Game time for Gold

[kandrathe]

Regarding Blizzard's latest announcement on WOW tokens, I'm interested in everyone's thoughts. Here are some of mine.

I'm curious if they will fluctuate much with the server economies. For example, since Stormrage has been around longer, with a large population, it would follow that there is more gold on it making the cost in with game gold higher per WOW token (inflation) than on other servers.

Ergo, newer, younger, less populated server may have lower prices for WOW tokens. As a consumer, to pay my monthly bill, I would want to buy them where the price is cheapest. But, since there are fewer people, there may also be more demand, and less supply.

I'm not very keen on selling them, so to begin with I will probably only buy (in real world money) what I will consume, or just keep with the subscription model. It is an interesting idea for earning some in-game gold totally legit, and I think all-in-all it will be a good move.

I doubt it will make much of a dent in the black market of "services" and gold for real world money. There is little apparent investment by Blizzard now in policing the rampant market of gold selling in chat, selling PVP rankings (using bots, cheat, etc.) and as such making PVP rankings pretty meaningless, except for the few *real* top gold competitors.

[LochnarITB]

I'm curious if they will fluctuate much with the server economies. For example, since Stormrage has been around longer, with a large population, it would follow that there is more gold on it making the cost in with game gold higher per WOW token (inflation) than on other servers.

Ergo, newer, younger, less populated server may have lower prices for WOW tokens. As a consumer, to pay my monthly bill, I would want to buy them where the price is cheapest. But, since there are fewer people, there may also be more demand, and less supply.

A: Each game region—Americas (including ANZ realms), Europe, Taiwan, Korea, and China—will have its own shared WoW Token exchange. We’ll share additional details at a later date.

It sounds like the server won't matter since the exchange is shared with the region. Since I've been de-WoWed for some time, maybe it is already possible (can mail be sent to another server/faction?), but this would seem to be a way to transfer gold between servers/factions. Buy a token in the shop. Sell it on the transfer-to server to receive gold. Buy a token with gold on the transfer-from server. Apply the token to your account game time, which you would have had to pay for anyway.

[Taelas]

Some items can be sent (BoA items, for example) and I *think* you can transfer gold with BoA items, but you can't otherwise send mail to the opposite faction.

Depending on the cost of the tokens, I may very well stop my subscription and just buy game-time with gold instead.

[kandrathe]

Some items can be sent (BoA items, for example) and I *think* you can transfer gold with BoA items, but you can't otherwise send mail to the opposite faction.

Depending on the cost of the tokens, I may very well stop my subscription and just buy game-time with gold instead.

I guess for me it depends on how much gold... I might be able to do 10,000 per month, but 100,000 is out of my farming abilities.

[Taelas]

I doubt it'll be in anywhere near that range. 10,000 I could see (though I certainly would have to step up to get that much together each month, outside of normal spendage).

[Bolty]

So, first day results:

As tokens opened up for sale in the North America region, the price climbed steadily during the afternoon to a height of 31,218g. Things changed once prime time started on the east coast and prices fell. And fell. And fell. As the prime time hours closed up, the price had settled at around 25,000g. Overnight, the price moved more slowly as you'd expect, and at the time of this posting it's at roughly 23,000g. What will happen today?

Economics majors must love this and I admit I'm fascinated by it. A major driver of the tokens' price is its perceived value. Blizzard tried to set a perceived value to the token by starting it at 30,000g, and I'd imagine that if you wanted to purchase gold via the token you'd want to "cash in" quickly once the value dropped below 30,000g - hence the drop last night. If you're looking to buy a token with gold, you naturally want to see where it bottoms out but there's a perception that if you're buying under 30,000g, you're getting a "deal."

Eventually a new perceived value will be reached via an equilibrium of price and those attitudes will shift. If it levels out at 20,000g, that will become the new perceived value. Any drop below that will be a "deal" to the gold spender and any rise above that will be a "deal" to the real money spender.

Since Blizzard is releasing the tokens in the EU after us, what happens here will have a major impact on the tokens' perceived value in Europe. I wonder if Blizzard will adjust their starting value accordingly. If the price settles here at 20,000g per token, who in Europe would spend 30,000g on a token if it opens at that higher price?

[kandrathe]

Economics majors must love this and I admit I'm fascinated by it. A major driver of the tokens' price is its perceived value. Blizzard tried to set a perceived value to the token by starting it at 30,000g, and I'd imagine that if you wanted to purchase gold via the token you'd want to "cash in" quickly once the value dropped below 30,000g - hence the drop last night. If you're looking to buy a token with gold, you naturally want to see where it bottoms out but there's a perception that if you're buying under 30,000g, you're getting a "deal."

