
Best regards!
 
Gwent definitly deserves more attention and I hope for a bigger player base in the near future. I have the impression that it is slowly progressing in that direction but it is not based on any numbers just personal feeling. Streamers get some more views and all together the streamer community is growing. You can even see players like KingBlackToof, Swim or Mogwai (rarly) stream some Gwent.

The time seems right for Gwent. Artifact doesn´t seem to come back and a lot of players seem to be annoyed by HS or just look for a different game experience. I think if CDPR keeps on pushing the game like they did this year it will be a succes story (player numbers, sales, popularity).
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Don´t forget when Homecoming was released the hype for Artifact was on its peak and also MTG Arena was published. Some players were disappointed with Homecoming and tried Artifact. But instead of returning to Gwent directly they tried MTG Arena.
 
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