WoW Token Launches Tomorrow - 30,000 Gold For 30 Days Game Time

[Steven Bogos]

WoW Token Launches Tomorrow - 30,000 Gold For 30 Days Game Time

The WoW token can be bought from the in-game Blizzard store for $20 USD.

The WoW Token [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139987-WoW-Token-Allows-Players-to-Buy-Game-Time-With-Gold-Gold-With-Cash] is an exciting new feature for World of Warcraft that finally allows both particularly enterprising gamers to turn their in-game gold investments into game time, and time-pressed gamers with money to burn to turn real-world money into gold. Announced last month but without a release date, Blizzard has finally revealed that it will go live... tomorrow!

First, why don't you check out the informative video walk-through Blizzard has provided to the right of this post.

For a brief summary: The WoW Token will be going live in the Americas region (North America, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand) on April 7 when maintenance concludes, at approximately 10 a.m. PDT. It will set you back $20 USD/$25 AUD from the in-game Shop, and will be set at a starting price of 30,000 gold in the Auction House across the Americas region.

However, that 30,000 gold figure will fluctuate with player demand. "Simply put, if more WoW Tokens are being listed than are being purchased, the price will automatically drift downward over time. If people are purchasing Tokens from the Auction House faster than they're being put up for sale, then prices will go up accordingly," explained Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18390557/wow-token-coming-april-7-4-6-2015]

Furthermore, you'll only be able to purchase 10 tokens within a 30-day period, to limit players' ability to completely flood the market.

Source: Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18390557/wow-token-coming-april-7-4-6-2015]

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[Grumman]

I will point out a couple of things that people may have missed.

1. You cannot take a token off the market once you put it up for sale.
2. You cannot resell a token once you buy it from somebody else.
3. You cannot set your selling price, except by waiting until Blizzard's selling price reaches a number you're comfortable with.
4. Buying price and selling price are not linked - once your token goes into the queue, your selling price is set. Once your token gets to the front of the queue, the buyer will pay the current price, while you receive the old price.

 

[Denamic]

Assuming it stays at 30k, an old guildmate of mine could buy a year's worth of game time and have gold left over. Actually, by now, he could probably buy 2 years. Making money is his thing.

I can't even buy one month. Making money is not my thing.

 

[ghalleon0915]

I didn't think this would be implemented so soon, now I have something to do with my gold. Although I guess I have to actually subscribe first to be able to buy the tokens...where's that free 10 day trial when you need it. Wait, no, I wont be pulled back in..nooooo

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So...wait. WOW is introducing mico-transactions? How is this a good thing?
What, is Blizzard gonna charge for extra minerals in Starcraft 2 now?!
Personally, I've always wanted to spend real money on town portal scrolls in Diablo 2.

 

[Alfador_VII]

So...wait. WOW is introducing mico-transactions? How is this a good thing?
What, is Blizzard gonna charge for extra minerals in Starcraft 2 now?!
Personally, I've always wanted to spend real money on town portal scrolls in Diablo 2.

No, it's not microtransactions really, it's a modification to paying real money for game time, which you do anyway. One person buys the token for $, another uses it to sub.

This is not even a new idea, EVE has been doing it for years, and Wildstar has a similar system too

The only difference is the one who sells it earns gold in-game, and vice versa. Yeah Blizzard makes a little extra money as $20 is more expensive than the other ways of buying a month of gametime.

There will be some limited impact on the economy if people farm up gold to buy tokens, otherwise, it's just gold moving once between two players.

Blizzard have not ever sold items for real money which have any gameplay effect at all in their non-F2P games.

 

[Alfador_VII]

I didn't think this would be implemented so soon, now I have something to do with my gold. Although I guess I have to actually subscribe first to be able to buy the tokens...where's that free 10 day trial when you need it. Wait, no, I wont be pulled back in..nooooo

You may not want to know this, but you can buy wow tokens for gold without an active sub

 

[Abomination]

This is a great step forward and the devs have so far designed a very healthy concept that fills multiple niches.

Those with more money than time can buy gold which in turn supports those with more time than money who can play "for free". Bliz still gets its subscriptions, players get their gold, players get their game time, gold farmers go hungry.

Everyone wins.

 

[NickBrahz]

Give it a week or so and buying gold from farmers will be a ton cheaper then buying tokens.

 

[Sampler]

So...wait. WOW is introducing mico-transactions? How is this a good thing?
What, is Blizzard gonna charge for extra minerals in Starcraft 2 now?!
Personally, I've always wanted to spend real money on town portal scrolls in Diablo 2.

WoW has always had microtransactions lol, particularly mounts.

"Microtransaction" has become a dirty word in the gaming industry. I guess there is a good reason for that, but I don't think these tokens are a bad idea really.

Really, I'm surprised Blizzard didn't do this sooner. There's an entire freaking industry dedicated to farming gold on WoW, which I think is one of the main reasons for this addition. It's a good way to fight it. And if something is in such high demand, it would be stupid for a company not to supply.

I posited a similar idea many years ago, got shot down in the forums for it, I could see it coming then, like you, I'm surprised they took so long.

