Blizzard recently announced the WoW Token; a tradable in-game item that can be redeemed for 30 days worth of game time. It essentially allows players to pay for their WoW subscription using gold made in-game, much like the PLEX system in EVE Online.
WoW Tokens are due to make their way into the game very soon, and Blizzard have started to detail how they will work.
Discussing WoW Tokens on the World of Warcraft blog, Blizzard explained that the tokens will be initially rolled out the the America regions in the weeks following the 6.1.2 patch release (which goes live today, March 24th). They’ll test the tokens in the America region first to ensure stability, then start to expand to Europe, Korea, Taiwan, and China.
WoW Tokens can be purchased from the in-game Shop for $20. The purchaser can then sell it at the auction house, which will have a special Game Time tab added so Tokens can be easily found. Tokens are sold region-wide rather than by individual realm, so you can sell to anyone in your geographical region.
The price of WoW Tokens will naturally change based on the market forces of each region. Blizzard will initially set a gold price for each token, but from there-on out the region supply and demand will dictate prices. “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,” explains the blog post.
With people having to initially buy tokens with real money before marketing them, you may be worried about investors losing out. To increase confidence in the system, sellers will be quoted a price when they list their Token in the auction house. They will always get this price, so it allows sellers to strike when the market is hot with confidence.
Our Jeremy spoke to CCP recently, where they said that they were excited to see how the PLEX-like system worked for other companies.