Economics 101 - WOW Tokens, Blizzard Profit, and such things

[chazus]

Wrong dude, it's based on when you sell it.

Incorrect. It's literally in blizzards tutorial. "You will get the amount it was posted for, regardless of the price it actually sells for when it is sold"

[Svisalith]

Blizzard found a way to both make Profit and create a Pretty large Gold Sink within their game with 1 item.

Whatever Blizzard Staff member thought of the Token is a fucking genius. Literally printing Real Money with Fake Video Game currency demand.

They didn't think of it, multiple other mainstream MMO's implemented it in the last decade and they hung on for a really long time before copying

[chazus]

I don't understand why people are having such a hard time with the token concept and how it makes Blizzard money.

Not sure why you quoted me for that post. You weren't really referring to anything I wrote.

I was just pointing out that the presence of the token adds more players that might not have normally been playing, on top of charging a higher rate.

[Marrilaife]

Generally token buyers forget Blizzard doesn't really care about them, it cares about the token SELLERS because these give $$$ to Blizzard.

In the interest of token seller is to:
1. Get a decent sum of gold for his 20$.
2. That gold to have market value, as he probably wants to buy something specific.

Now, Blizzard can't just inject endless gold even faster than they already are, because token sellers will feel their gold is completely worthless, there is inflation in WOW but not hyperinflation.

A person who sells a token might want to buy 2 types of things:
1. Vendor items with set price, like the lightforged golem for example.
2. Player services like boosts.
While the #1 has a set price, the second doesn't and is subject to inflation, the more inflation Blizzard creates, the less consistent value the token seller gets for his money.

Also the fact gold is convertible to tokens means more people are interested in selling boosts, crafts and whatever else for gold, because gold has more tangible value. It bolsters the market, so the people who buy gold have more opportunities to spend it. It also encroaches onto the field of illegal boosts, the more people engage into boost selling for gold, the less people will go to shady websites and "skype" to buy the same for real life money and maybe end up getting hacked in the end who knows.

[SirCowdog]

Not sure why you quoted me for that post. You weren't really referring to anything I wrote.

I was just pointing out that the presence of the token adds more players that might not have normally been playing, on top of charging a higher rate.

I was agreeing with, and adding to, what you were already saying. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

But you did bring up an additional point just now: "Adds more players that might not have normally been playing". This is a benefit that many F2P games use. Even if a person isn't actively paying to play, they're still contributing to the community and the pool of potential group members, opponents in PVP, the in-game economy, etc.

[MoanaLisa]

Generally token buyers forget Blizzard doesn't really care about them, it cares about the token SELLERS because these give $$$ to Blizzard.

There's always a lot of chatter in these threads that either misunderstands or ignores this. There is one simple fact that generally should end the argument: If no one wanted to buy gold there wouldn't be a token economy. All of it hinges on whether or not someone is willing to buy gold.

[Marrilaife]

If no one wanted to buy gold there wouldn't be a token economy. All of it hinges on whether or not someone is willing to buy gold.

Yes, therefore they can't just "print some extra gold" and sell it for 20$, because rapidly devaluing gold would make people less inclined to buy it. If some assets are dropping in value, you don't buy them, the contrary, you try to get rid of them in the least detrimental manner, and that's what would happen if Blizzard allowed unlimited injecting endless amounts of gold through the cash shop. Blizzard would have to keep upping the amounts of gold you get for your 20$ to keep it lucrative and only worsening the hyperinflation spiral as more and more spare gold would be dropped into the market out of the blue. The whole market would crash and people would feel scammed. You don't want to feel scammed when you pay your "hard earned 20$" because then you will never pay it again, and that's the opposite of what Blizzard wants (or any company in general).

They also need to ensure there are things that players want that are purchasable for gold, therefore have a healthy economy in both goods and services market. People who "make gold" are crafters of goods and service providers to those who "buy gold". For several expansions now there started being an issue that the richest level of players had nothing to do with gold. People who boosted MOP CMs around the clock and so forth, people who played AH all day, except few dumps like BMAH that do not appeal to everyone, had no use for gold except sleeping on it and creating virtual halls of fame who's the richest. Not even mentioning illegal sale of gold because for some that was the only "reasonable" manner to dump it (even though they were putting their accounts at risk of ban). Token, and ultimately bnet balance, allowed these people wider variety of things they can dump their gold into, redistributing it into the economy instead of keeping it rotting in the rich men coffers. It also reinvigorated the motivation to keep making gold because there are more potentially interesting things in WOW and other Blizzard games to spend it on.

