Blizzard’s got a new plan in place for World of Warcraft that will allow players to purchase game time with the game’s in-game currency: gold. Likewise, players will be able to sell game time for gold using the system. It’s pretty neat. Here’s how it works:
Players purchase a WoW Token (that’s what it’s called) through the in-game shop for real money. Then they sell this token on the game’s Auction House for gold. Anyone who buys the token from the Auction House will have it bound to their account and can redeem it for 30 days of game time.
Blizzard will not allow players to set the prices of the WoW Tokens. Instead, the price will be based on a formula developed in-house at Blizzard that takes into account suply and demand for the tokens and region-specific factors.
As someone who plays a lot of World of Warcraft, I’ve noticed some players attempting to sell game time (currently against the terms of service) in exchange for funds on PayPal and the like. Some of these people are scammers as there’s no guarantee they’ll pay up once you give them the game time code. Blizzard’s simply making the process a helluva lot simpler for gamers and normalizing the market while they’re at it by tying in-game gold prices to real world cash.
It’s not a bad move.