 

[Zontar]

I will point out a couple of things that people may have missed.

1. You cannot take a token off the market once you put it up for sale.
2. You cannot resell a token once you buy it from somebody else.
3. You cannot set your selling price, except by waiting until Blizzard's selling price reaches a number you're comfortable with.
4. Buying price and selling price are not linked - once your token goes into the queue, your selling price is set. Once your token gets to the front of the queue, the buyer will pay the current price, while you receive the old price.

So it's basically an attempt to emulate PLEX from EvE, but worst in 3 out of 4 ways (the "no reselling" part is probably the only part that's an improvement over PLEX)?

 

[ghalleon0915]

I didn't think this would be implemented so soon, now I have something to do with my gold. Although I guess I have to actually subscribe first to be able to buy the tokens...where's that free 10 day trial when you need it. Wait, no, I wont be pulled back in..nooooo

You may not want to know this, but you can buy wow tokens for gold without an active sub

Yeah, upon reading more on it I see how that is possible....and yeah sometimes ignorance is bliss, haha. Then they also discounted Warlords by 25%, such a coincidence in timing, I'm sure. No wonder my guild was on me to buy it buy it buy it. Sigh.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Wait a tick.. those tokens cost $20... uhm....is n't a 30 subscription at best $15?

I mean sure you could spend gold like crazy to buy it and gold is basically ... ohhhh I get what they're doing.

They're trying to suck all the excess gold out of the Wow economy. As well as trying to stabilize the player base. in MMO's content is other players so if there are players running around trying to grindgold so they can get a free month... that keeps the servers populated.. sorta... Man Blizzard you could you know just make the game more interesting if you want to retain players.

 

[Zontar]

Wait a tick.. those tokens cost $20... uhm....is n't a 30 subscription at best $15?

I mean sure you could spend gold like crazy to buy it and gold is basically ... ohhhh I get what they're doing.

They're trying to suck all the excess gold out of the Wow economy. As well as trying to stabilize the player base. in MMO's content is other players so if there are players running around trying to grindgold so they can get a free month... that keeps the servers populated.. sorta... Man Blizzard you could you know just make the game more interesting if you want to retain players.

No, what they are trying to do is kill off gold farming by making it so that players who have more gold then they need can play without paying, while those who want to use real money to get gold can do so in a way which makes money for Blizzard. Player 1 in this scenario has 20$ to spear for gold, player 2 has a lot of gold to spear, so player 1 buys the token and sells it to player 2. It's like PLEX in EvE Online, only you can't retrade it apparently.

 

[Rawbeard]

I have that gold on my character, but no subscription. How do I buy one of those with gold now? It's a trap, isn't it?

 

[Roofstone]

I have that gold on my character, but no subscription. How do I buy one of those with gold now? It's a trap, isn't it?

You can actually buy gold from the main character selection menu, you don't need a subscription to enter that.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Assuming it stays at 30k...

It won't. That's just the starting price they set - the actual price at any given moment will go up and down with supply and demand, as it should.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Wait a tick.. those tokens cost $20... uhm....is n't a 30 subscription at best $15?

I mean sure you could spend gold like crazy to buy it and gold is basically ... ohhhh I get what they're doing.

They're trying to suck all the excess gold out of the Wow economy. As well as trying to stabilize the player base. in MMO's content is other players so if there are players running around trying to grindgold so they can get a free month... that keeps the servers populated.. sorta... Man Blizzard you could you know just make the game more interesting if you want to retain players.

No, what they are trying to do is kill off gold farming by making it so that players who have more gold then they need can play without paying, while those who want to use real money to get gold can do so in a way which makes money for Blizzard. Player 1 in this scenario has 20$ to spear for gold, player 2 has a lot of gold to spear, so player 1 buys the token and sells it to player 2. It's like PLEX in EvE Online, only you can't retrade it apparently.

Problem is.. this will only make Gold Farming even more profitable. Check it. With people spending gold on freee play... the amount of gold available in game is gonna drop... i.e people are basically gonna be hording gold to get the free play time. which means they won't be spending it on other things in the Auction House.

Initially that'll drop the price of stacks and items in the house but then it will make gold itself harder to comeby. You'll have to trade more and more stacks to get less and less gold eventually Gold will get scarce so Gold Farming itself will actually become more profitable since the more conventional ways of earning gold will invariably dry up.

The fact that the things are non tradeable makes it even worse. You can't turn around and sell it once you've bought it. Now we all know that there will always be a supply of these tokens because we all know that Blizzard will have accounts putting that up for sale just and thusly be able to control the supply side of the supply and demand equation.

It could work in the short term but I forsee it backfiring on them in the long run.. Since what it really is is a real cash for virtual gold exchange

 

[BlindMaphisto]

Problem is.. this will only make Gold Farming even more profitable. Check it. With people spending gold on freee play... the amount of gold available in game is gonna drop... i.e people are basically gonna be hording gold to get the free play time. which means they won't be spending it on other things in the Auction House.

What exactly do you think the people selling the tokens are going to do with the gold they bought? Spend it on the AH.

Blizzard isn't selling the tokens on the AH, players who want gold are.