From other games that have this kind of exchange I've played one - Guild Wars 2 and their "gold to gem exchange", and the economy there is upkept through the fact best items are crafted but require tons of time and effort, people can buy gold to get good gear while people who sell gold and buy gems can purchase things from cosmetics (pets, transmogs) to quality of life improvements (extra character slots, extra bank tabs, extra crafting slot etc.). To be honest the second part bothered me a bit since the game launched as b2p not f2p, but now base game is f2p only expansions are paid, so I guess f2p model it is.

I've heard of EVE online and its PLEX system, never played the game because I despise free for all pvp fests, but from what I heard it's based on player created economy and everything made in the game starts from players harvesting the mats and crafting the smallest to biggest pieces of everything.

WOW waited years to implement system like that, and the risks were great, I've heard in Rift for example there existed system like that but it collapsed since people didn't want to pump money into the cash shop and sell it for in-game currency, so the market was overpriced to oblivion and generally dried up. Wildstar was supposed to have similar system, exchange in-game currency for game-time tokens, but I have no idea how it went since the game slided into f2p area, so can't say whether it was successful or a flop.

If you break the economy and lose the trust of the customers, it's really hard to fix it back. The reason they guarantee token sellers full listed price even if market price of the token drops and they're forced to "print" the difference is exactly that, to keep customer's trust intact.

People like to complain that "tokens are skyrocketing" every time there's a new deal available for bnet balance, but remember, if people buy more gold for their 20$, you can start charging them more for what you were selling before - maybe not immediately, but just compare, in WOD the mythic Archimonde mount was sold on my server for around 1,5million, atm mythic Gul'dan mount costs around 3million on my server. Price of crafted mounts like sky golem, JC panthers or vial of the sands increased since MOP around 2-3 times. Even hexweave bags are around 25% more expensive than they were in WOD. Your server might be different, but I'd wager this is an overall trend.

This kind of inflation actually helps you catch up on old vendor stuff, back in wotlk 18k for a mammoth mount was a lot, now not anymore. And it only hurts 1 type of player, the one that grinds raw gold (things like farming old Cata raids and so forth), because the one that sells items (crafted or found) or services (like various boosts) can just up the price. As the inflation progresses, low prices won't be sustained because less and less people will bother to put time and effort if it's pays "too little", it's easy to see in things like asking on trade for someone to sign your guild charter, back when I started playing the game people would do it for 5 gold, nowadays you can offer 1k and still no one will even want to go out of their way to bother, because they can do 2 world quests for the same amount without all the hassle.

[Protean]

It's not free. Also your example is completely backwards.

But still using your 'cake' example, the cake would be 'free' if I walked into the store and instead of paying for the cake, the attendant just handed me the cake, no questions asked. However, that's not what happens with the game tokens. Still in the same example, the attendant says I could have the cake without paying a single coin if, for example, I helped him by sweeping the store's floor. Or cleaned the windows. Or helped him sort the cakes in the displays.

You're always paying for your online time in WoW. Whether it's with your wallet or your time, you're always paying. Perhaps the time you used to gather the necessary gold for the token could be used to farm a toy or mount you want, or a world drop transmog item, or leveling an alt. Or hell, maybe even playing other games. Or... crazy idea, I know, but... perhaps spending time with your family or friends?

it's not a cost if it's the goal. If your goal is to get rid of money it isn't a cost, it's a consequence.

[TaliicElemental]

Incorrect. It's literally in blizzards tutorial. "You will get the amount it was posted for, regardless of the price it actually sells for when it is sold"

We are talking about buying a token and letting it sit in your bag for a year before you put it on the auction house in an attempt to make a nice profit. If it was 45k at the time when you purchased it for 20$ and then you waited until the value was 150k you would get 150k for the coin, not 45k. There's nothing in place making you sell it immediately to get your gold. Theres no expiration date either. The coin literally sits in your backpack for however long you want it to with the tooltip "can be sold for gold on the auction house".

