World of Warcraft Moving Closer to Free-to-Play Model

Blizzard is introducing “WoW tokens” to its MMORPG World of Warcraft that can be bought from other players using in-game gold or from Blizzard directly for real money. The tokens can be exchanged for 30 days of game time. A token will cost £9.99 from the Battle.net store, or £8.69 each if purchased in bulk.

Since WoW tokens can be bought using in-game currency, it is conceivable that hardcore players who raise a lot of gold can now play the game for free, using in-game earnings to sustain their monthly subscriptions.

“The WoW Token was created to give players with lots of extra gold the option to use it to help cover their subscription cost, and give those who want to purchase gold a way to do so from fellow players through a secure, easy-to-use system. The Token will be making its début in an upcoming patch.” Reads the Blizzard website.

Blizzard hopes that the move will encourage new players who don’t want to part with money to play the game to sign up, and even to attract previous players back. Though still massively popular, World of Warcraft subscriptions have been on the decline for a number of years. The game hit highs of 12 million subscribers back in 2010, but in five years that number has nearly halved to 6.8 million.

Source: The Guardian