WoW Tokens for Subscription Time Or BattleNet Balance - World of Warcraft Videos - MMORPG.com

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WoW Tokens for Subscription Time Or BattleNet Balance - World of Warcraft Videos - MMORPG.com

The World of Warcraft team has announced that WoW Tokens can now be used for game subscription time OR for adding to a player's BattleNet Balance. BattleNet Balance can be used to purchase WoW services like character transfers or it can be used to purchase pets or mounts from the Blizzard Shop.

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Veexer_Nui

Battlenet balance also means Game keys, WoW expansions, Diablo ect.

Nixeska

Aori said:

I find it weird people are ok with it when the D3 RMAH was the original testbed. They just broke the process up into pieces.

I think that was more because Diablo 3 is wholly based around the RNG gear grind and the RMAH butchered that. It might also just have been focused more because of how poorly D3 was received in general during that time.

filmoret

They are like 8 years late to this party.

sayuu

Blizzard gets $20 cash for $15 store credit. ( gotta love that 25% service fee )

man this monetization plan is brilliant, hopefully the other big MMO's like ESO, SWTOR, FF14, ect. see the money being made with this system and follow suit. At least the Sub time for in game currency.

Forgrimm

Aori said:

I find it weird people are ok with it when the D3 RMAH was the original testbed. They just broke the process up into pieces.

2 very different things. The D3 rmah allowed people to make money that was usable anywhere, and the prices of items were set by the players if I recall correctly. With WoW, the tokens only give you game time or Bnet balance, which is only usable on Blizz games and services. And the price of the tokens are set by Blizz.

filmoret

SedrynTyros said:

sayuu said:

Blizzard gets $20 cash for $15 store credit. ( gotta love that 25% service fee )

man this monetization plan is brilliant, hopefully the other big MMO's like ESO, SWTOR, FF14, ect. see the money being made with this system and follow suit. At least the Sub time for in game currency.

Well, it was brilliant when EVE Online first did it anyway.

Oh come on man I was having fun laughing at everyone who thinks this brilliant idea is original.

Muke

SedrynTyros said:

sayuu said:

Blizzard gets $20 cash for $15 store credit. ( gotta love that 25% service fee )

man this monetization plan is brilliant, hopefully the other big MMO's like ESO, SWTOR, FF14, ect. see the money being made with this system and follow suit. At least the Sub time for in game currency.

Well, it was brilliant when EVE Online first did it anyway.

Like 10 years ago.

Forgrimm

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

I find it weird people are ok with it when the D3 RMAH was the original testbed. They just broke the process up into pieces.

2 very different things. The D3 rmah allowed people to make money that was usable anywhere, and the prices of items were set by the players if I recall correctly. With WoW, the tokens only give you game time or Bnet balance, which is only usable on WoW games and services. And the price of the tokens are set by Blizz.

The major complaint about the RMAH was buying virtual goods with real money, same thing applies with WoW. You buy virtual goods with real currency, you're just converting as if you're in a foreign country.

No one cared that people were making money out of D3 and people were more upset Blizzard was making money off the transactions. 

WoW already did this quite some time ago with one of the non-combat pets though. You could buy it in the shop for real $ and then sell it to other players for gold. So the token system isn't anything new.

Forgrimm

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

I find it weird people are ok with it when the D3 RMAH was the original testbed. They just broke the process up into pieces.

2 very different things. The D3 rmah allowed people to make money that was usable anywhere, and the prices of items were set by the players if I recall correctly. With WoW, the tokens only give you game time or Bnet balance, which is only usable on WoW games and services. And the price of the tokens are set by Blizz.

The major complaint about the RMAH was buying virtual goods with real money, same thing applies with WoW. You buy virtual goods with real currency, you're just converting as if you're in a foreign country.

No one cared that people were making money out of D3 and people were more upset Blizzard was making money off the transactions. 

WoW already did this quite some time ago with one of the non-combat pets though. You could buy it in the shop for real $ and then sell it to other players for gold. So the token system isn't anything new.

The pet thing was short term though, eventually you're going to run out of people who need the pet and it was restricted. The scale is completely different and didn't really do much to the economy. 