But, not really. Essentially, on the black market 1000g(BMG) = 1$. 1 month re-subscription, being the most expensive, is $15, or 15000g translated to tokens. The game token costs $20, ~20K BMG. $5 for novelty cost? I think not.

A deal then would for us to get a token (whose value is a month of game time), for the equivalent value of in game gold. In fact, the black market price should be adjusted for risk. But, we've seen very little enforcement, so I suspect it has little effect on the price. Unless the price gets under 15K, it is better to spend your 13-15$ just re-subscribing, or...

I'd say the initial market is a boon for token sellers, getting 25-30K gold, well above the black market rate for their $20 value. Roughly then, if you can get more than 20K gold, then $20 is a good investment for WOW token.

[Bolty]

But, not really. Essentially, on the black market 1000g(BMG) = 1$. 1 month re-subscription, being the most expensive, is $15, or 15000g translated to tokens. The game token costs $20, ~20K BMG. $5 for novelty cost? I think not.

Ah, but the key element here is that your average WoW player has no idea what the black market price is for WoW gold. They don't factor that in to the perceived value of the token. They hear from Blizzard that it "should be" 30,000g so that's what they expect...then they're shocked when hours later the price has fallen over 20%.

Forums on various WoW sites have been ablaze in the last few weeks trying to guess the value the token will settle at, and most conversation has weighted to the extreme high end. This is because players spending time reading WoW fansites usually represent the more "hardcore" playing crowd and you get into an echo chamber - you play the game a lot, you have a lot of gold, and you assume everyone else does too. So of course the "millions" of players sitting on large piles of gold will drive up the token price!

As usual, a decent number of these forumgoers don't realize they're in an echo chamber and the average WoW player in fact likely doesn't have much more than 20,000g to their names. Spending just twenty dollars suddenly doubles or triples such players' current holdings - woah! I'm hearing stories of players excited that they can "now get their level 3 garrison" and I'm brought back down to Earth by the concept of a player not having the spare 5,000g to put into their garrison by this point of the expansion. I need these reminders to keep me based in reality.

It's like members of mythic raiding guilds raging on pugs or LFR for "playing poorly" when they don't realize how they're in such a minority. These players lose touch with the reality of the average WoW player: the guy who logs in once or twice a week to screw around in a big virtual world and could not care less about 90% of the stuff that I think is a Big Deal.™

I'll close with an anecdote that anyone playing this game since WotLK will remember. When Blizzard announced their first cash-shop mount, the Spectral Horse (aka "Sparkle Pony", aka "That Retarded Horse"), my reaction was immediate and strong: "who would spend real-life money on a silly mount?" That opinion was echoed all over the place in the circle of players I ran with. And yet...I logged on the day of its release and stood amazed in town as the place was completely overrun by players sitting on their new store-bought mounts. It was an absolute plague of them. And a week later, you'd see one or two around during a game session. My point is: never underestimate the number of people who are willing to drop a little cash on WoW for anything, even for just the smallest, most temporary cheap thrill.

[kandrathe]

My point is: never underestimate the number of people who are willing to drop a little cash on WoW for anything, even for just the smallest, most temporary cheap thrill.

There is also an incentive for a straight shooter, like me, who'd never do the black market thing. That integrity, to me, is worth it. As well as not risking an account I've had for ten years to something against the TOS.

Yeah, garrisons are expensive. But, if played right, money makers as well. I have six, and while I almost have them all at complete level 3, I'm trying to keep a positive ROI. I try not to transfer gold from one to another, unless it's in exchange for something of equal value. I will give myself discounts.

With my slow conversion of my crew to the treasure hunting followers, my gold income from missions is getting towards 1000g/day per character. I will always do the gold missions with >80% chance of success. That, in addition to the daily LFG/LFR bonus money, the best of the scavenged items in my scrap yard going to the AH, and excess materials crafted into coveted gear and consumables, again, put on the AH.

And... I bought Argi... mostly to help the Red Cross. I'll do vanity items for charity, but not for my own selfish whims.

[LochnarITB]

My point is: never underestimate the number of people who are willing to drop a little cash on WoW for anything, even for just the smallest, most temporary cheap thrill.

As usual, Bolty is so right. This is the gist of it. Even throwing money at things like pretty ponies, WoW is still very cheap entertainment. The reason I quit playing was never the subscription price. Even with my fixed income, that money would have been an easy tradeoff. I just drove myself into the ground trying to maintain two full servers of toons and it felt too much like a job.