What you're thinking we're talking about is entirely different (price of coin when you AH it compared to hours later when it finally sells to a player - that price differential isnt what im highlighting in my previous post nor is it what the person I quoted earlier's talking about). In regards to what you're talking about though, and what you thought we were talking about, you are right. You put a coin up at 10am and the market is 150k, if it sells at 2pm when the market is 160k you are only getting 150k.

[Thzz]

Yes, therefore they can't just "print some extra gold" and sell it for 20$, because rapidly devaluing gold would make people less inclined to buy it. If some assets are dropping in value, you don't buy them, the contrary, you try to get rid of them in the least detrimental manner, and that's what would happen if Blizzard allowed unlimited injecting endless amounts of gold through the cash shop. Bli....

great post and well written. thanks

tangential to your post but something that came up in others posts is issue re: paying for gold with your "time" thus gold is never "free".

someone plays AH because they love it, and they did it just as much pre token world when they could do nothing with gold. outside of game. they just like playing AH

these people get lot of "free" gold. my intuition is that has some negative impact on Blizz but cant figure out what it is.

if it does, then why doesnt blizz plug that leak.

if it doesnt then I'm just dumb and need to think harder

- - - Updated - - -

i thought harder. they dont care. its just transfer of gold from one player to another.

gotta go. about to go corner chaos crystal market (again) on my server to drive up my enchant prizes to new highs.

carry on

[Marrilaife]

someone plays AH because they love it, and they did it just as much pre token world when they could do nothing with gold. outside of game. they just like playing AH

these people get lot of "free" gold.

That can be compared to an irl situation of a person having a business or even "playing" on the stock exchange and loving it - it's a perfect situation, you do what you like and it gives you profit on top. Not everyone is in such a great situation though, and a lot of irl businesses go bankrupt and people playing stock exchange might as well invest badly and lose money. WOW is a bit lower risk and more predictable economy, but I'm quite sure some players tried "AH flipping" and lost gold in the process, for some it's a part of a learning curve, others will give up or rage.

I don't see why Blizzard would care to curb it unless it severely upsets the economy, and even then I don't think they often react at all. A guy who scans all day on TSM even if he watches Netflix on the second monitor is still clocking these MAU hours for Blizzard, so it's all cool. My personal opinion is TSM automates too much, but apparently Blizzard doesn't mind.

And even though you could say people who craft stuff to sell on the AH provide some value, while flippers do not, there are actually benefits of flippers. For example back in WOD when salvage yard was a thing, I ended up with piles and piles of boe greens. I had a choice: 1) vendor these 5-10g a pop 2) sell them to flippers for 50-100g a pop 3) try to sell it for a "market value" 500-1000g and have to keep reposting hundreds of auctions for months and months until something sells. I chose the option number 2 because it was more profitable than 1, and I don't have patience for the hassle that is number 3.

[Thzz]

I don't see why Blizzard would care to curb it unless it severely upsets the economy, and even then I don't think they often react at all. A guy who scans all day on TSM even if he watches Netflix on the second monitor is still clocking these MAU hours for Blizzard, so it's all cool. My personal opinion is TSM automates too much, but apparently Blizzard doesn't mind.
.

flipping is one way to work the AH and probably lesser common for most gold goblins, only occasionally for me and only when I see i high value item grossly underpriced to market.

controlling mats markets and crafting enchants, gems, gear etc etc is where lots and lots of consistent risk free gold is made by gold goblins. profit margins in each of those markets ebbs and flows and of course server dependent. enchants for example on my server... Im able to greatly influence supply demand curve for enchant mats, thus get 100-300% profit margin on crafted enchants.

Ya TSM automates all the button clicking for sure, but you still need to understand markets and how game changes and other things will impact supply demand for each market you are working. lots of tools automate button clicks for raiders too, but they still need to understand lots of things to not be a baddie. same thing in my mind as TSM.

but yeah probably pretty annoying for people who approach the professions part of game in a casual way (i i.e ts fun to make one thing and sell it for 5 K profit once a week) and see their postings underbid every time by one copper from TSM user posting 100's and 100s of things all the time.


But back to your post... If candy crush can make $250 million per year selling pixels, I gotta believe Blizz is leaving some profit on the table by not doing more with in game gold. I feel tokens is just their first step toward a a more candy crush model. prob more changes to come.

[Marrilaife]

controlling mats markets and crafting enchants, gems, gear etc etc is where lots and lots of consistent risk free gold is made by gold goblins. profit margins in each of those markets ebbs and flows and of course server dependent. enchants for example on my server... Im able to greatly influence supply demand curve for enchant mats, thus get 100-300% profit margin on crafted enchants.

