In conjunction with the upcoming release of Journey to Un'Goro, Blizzard has announced via a forum post that they will be raising the prices of all Hearthstone packs. This news will come as a huge surprise to many given that a common complaint about Hearthstone is that the packs are already expensive.
"We'd like to let everyone know that we'll soon be adjusting the pricing of Hearthstone purchases made through the PC, Mac and Android clients, and through the Battle.net Shop. We regularly look at our pricing around the world, and from time to time we make changes such as these to align with local and regional market conditions. The price of the Un'Goro prelaunch bundle offer will not be affected by this change and will remain the same until launch," the game's community manager wrote.
For comparison, prior to the change, two packs would set you back £1.99 GBP. The change will see a 50% increase to £2.99, while the previous price for seven packs of £6.99 has seen a 28% increase to £8.99. However, continental European players will only see an 11% increase across the board. If you head over to Reddit there's a helpful table that lets you compare new and old prices.
Based on the reactions we've seen, some players are now considering quitting or going completely free-to-play instead of dropping more money on the game. Blizzard doesn't have the manufacturing costs that come with producing physical cards like Magic The Gathering, and with its new plan to release three expansions per year, it was expected that the company would slightly lower prices to entice more players to invest, rather than increase them.
Journey To Un'Goro, the upcoming expansion, arrives next month and you can read more on it here.