This change however is going to be weird, essentially what is going to happen is that billions of gold is going to be injected into the economy. Yes injected, while players have earned the gold, most of it has just been sitting and collecting dust. 

Definitely going to be a huge shake up.

It doesn't add any new gold to the economy, only transfers it from one player to another. Besides, WoW isn't an economy driven game. All of the best gear and items are dropped, not bought.

filmoret

I think people are missing the point.  You can now purchase your subscription with ingame gold.  The thing that I'm not sure about is why would a player buy a token and sell it for gold in the first place?

Forgrimm

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

I find it weird people are ok with it when the D3 RMAH was the original testbed. They just broke the process up into pieces.

2 very different things. The D3 rmah allowed people to make money that was usable anywhere, and the prices of items were set by the players if I recall correctly. With WoW, the tokens only give you game time or Bnet balance, which is only usable on WoW games and services. And the price of the tokens are set by Blizz.

The major complaint about the RMAH was buying virtual goods with real money, same thing applies with WoW. You buy virtual goods with real currency, you're just converting as if you're in a foreign country.

No one cared that people were making money out of D3 and people were more upset Blizzard was making money off the transactions. 

WoW already did this quite some time ago with one of the non-combat pets though. You could buy it in the shop for real $ and then sell it to other players for gold. So the token system isn't anything new.

The pet thing was short term though, eventually you're going to run out of people who need the pet and it was restricted. The scale is completely different and didn't really do much to the economy. 

This change however is going to be weird, essentially what is going to happen is that billions of gold is going to be injected into the economy. Yes injected, while players have earned the gold, most of it has just been sitting and collecting dust. 

Definitely going to be a huge shake up.

It doesn't add any new gold to the economy, only transfers it from one player to another. Besides, WoW isn't an economy driven game. All of the best gear and items are dropped, not bought.

You don't seem to understand, gold just sitting in peoples inventory is not part of the economy. I have 2million gold, it hasn't moved since mid WoD. I'm not alone, there are countless others like me.

Everything in WoW can be bought. That is what a carry is for, you can buy the best items, achievements and pvp ratings. 

2 million gold is 2 million gold. Doesn't matter if player A has it or if player B has it. There's no way of knowing what any player will spend it on. Example scenario: player A buys a boatload of WoW tokens for real money and puts them on the AH. Players X. Y, and Z use their gold to buy the tokens off the AH from player A. Player A now has 2 million gold and decides to purchase the spider mount, which costs 2 million gold. There is absolutely 0 effect on the game or the game's economy in that scenario.

Forgrimm

filmoret said:

I think people are missing the point.  You can now purchase your subscription with ingame gold.  The thing that I'm not sure about is why would a player buy a token and sell it for gold in the first place?

Because they want the gold to spend it in game, but don't want to, or don't have the time to farm their own gold.

borghive49

Too bad gold is worthless in WoW lol. 

Forgrimm

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

Forgrimm said:

Aori said:

I find it weird people are ok with it when the D3 RMAH was the original testbed. They just broke the process up into pieces.

2 very different things. The D3 rmah allowed people to make money that was usable anywhere, and the prices of items were set by the players if I recall correctly. With WoW, the tokens only give you game time or Bnet balance, which is only usable on WoW games and services. And the price of the tokens are set by Blizz.

The major complaint about the RMAH was buying virtual goods with real money, same thing applies with WoW. You buy virtual goods with real currency, you're just converting as if you're in a foreign country.

No one cared that people were making money out of D3 and people were more upset Blizzard was making money off the transactions. 

WoW already did this quite some time ago with one of the non-combat pets though. You could buy it in the shop for real $ and then sell it to other players for gold. So the token system isn't anything new.

The pet thing was short term though, eventually you're going to run out of people who need the pet and it was restricted. The scale is completely different and didn't really do much to the economy. 

This change however is going to be weird, essentially what is going to happen is that billions of gold is going to be injected into the economy. Yes injected, while players have earned the gold, most of it has just been sitting and collecting dust. 

Definitely going to be a huge shake up.

It doesn't add any new gold to the economy, only transfers it from one player to another. Besides, WoW isn't an economy driven game. All of the best gear and items are dropped, not bought.

