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Ars Technica is reporting on Blizzard's decision to release tokens redeemable for game subscription time as in-game tokens, tradeable for Azeroth Gold in the Auction House. This has had the practical economic upshot of giving the in-game gold a legitimate real-world value for first time.
To start the market off, Blizzard set the price of a $20 token at 30,000 gold. That gold price increased incrementally for a few hours before plummeting precipitously starting yesterday evening in the US. As of this writing, just over 24 hours after the markets opened, that initial gold price of a token has fallen over 27 percent to 21,739 gold, according to an API-based tracking site.
This isn't that surprising when you look at the going rates for WoW gold from third-party sellers. According to wowgoldrates.com, $20 can get you anywhere from 10,000 to roughly 15,000 gold on the gray market, depending on which reseller you use (you can get slightly better rates if you buy in bulk).
The tokens are worth 30 days of game time, are currently only available on US servers and represent a hefty premium against regular account subscription rates. Their in-game price drop rebounded at 20,307g and rallied to 26,977g. At the time of submission, the $20 tokens were valued at 23,071g, making $1 worth 1,153.55g.
The grey market has responded with substantial rate changes since the quotations in the Ars article. One seller is now offering 24,000g for $20.43, their rates working out to between 1179.25 and 1263.80, depending on volume. So, while gold buyers, subscription dodgers and Blizzard are all celebrating, the gold sellers have seen their margins slashed and are investing heavily in aspirin.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday April 13 2015, @05:44PM
I don't know much about WoW markets, but EVE market is probably not really comparable to WoW. It's more comparable to spot price on RL markets.
In EVE, the PLEX (30-day game time) is not sold by CCP (eve developer) for ISK ingame. It is sold by CCP to a player for $$ and player chooses to make PLEX item in-game that they can sell, lose, trash, etc.. This item can be traded on market, or used in-place. The in-game price asked by players for PLEX is completely arbitrary. And I know. 8-years ago, 30-day-GTC (plex equivalent) used to be traded for about 120m ISK. Today, PLEX is traded at 800m ISK.
https://eve-central.com/home/quicklook.html?typeid=29668 [eve-central.com]
Bottom line is, CCP does NOT set price of PLEX in EVE. It never had. They can only affect it by policy, like taking out botting accounts and people illegally selling ISK/game items for $$ - that they have done quite well over the years.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday April 13 2015, @06:49PM
Yeah, I played the game for a long time, quit a couple years back. Never got into buying/selling PLEX though.
But, if Blizzard directly setting the price I am confused at how the price in game is fluctuating. I guess Blizzard is tweaking the gold value in game based on how many people buy? Sounds like a great way to scam their own players.
The big advantage of PLEX is that it lets people play for "free", by buying game time from other players. The problem with it is the still rampant inflaction and market speculation has driven prices up over the years.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh