World of Warcraft Letting Players Buy Subscription Time With In-Game Gold
Blizzard's online store will start selling subscription tokens for World of Warcraft that you'll be able to sell for gold on the Auction House. Likewise, players will be able to use gold to add months to their WoW subscription.
The economy of World of Warcraft is about to change. Blizzard has announced on Battle.net that players will be able use real life currency to buy WoW tokens. These WoW tokens will be sent to your main character and can be used to add 30 days to your Warcraft subscription. Players with WoW tokens have the option to put them up for sale on the Auction House. That's right, players will be able to buy WoW tokens with gold. Those lucky enough to have a hoard of gold will be able to continuously buy WoW tokens, eliminating the need to pay the game's monthly subscription fee, which usually requires real life currency. This provides an alternative to those who were hoping that WoW would eventually go free-to-play (which it probably never will because it still rakes in a ton of cash from its loyal fans). If you have enough gold, you could technically make WoW free-to-play for you.
Blizzard is dealing a heavy blow to the multitude of third party gold farming websites with this service (which can get your account banned and items deleted if caught with illegally farmed gold). WoW tokens allow you to legitimately spend cash to gain in-game gold, if you choose to sell them. Of course, this is also dependent on the auction house's prices of the tokens, which are bound to vary due to the AH's supply and demand. Based on the success of the recent Warlords of Draenor expansion, we have a feeling World of Warcraft isn't going free-to-play soon, but it's nice to see that Blizzard is offering an alternative to those who have been smart with their money. Blizzard hasn't offered any kind of pricing or release date for the WoW token service, but we have a feeling we'll see it soon.