You don't seem to understand, gold just sitting in peoples inventory is not part of the economy. I have 2million gold, it hasn't moved since mid WoD. I'm not alone, there are countless others like me.

Everything in WoW can be bought. That is what a carry is for, you can buy the best items, achievements and pvp ratings. 

2 million gold is 2 million gold. Doesn't matter if player A has it or if player B has it. There's no way of knowing what any player will spend it on. Example scenario: player A buys a boatload of WoW tokens for real money and puts them on the AH. Players X. Y, and Z use their gold to buy the tokens off the AH from player A. Player A now has 2 million gold and decides to purchase the spider mount, which costs 2 million gold. There is absolutely 0 effect on the game or the game's economy in that scenario.

You still don't get it. I'll dumb it down. Player A doesn't play, he resubbed specifically to sell tokens to get bnet balance to buy boxes in Overwatch. Player B buys the gold via the token, goes to the auction house and buys all of the flasks.

The scale is changing immensely, instead of 50-60k tokens, we're likely to see 100-150k tokens in a week. That just shows how much game currency is just stagnant not moving. Currency not in motion is not part of an economy. You're putting it back into the economy, that is what is happening.

Classy of you to use an insult when you don't like my answer. So I'll say it again, there is no way of knowing what any player will spend their gold on. If a player decides to use the gold for the spider mount, or one of the many other gold sinks in the game, this has no effect on the game or the economy in any way.

- Fact: WoW tokens do not add or subtract any gold from the in-game economy.
- Speculation: A player who gets gold from their token may spend it on something that may or may not have an impact on anything in the game.

I choose not to deal in speculation.

sayuu

SedrynTyros said:

sayuu said:

Blizzard gets $20 cash for $15 store credit. ( gotta love that 25% service fee )

man this monetization plan is brilliant, hopefully the other big MMO's like ESO, SWTOR, FF14, ect. see the money being made with this system and follow suit. At least the Sub time for in game currency.

Well, it was brilliant when EVE Online first did it anyway.

where exactly did I say that blizzard did it first?

(hint: I didn't)

Albatroes

Forgrimm said:

filmoret said:

I think people are missing the point.  You can now purchase your subscription with ingame gold.  The thing that I'm not sure about is why would a player buy a token and sell it for gold in the first place?

Because they want the gold to spend it in game, but don't want to, or don't have the time to farm their own gold.

I think what he means is, if the average person knows the game, they know gold has no value in the game other than to do that. And if they have no time for the game, they already have money so its a moot point. Right now theres no real incentive to buy tokens unless the person is brand new and knows nothing about wow. Buy gear/carries only applies to a small percent of the community that does more than LFR.

TheScavenger

I don't understand

Okay, so I pay 20 dollars.

But its really only worth 15 dollars?

So instead of buying diablo 3 for however much its worth right now, I have to pay a minimum of 5 dollars extra with a token?

or I pay 15 dollars for WoW a month, but really I pay 20 dollars with a token?

wtf kinda economics is that rofl

Forgrimm

TheScavenger said:

I don't understand

Okay, so I pay 20 dollars.

But its really only worth 15 dollars?

So instead of buying diablo 3 for however much its worth right now, I have to pay a minimum of 5 dollars extra with a token?

or I pay 15 dollars for WoW a month, but really I pay 20 dollars with a token?

wtf kinda economics is that rofl

No. If you pay $20 for a token, all you can do is sell it for in-game gold. The person who buys that token with gold can then use it for WoW game time or to add it to their BattleNet balance.

TheScavenger

Forgrimm said:

TheScavenger said:

I don't understand

Okay, so I pay 20 dollars.

But its really only worth 15 dollars?

So instead of buying diablo 3 for however much its worth right now, I have to pay a minimum of 5 dollars extra with a token?

or I pay 15 dollars for WoW a month, but really I pay 20 dollars with a token?

wtf kinda economics is that rofl

No. If you pay $20 for a token, all you can do is sell it for in-game gold. The person who buys that token with gold can then use it for WoW game time or to add it to their BattleNet balance.

Oh. so its pretty much like Plex from EVE? But more uses that you can farm WOW gold (which is SUPER easy) and buy everything for free?

I make a hundred thousand gold minimum a week in WoW. So now I can buy everything blizzard for free rofl.

