Higher WoW Token prices don't indicate that players are leaving

[Lightbull]

I see this a lot, and it's just not true. WoW Token prices are going up because of the gold inflation that happened in Legion. It wouldn't make sense if the WoW Token prices simply stayed the same, no one would buy them.

I'm sure someone with a better understanding of economics would explain this better than me, but I believe this is what's happening.

[MrDaemon]

Its kind of both. At the start of the expansion a lot of people needed gold so price was going down. As time goes on more people have gold and some of the people who bought gold stopped playing so price is going up. There should be small drop in price when 7.1.5 and NH hits because some players will start playing again and people will also need gold for consumables and other stuff.

[WowIsDead64]

Blizzard, being unable to introduce reliable gold sink - is the reason. They are balancing between selling as much gold, as possible, and P2W. Simply because if they would introduce something, that majority of players would want to buy, such as gear for example - it would be P2W. And demand of optional things - isn't reliable enough.

[Super Kami Dende]

It's just gold inflation, Blizz added a bunch of Gold sinks in Legion. I figure by end of Legion Gold will be better balanced than the end of WoD.

[Stormspark]

Higher price means more demand, less supply. That means the stock of tokens is getting depleted, by people using them. High price means not enough people are buying the tokens for cash. The moment the tokens could be used for bnet balance in addition to WOW time is when the price went up. Now that they can be used for more things, there is more demand for tokens than ever.

[Deztru]

Blizzard, being unable to introduce reliable gold sink - is the reason. They are balancing between selling as much gold, as possible, and P2W. Simply because if they would introduce something, that majority of players would want to buy, such as gear for example - it would be P2W. And demand of optional things - isn't reliable enough.

Goldsinks? Yeah I used to spend my gold on something *cough*Reforging*cough*

/s What would be a proper gold sink? BMAH kind of but everything's junk from there, the signet of Dalaran almost worked until they nerfed it and nobody wanted it, the spider mount costs too much etc.

Edit: As I try to remember there has never been a proper gold sink in the game, mounts perhaps waaaaay back, for those unaware not just some new flying mounts but actually being able to use the mounts. Gold inflation go up but the prices don't, at this rate the Master flying skill would need to cost like 500k instead of the old 5k to have the same effect

[Kolvarg]

Its kind of both.

^ This.

The only "real" information we actually have is the token price. Saying "it's because gold inflation!" is as much of a fact as "it's because people are leaving!", they're both assumptions.

As MrDaemon says, the most likely scenario is that it's caused by both, not by just one of them exclusively.

Sure, inflation happens every expansion, but do you really think 60k in WoD became 100k in Legion? Legion might still have plenty viable ways of making gold, but none of them get even close imho to what the Garrison was, and especially not as widespread.

What are the best ways to make gold in Legion? Farming mats? That doesn't create inflation - the gold is coming form other players. Making 10k a week from garrison per character, though, that created a lot of inflation.

Just don't pretend there isn't people leaving, because there are. There always are. And especially with new expacs this has been happening and will continue to happen. People come back to check the new content and then go away when they're bored. That's just normal. There's way too many games out there, people with less time don't want to dedicate all their gaming time to WoW alone the whole year, when they could be playing other stuff instead of farming WQs for the 100th time.

It's not because the game is bad or the expansion sucks, it's just the nature of things. There's too much competition and offer, and that's a good thing imo. Maybe the game is less stable and more boring for those who want and do stay the whole year, those who miss the realm community and stuff, but almost undoubtfully this is the way that interests the most people and makes more money, sadly.

[Deleted]

What do you even need gold for anymore though?

Hardly any use in selling them anymore since everyone sits on 100k-1 mil gold these days.

[ophion1990]

Goldsinks? Yeah I used to spend my gold on something *cough*Reforging*cough*

/s What would be a proper gold sink? BMAH kind of but everything's junk from there, the signet of Dalaran almost worked until they nerfed it and nobody wanted it, the spider mount costs too much etc.

Edit: As I try to remember there has never been a proper gold sink in the game, mounts perhaps waaaaay back, for those unaware not just some new flying mounts but actually being able to use the mounts. Gold inflation go up but the prices don't, at this rate the Master flying skill would need to cost like 500k instead of the old 5k to have the same effect

The gold sink in previous expansions was what you mentioned at the top of your post tbh. In the past you had to enchant bracers/legs/helms/shoulders/cloak/boots/weapons, now it's rings/neck/cloak and shoulders, even though that's only needed if you want more mats. You had to reforge pieces that didn't have optimal stat rolls or if you needed more hit/exp, something that's gone now. Lastly, you needed to gem your gear, something that you only have to do if you get a WF/TF on the item.