Depends a lot on the server, on lower pops the competition is limited and it's easier to drain the ah of specific mats or track all big competitors. On my high pop server often I see fluctuations in price that are probably someone "resetting the market" but things go quickly down to the previous price when it comes to common crafts (flasks, gems, enchants and so forth). Some people compete and rack the profits by buying mats from trade (or even from botters), so they get cheaper mats and can undercut more and still make profit. There are typical trends, for example you sell more consumables on wednesday (EU raid reset day, people buy flasks / food before raid time and gems / enchants after they get new pieces of gear), but there are random swings at random moments, probably some goblins in action.

Crafting to sell is like having a business, you have to look at the competition, you try to ensure you get mats cheapest possible, you need to hit a market that has high to moderate demand so you can keep selling decent volumes.

Flipping is like playing stock exchange, you might hit a gold vein or you can lose investing in something you won't be able to resell.

Ya TSM automates all the button clicking for sure, but you still need to understand markets and how game changes and other things will impact supply demand for each market you are working.

Yeah, but I mean things like importing profiles - someone else did "market research" and someone else just copies them by importing their list of things with values and whatnot. The person doesn't develop knowledge themselves. And yes, I feel similar with things like imported weak auras that "deal with some boss mechanics", I don't like this is a thing either. I'm fine with weak auras tracking your trinkets or class cooldowns and procs, but the ones that sort the raid are kinda going too far, and I think Blizzard already said they will try to code things in a way this will be less of a thing (refering to things like weak aura auto sorting who soaks which hydra shot on mythic mistress etc.)

but yeah probably pretty annoying for people who approach the professions part of game in a casual way (i i.e ts fun to make one thing and sell it for 5 K profit once a week) and see their postings underbid every time by one copper from TSM user posting 100's and 100s of things all the time.

I've sold tons of "casual crafts" from gems to bags by just the favour of being on high pop server, as long as the item is fast selling it often sells before it gets undercut or at some time people buy enough of them to buy out both the undercuts and my items. I'm not the AH camper, rather casually post stuff here and there when I have something to sell and a spare moment, but I never understood the idea of flooding the market, if you post 100s of the same item you will get undercut before it sells, unless you're trying to lowball the price and scare the competition off, I have literally no clue why people do this.

And I hate slow moving markets like mass selling transmog, you literally need a dedicated char to cycle the bulk of the items between AH, bags and mailbox and it takes ages to sell anything. I leave that to goblins who have time and patience to cancel, repost, undercut, repeat.

If candy crush can make $250 million per year selling pixels, I gotta believe Blizz is leaving some profit on the table by not doing more with in game gold. I feel tokens is just their first step toward a a more candy crush model. prob more changes to come.

First thing is, candy crush and other mobile games have different playerbase. MMORPGs like wow, especially sub based ones and not f2p have specific narrow audience, wow is still doing well despite being an old game, but Blizzard sees other types of games are bringing more profit in comparison to development cost, and you can see it in the projects they focused on - HOTS, Hearthstone, Overwatch. All these games cost less to develop new content, need less content to sustain themselves and retain the playerbase, and all of them have "buy random box / pack from the cash shop" financing model. You get some stuff for free, but I'm pretty sure there are "whales" who binge buy stuff from cash shops in these games.

And yes, many MMORPGs have cash shops these days, but Blizzard has reputation at a stake here, WOW is not a f2p game, people would be strongly opposed to anything that smells "pay 2 win", and Blizzard doesn't want to lose the playerbase, because the sub income and the current cash shop income (pets, mounts, character services and so forth) are still a goldmine.

There are many MMORPGs that tried to milk the playerbase and flopped hard, from Rift to ArcheAge. Blizzard can try to make small steps, like for example they started selling levelling boosts or the tokens, but it's a muddy water to swim in, need to be careful when navigating around. In a game like WOW, Everquest or Lineage the age of the game is both a boon and a curse, a boon, because you have playerbase that played for years, is attached to the game, might drag their friends into it and so forth, but it's a curse in a way you can't make the game into something completely different people were used to and not risk losing a lot of old fans in a way "this isn't the game I signed up to play anymore". These games survive and outlive some new titles on the market through sheer fact they had the players first, and some players go try other titles but always return to their "old favourite".

