Hearthstone has been running for almost 10 years now with relatively minimal changes to its monetization strategies. That’s changing soon, with a big update that will introduce a real-money currency and even a change to its popular Battlegrounds mode that fans are calling pay-to-win.
Starting with the 24.2 update, all real-money transactions will be bought with a new premium currency called Runestones. That change is coming alongside some big changes for Battlegrounds Season 2, like the addition of a Battlegrounds-specific season pass and some changes to the paid perks.
Fans on the Hearthstone subreddit have been criticizing the announcement, and those criticisms really come down to two main complaints.