World of Warcraft Gold Market Soaring

Gamespot has an article discussing the realities of Virtual World economics as they pertain to the real world. World of Warcraft is used as an example throughout, and they quote some staggering statistics that remove any last shred of hope that Blizzard's bluster may be having an effect on the gold market. From the article: "Sukow discovered that the top seller of WOW gold made more than $23,000 in April, just on WOW gold. And that wasn't even a good month--in January and February the number-one seller took home more than $44,000 each month."

Comments

I wonder how long it will take...

[Matthias Wiesmann]

I wonder how long it will take for spam that proposes to move virtual gold out of disabled accounts

Dear Friend,

I request your assistance for an affair of the highest importance. I am Lalal 40th level gnome, whose account has been partially disabled. By hard work, I have amassed the total amount of 1'000'000 gold (one million golds) that is now blocked with said character. I solicit your help to move this sum to a new account. Due to changes of policies at Blizzard, it is of uttermost importance that this affair is conducted with the highest discretion. In reward for cooperation, I am ready to give you 10% of the total sum, that is 100'000 golds (hundred thousand golds).

In order for the transaction to take place, I need your account name and password. Be assured that I will proceed with uttermost discretion. /blokquote)

Re:Side effects

[matric]

Blizzard had been saying that money would not be as important ...

Money really isn't that important in WoW and Blizzard has accomplished a very good job in allowing the market for lower-level items to flourish (That is, it is easy for a low level player to sell their drops and make cash). There are very few top-tier items that you can buy, the rest are drops from which you must be a part of the group/kill. Nevertheless, there are still people who will pay 500+ gold for an item that is probably +5% better than what you could get yourself with a moderate amount of effort.

That said, money isn't irrelevant. At level 60, you still need cash in order to buy consumables, repair your equipment, and even save up for that pink elephant. IMO, the volume in the gold selling market is a testament to the lengths people will go in order to be 'King of the Hill' (IE, buy that item that is 5% better).

Re:Side effects

[Androclese]

Getting Gold is not at all difficult, what drives the market are the following 2 things:

- The Auction House, an in-game "eBay like" construct, lets you sell and buy items. For anybody with an eBay addiction, or for those that that want to upgraded their items for that incremental increase in power, this place place will suck your gold dry.

- If you want a Mount (Horse, etc) at L40 when it first becomes available, then you need to collect 90 Gold (minimum). If you want a Superior Mount at L60, thewn you need 900 Gold. These are the two *must have* you-are-an-outcast-if-you-do-not-have-it items in the game.

I am sure the argument can be made for other minor thing, but these are the main 2 reasons the market for Gold is so high.

That, and just like in Life, Money means Power to a lot of people, and they will do whatever it takes to possess it, even if it's only digital.

I.e., "pay to cheat"

[Moraelin]

Well, just like real money, money has no value by itself. The only value is what you can buy with those money. In this case: an undeserved advantage in a multiplayer game. That's what that RL money buys them.

Personally I have no respect for that kind of people. Cheating in a single player game is one thing, and I have nothing against that. But cheating in MP? That's the kind of thing that's already the mark of the low-life lamer.

Doubly so for those who actually _pay_ for that. I mean, FFS, at least the lamers with wall-hacks and aim-bots in CS have just downloaded those. But actually paying good money to cheat in MP? How desperate _can_ one get?

Methinks that that's well past the point where one should take a break and just think it all over. I'm a game addict myself, and all, and normally won't go "it's just a game", but... when one gets _that_ caught up with keeping up with the virtual joneses, when those virtual achievements become a _must_ at all cost, it's time to worry. Really worry.

Wha-huh?

[faloi]

"It's a validation of your game when people are willing to spend upwards of $2,000 on a character,"

What's it validate? That your game is so boring that people don't want to spend the time playing to earn their gold/levels?

Re:Some people have no life

[rufo]

NO CARRIER+++

No wonder he commited suicide, the guy's on dialup!

Re:Its called speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's in Blizzard's best interests to sell gold. It causes inflation. Inflation makes people lose interest in the game and increases the probability that they will quit subscribing.

In March, Blizzard had 1.5 Million subscribers. That's 1,500,000 * $15/M = $22,500,000 / Month. $200K per month would be nothing compared to that revenue stream. If they sold so much gold that they cause significant inflation and lost even 1% of their user base as a result, they would lose $225,000/M. If word got out that blizzard was selling gold themselves, they could easily lose 5 times that.

Why does everyone think this needs solved?

[shaitand]

In order to solve it, there has to be a problem and this really isn't a problem.

Re:Why does everyone think this needs solved?

[Gerad]

There actually are a number of problems generated by the buying and selling of in-game characters, items, and gold. (I'm not writing on any one specific game here, although my experiences are weighted towards EverQuest and WoW).

One problem is that the associated "value" of items often leads to anti-social behavior and the breakdown of in-game ettiquete. For example, if a powerful magic staff drops in a group, a warrior might roll on it (distribution of item drops are handled by random number "rolls"), despite the fact that the staff might be much better used by a wizard type character. This can lead to the breakdown of friendships and general ettiquete in the game.

"Okay", you might say, "so you need to find new friends and people you can trust". That may be the case, but sometimes the desire to earn these items leads people towards disruptive anti-social behavior that effects people even outside their group. For example, in EverQuest, known eBay farmers would frequently attract the attention of huge packs of monsters, far beyond the ability of any group to deal with, run up to a competing group, and use the "feign death" ability. This would cause all the monsters to lose their focus on the eBay farmer and instead turn towards the nearest target: you.

"Okay", you might say, "but World of Warcraft staff will ban disruptive player slike that, plus it mitigates this problem by creating instanced areas for groups to fight in, avoiding disruption by outside players." While this is true, it takes a fair amount of time for an eBay farmer to get caught, and they will not always be. Often, Customer Service staff must actually witness such an event happening, and it can take hours for them to respond.

While instanced content really alleviates this problem a lot, you still have the problem of pickup groups. To some extent, almost everyone is forced to group with strangers at one point or another. Grouping with a stranger who has relied on items they would never be able to naturally obtain, or who purchased a character can often result in hours of frustration as you deal with warriors who don't know how to hold the monster's attention, priests who don't heal, and wizards who are inept at dealing damage. It's just not a fun situation overall.