In that aspect I don't think we'll ever see "WOW 2" or that WOW can drastically change the model of the game in a short period of time, it's too big of a risk to flop instead of raking safe payoffs from the current model and keep expanding in the field of other games, that Blizzard can design from scratch with any financing model they deem most profitable. Destiny 2 is coming and from what I heard, it's based on cash shop loot crate model as well.

[SL1200]

I've been thinking about a new way to farm gold. I don't know if it's actually do-able.

1. Convert my gold to battle.net account balance.
2. Wait for in game inflation to happen.
3. Convert my battle.net balance back to gold at a profit.
4. Repeat.

Is this a thing in wow now?

[Deleted]

I'm casual player. Just quest, 5mans, low level mythics, LFR just to see content, and work AH

Because I enjoy playing with AH and the WOW economy I have more gold than I could ever spend and will never have to pay blizzard a penny again. lots of others have lots of gold and will get free subs for ever.

So, something I was just trying to wrap my head around and would appreciate the Econ 101 guru to chime in.

Put aside the fact that when I exchange gold for token, that means someone has paid blizz for token, so Blizz has gotten paid for THAT persons game time.

Blizz never gets a penny from ME for game time ( or with new store I think I can buy expansions with in game gold too). Gold is virtually a free commodity for me as I get it for doing what I like to do.

Wouldn't Blizz shareholders be better off if Blizz did not allow me get free game time and instead just created more in game gold to fullfill demand for tokens?

Skipped Econ class the day they taught Econ.

Please help.

It's actually pretty simple and more profitable for Blizzard and also a win win win situation.

Blizz does not get money from you but they get more from the person that listed the token.

Subscription - 13 euros
Token - 20 euros

Now, tokens are not generated by the system, so if no one pays 20 euros to list a token there will be no tokens up for sale.

This means that for every "free" token, blizzard gains 20 euros instead of 13.

TL;DR Someone paid 20 euros for your subscription instead of the normal 13 euro fee, even though it seems free to you.

[SirBeef]

I'm casual player. Just quest, 5mans, low level mythics, LFR just to see content, and work AH

Because I enjoy playing with AH and the WOW economy I have more gold than I could ever spend and will never have to pay blizzard a penny again. lots of others have lots of gold and will get free subs for ever.

So, something I was just trying to wrap my head around and would appreciate the Econ 101 guru to chime in.

Put aside the fact that when I exchange gold for token, that means someone has paid blizz for token, so Blizz has gotten paid for THAT persons game time.

Blizz never gets a penny from ME for game time ( or with new store I think I can buy expansions with in game gold too). Gold is virtually a free commodity for me as I get it for doing what I like to do.

Wouldn't Blizz shareholders be better off if Blizz did not allow me get free game time and instead just created more in game gold to fullfill demand for tokens?

Skipped Econ class the day they taught Econ.

Please help.

Tokens cost $5 more than a monthly sub. Blizzard would rather have more token buyers than subscription payers.

[kamuimac]

it's not a cost if it's the goal. If your goal is to get rid of money it isn't a cost, it's a consequence.

its called "cost of lost oportunities "

by investing X amount of time into activity A just simple do not have the same X amount of time for activity B or C

whether its worth it its up to you - for most of people with good jobs mindless grinding of gold is waste of their time - beacuase they value their free time from work much higher then that.

- - - Updated - - -

I've been thinking about a new way to farm gold. I don't know if it's actually do-able.

1. Convert my gold to battle.net account balance.
2. Wait for in game inflation to happen.
3. Convert my battle.net balance back to gold at a profit.
4. Repeat.

Is this a thing in wow now?

nice idea but blizzard thought ahead of you and put limits to battle net balance.

[Jetstream]

OP, this isn't even an econ question. It's just sense.

It doesn't matter who's paying them, as long as they're getting paid.

[Thzz]

OP, this isn't even an econ question. It's just sense.

It doesn't matter who's paying them, as long as they're getting paid.

Ya Im way over that I get it now after reading thru others posts up earlier in thread. but moved onto other related..

