What are the players doing with the new WoW Token? Ion Hazzikostas explains the intentions and user behavior.
For those who don’t want to pay the monthly subscription fees for World of Warcraft, there has been the option for several years to finance this with in-game gold by purchasing the WoW Token from the auction house.
Originally, another player buys the token for real money and then lists it for a price in gold at the auction house.
In recent weeks, Blizzard has added a new feature to the token: When you buy a WoW Token, you can also exchange it for currency for your Battle.net account. This, in turn, can then be spent in other games – such as in loot boxes in Overwatch or card packs in Hearthstone.
But what are players actually doing with the newly acquired Battle.net balance?
The website glixel conducted an interview with Ion Hazzikostas from the WoW team.
“It’s still a bit too early to be completely sure. I’ve heard that players – and I know some of them – are moving their characters onto one server now [meaning they pay for character transfers]. We’ve seen a lot of things. Most of this happens within the WoW ecosystem. I have some guild mates, and the first thing they did was to turn away and play Overwatch for the first time. Or people have tried Hearthstone.”
However, Hazzikostas considers it unlikely that other players will join WoW just to pay for their remaining games.
“In truth, the WoW Token is for those for whom WoW is the primary game. It’s for the auction house barons, the collectors, and those who passionately play multiple WoW characters and amass a huge fortune within WoW through professions and trade. If you’re trying to get Overwatch loot boxes, the most time-effective way is still to play Overwatch.”
The WoW Token in its current form would never have existed during the real money auction house period of Diablo 3, because back then, you could cash out the earned money.
“We don’t want to create real wealth here. We don’t want to create real dollars and we don’t want to become a bank. We just want to offer a way for players with a lot of gold and those without gold to trade in the game world with things that are important to them as a medium.”
