Blizzard has introduced a new Token system that will allow players to extend their subscriptions using in-game gold. While this isn’t a new innovation, PLEX in Eve Online has been around for years, it looks like buying game time with extra gold may breath new life into the world’s most popular MMORPG.
Players will be able to buy the WoW Tokens from the WoW shop for real money, and then sell it in the Auction House. The idea here is that players who do not have the time to grind for gold will be able to buy it from other players, instead of turning to third party gold farmers who could potentially compromise their accounts. It will also allow players who do not have the extra funds, or simply have too much in-game gold, to pay for the game to continue playing by simply playing the game.
Each WoW Token will provide 30 days of game time. It will have a varying gold price as supply and demand changes, depending on how many players adopt it and forego the recurring subscription system. It should be noted that once a Token has been bought off the Auction House it will become Soulbound and can no longer be traded away. Of course, the Tokens will not decay or vanish over time; and can be saved to be used later.
With the number of WoW players dwindling, this could be just the thing that Blizzard needs to maintain a healthy community of players on its servers. Eve Online has proved that the system works just fine, and it is a matter of Blizzard now working out the bugs to get it to run as intended.
[Source: World of Warcraft]