Unless tokens are super expensive like needing millions of gold to buy.

Forgrimm

Albatroes said:

Forgrimm said:

filmoret said:

I think people are missing the point.  You can now purchase your subscription with ingame gold.  The thing that I'm not sure about is why would a player buy a token and sell it for gold in the first place?

Because they want the gold to spend it in game, but don't want to, or don't have the time to farm their own gold.

I think what he means is, if the average person knows the game, they know gold has no value in the game other than to do that. And if they have no time for the game, they already have money so its a moot point. Right now theres no real incentive to buy tokens unless the person is brand new and knows nothing about wow. Buy gear/carries only applies to a smart percent of the community that does more than LFR.

A person who doesn't have a lot of time to play the game and make gold, or they don't want to be bothered farming gold during the time that they can play, but they want something in game that costs gold, that's the type of person who will buy a token.

Forgrimm

TheScavenger said:

Forgrimm said:

TheScavenger said:

I don't understand

Okay, so I pay 20 dollars.

But its really only worth 15 dollars?

So instead of buying diablo 3 for however much its worth right now, I have to pay a minimum of 5 dollars extra with a token?

or I pay 15 dollars for WoW a month, but really I pay 20 dollars with a token?

wtf kinda economics is that rofl

No. If you pay $20 for a token, all you can do is sell it for in-game gold. The person who buys that token with gold can then use it for WoW game time or to add it to their BattleNet balance.

Oh. so its pretty much like Plex from EVE? But more uses that you can farm WOW gold (which is SUPER easy) and buy everything for free?

I make a hundred thousand gold minimum a week in WoW. So now I can buy everything blizzard for free rofl.

Unless tokens are super expensive like needing millions of gold to buy.

Yup. Previously you could only redeem a token that you bought with gold for game time. But now you'll also be able to use it for other items and services. I haven't logged in the past few weeks but when I last checked, tokens were going for 60k, which isn't much at all. It will likely increase now though. With the previous prices, I had made enough gold in a month or so to pay for 12 months of sub time.

Konfess

I thought the WoW Token was already a thing, and old system put in place in the last 4 or 5 years. I remember calculating how much WoW gold was selling for, and saying that it would go for $20 dollar amount of gold.

Then again maybe I'm thinking of SWTOR, or Archeage. I was playing both in that time frame also. Well, those who want to play for free, will have to first have to pay for a month's subscription and break the gold cap. Then save up enough gold to buy a token. There will be a ton of Play 4 Free gamers complaining about not being able to earn enough gold on a free account. And how Tokens are just P2W.

BruceYee

This seems to have been designed mostly for newer players to keep the WoW in their veins + milk them for as much as they can until they realize the game is a waste of time and move on to something else.

Also, the going rate of tokens last I checked was 60k and for a older player that can be earned fairly easily so this may also be a way to up the token price to push some of those people to pay the $14.99.

Forgrimm

BruceYee said:

This seems to have been designed mostly for newer players to keep the WoW in their veins + milk them for as much as they can until they realize the game is a waste of time and move on to something else.

Also, the going rate of tokens last I checked was 60k and for a older player that can be earned fairly easily so this may also be a way to up the token price to push some of those people to pay the $14.99.

Why would they want to increase the token price and force people to pay $14.99, when they get $20 when they use a token instead?

BruceYee

Forgrimm said:

BruceYee said:

This seems to have been designed mostly for newer players to keep the WoW in their veins + milk them for as much as they can until they realize the game is a waste of time and move on to something else.

Also, the going rate of tokens last I checked was 60k and for a older player that can be earned fairly easily so this may also be a way to up the token price to push some of those people to pay the $14.99.

Why would they want to increase the token price and force people to pay $14.99, when they get $20 when they use a token instead?

The $20 paid by newer players gets them in-game gold so they can buy all the shiny things they want.

The $14.99 is paid by older players who don't need the in-game gold but will struggle to make the expected 120k for their month of game time.

Like another poster said above, this is like the D3 RMAH without the ability to buy specific items but instead you buy in-game currency in bulk to buy stuff from the WoW in-game AH.

The token system when it was first introduced they said was to combat the gold farmers and it worked but now has evolved into a way to just milk the playerbase for all they can.