Hearthstone is a great example of Blizzard making free-to-play online games with an excellent monetisation plan and supporting them for long periods.
For the uninitiated, Hearthstone is a card game that released back in 2014 and the launch of the latest expansion — Rise of Shadows — brought me back to the game once more.
With each new expansion of Hearthstone the metagame changes quite a bit. This is necessary to keep experienced players engaged and offer them a fresh challenge.
However for players who haven't played Hearthstone for some time, there's a steep learning curve. This is why I prefer exploring the single-player part of Hearthstone's expansions over multiplayer.
Blizzard's strategy is to release the new cards in multiplayer first and release single-player later and I'll be sure to write about Rise of Shadows' single-player mode when it's out in May.