Depends a lot on the server, on lower pops the competition is limited and it's easier to drain the ah of specific mats or track all big competitors. On my high pop server often I see fluctuations in price that are probably someone "resetting the market" but things go quickly down to the previous price when it comes to common crafts (flasks, gems, enchants and so forth). Some people compete and rack the profits by buying mats from trade (or even from botters), so they get cheaper mats and can undercut more and still make profit. There are typical trends, for example you sell more consumables on wednesday (EU raid reset day, people buy flasks / food before raid time and gems / enchants after they get new pieces of gear), but there are random swings at random moments, probably some goblins in action.

low pop / high pop server ? I've never understand what defines Low vs Med vs High . I see those labels when you see the realm listings but dont know how to quantify it.
Is low pop server 10% as busy as high pop. 50%? 80%. Yes this important impact on economies ( and all sorts of other game play stuff).

I've often wondered why WOW has ANY low pop servers. Why not just keep merging them so they have fewer but all mostly full and all about the same.

First thing is, candy crush and other mobile games have different playerbase. MMORPGs like wow, especially sub based ones and not f2p have specific narrow audience, wow is still doing well despite being an old game, but Blizzard sees other types of games are bringing more profit in comparison to development cost, and you can see it in the projects they focused on - HOTS, Hearthstone, Overwatch. All these games cost less to develop new content, need less content to sustain themselves and retain the playerbase, and all of them have "buy random box / pack from the cash shop" financing model. You get some stuff for free, but I'm pretty sure there are "whales" who binge buy stuff from cash shops in these games.

And yes, many MMORPGs have cash shops these days, but Blizzard has reputation at a stake here, WOW is not a f2p game, people would be strongly opposed to anything that smells "pay 2 win", and Blizzard doesn't want to lose the playerbase, because the sub income and the current cash shop income (pets, mounts, character services and so forth) are still a goldmine.

There are many MMORPGs that tried to milk the playerbase and flopped hard, from Rift to ArcheAge. Blizzard can try to make small steps, like for example they started selling levelling boosts or the tokens, but it's a muddy water to swim in, need to be careful when navigating around. In a game like WOW, Everquest or Lineage the age of the game is both a boon and a curse, a boon, because you have playerbase that played for years, is attached to the game, might drag their friends into it and so forth, but it's a curse in a way you can't make the game into something completely different people were used to and not risk losing a lot of old fans in a way "this isn't the game I signed up to play anymore". These games survive and outlive some new titles on the market through sheer fact they had the players first, and some players go try other titles but always return to their "old favourite".

In that aspect I don't think we'll ever see "WOW 2" or that WOW can drastically change the model of the game in a short period of time, it's too big of a risk to flop instead of raking safe payoffs from the current model and keep expanding in the field of other games, that Blizzard can design from scratch with any financing model they deem most profitable. Destiny 2 is coming and from what I heard, it's based on cash shop loot crate model as well.

interesting. I still beleive more impactful changes to come in the area of in game gold, tokens , etc. they've gotten their first taste of benefit with tokens. they'll want more. but yeah must do it slowly over time.

its called "cost of lost oportunities "

by investing X amount of time into activity A just simple do not have the same X amount of time for activity B or C

.

many still not making this important discintion

Player A collects flowers and things for XX hours per week. Its sort of fun maybe, but really just wants the gold for whatever reason and activity does become grindy over time.

Player B (me) works the AH and loves doing it just for the challenge and fun and just happens to makes a shipload of gold doing it.

I get my gold for the simple reason that WOW has chosen to make what I like to do result in getting lots of gold. my gold is free and a by product of my time, not the result of my time.

Raiders, casual questers, mythic+'ers pvp'ers, role players, etc etc ... get very little if any gold for what they do in game that is fun to them. there gold is not free. either get it with more time or money

Its not fair to them or absurdly over fair to me.

[Protean]

its called "cost of lost oportunities "

by investing X amount of time into activity A just simple do not have the same X amount of time for activity B or C

whether its worth it its up to you - for most of people with good jobs mindless grinding of gold is waste of their time - beacuase they value their free time from work much higher then that.

- - - Updated - - -



nice idea but blizzard thought ahead of you and put limits to battle net balance.

Why do you refuse to read what we write? I'm well aware what cost of opportunity is and that's not how you use it. The actual getting of gold in his case happens naturally while he plays the game how he likes to play. Play game -> get gold as a consequence. It's free.

Look at it this way: If game tokens cost 1k gold, would you not consider it completely free because 1k is gained automatically while doing almost any activity that you were going to do?