I agree with Blizz that sometimes it became a bit much, you get a belt, you have to reforge, buy a belt buckle and a gem. But they went too far in the other direction, I'm just sitting on a pile of gold with nothing to spend it on. Even my druid alt who never had more than 30k in the past has close to 200k now. My rogue is closing in on the half mil point even though I don't even bother selling gems etc since a) they make little money and b) I don't even need the money to begin with. The fact that so many people run around with the transmog mount shows that a lot of people are in a similar situation. Tons of gold with nothing to spend it on other than the occasional cosmetic item.

[George Costanza]

People are leaving WoW because legion is shit.

Noone wants to play a game where you have as big chance of progressing as winning a jackpot.

[Deztru]

The gold sink in previous expansions was what you mentioned at the top of your post tbh. In the past you had to enchant bracers/legs/helms/shoulders/cloak/boots/weapons, now it's rings/neck/cloak and shoulders, even though that's only needed if you want more mats. You had to reforge pieces that didn't have optimal stat rolls or if you needed more hit/exp, something that's gone now. Lastly, you needed to gem your gear, something that you only have to do if you get a WF/TF on the item.

I agree with Blizz that sometimes it became a bit much, you get a belt, you have to reforge, buy a belt buckle and a gem. But they went too far in the other direction, I'm just sitting on a pile of gold with nothing to spend it on. Even my druid alt who never had more than 30k in the past has close to 200k now. My rogue is closing in on the half mil point even though I don't even bother selling gems etc since a) they make little money and b) I don't even need the money to begin with. The fact that so many people run around with the transmog mount shows that a lot of people are in a similar situation. Tons of gold with nothing to spend it on other than the occasional cosmetic item.

It wasn't as big of an issue as blizzard made it seem to be, if you get one or two upgrades per week what's the problem of putting in some effort on them?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

One thing I would mention too is I have been getting a ton of gold from my mission table in the class hall. I would say up to 1000 to 2000 if I strike the bonus a day and I only mess with the thing once when I get home and thats it. I am sure if I really pushed it and maximized my relics it could be even more. I just don't because I don't love the game play of it and shit getting 1-2k a day for just logging in is ridic. Feels like garison is back.

[rda]

It's not because the game is bad or the expansion sucks, it's just the nature of things.

It's not the nature of things that people leave this fast and this much. It happened in WoD because it was crap, had big problems. It happens in Legion because it seems to have big problems as well. It didn't happen in WotLK or in MoP or even in Cata. Two of these three expansions had only a very light decline and the remaining one (either Cata or MoP, don't remember) had the decline that's at most half of the slope of the one in WoD / Legion, it was way, way, way milder.

The activity graph shows that WoW has deteriorated (yes, as in "got worse", because, again, it wasn't like that before at all, go see graphs for prior expansions) to the point where (a) there is not enough content to keep people's interest for longer than one or two months, and (b) people no longer believe that content will come later.

[Granyala]

High price means: less people buying token for RL money, because not much use for IG gold and more people disinclined to pay a RL money sub fee b/c they don't deem WoW worth it.

Generally my (have only one char) mission table generates around 10K gold / week.
That puts me at a realistic cost of 60K per month of token sub.

Too bad you cannot sustain it w/o being an AH mogul anymore. Means my Acc is likely to get frozen come end of Jan.

- - - Updated - - -

The activity graph shows that WoW has deteriorated (yes, as in "got worse", because, again, it wasn't like that before at all, go see graphs for prior expansions) to the point where (a) there is not enough content to keep people's interest for longer than one or two months, and (b) people no longer believe that content will come later.

Well, except raiding there ain't much to do. Even the casualest of casuals will be through come mid january.
7.1.5 doesn't bring new content as such, so ... yeah. Lots of people are going to freeze until 7.2 at least.

[Deleted]

People are leaving WoW because legion is shit.

Noone wants to play a game where you have as big chance of progressing as winning a jackpot.

Yeah you totally can't clear stuff if you are not full BiS titanforged and have 2 BiS legendaries.

/s

[Evangeliste]

People are leaving WoW because legion is shit.

Noone wants to play a game where you have as big chance of progressing as winning a jackpot.

Can you define what the jackpot is exactly?
In my mind the ultimate jackpot is you defeated everything on offer, you min/maxed every avenue in character progression and much more. And I can't see how that would be accomplished in a few passing months of the expansion opening when as a norm for 10 years of expansions the launch spikes the subs and then tapers off to a stable playerbase...

Not sure how long you've played really, but if you mean legendaries my dear... you can farm 6 already from old expansions and 3 of them are RNG drops from bosses which is 5 less then current expansion.

[WowIsDead64]

Goldsinks? Yeah I used to spend my gold on something *cough*Reforging*cough*

/s What would be a proper gold sink? BMAH kind of but everything's junk from there, the signet of Dalaran almost worked until they nerfed it and nobody wanted it, the spider mount costs too much etc.

Edit: As I try to remember there has never been a proper gold sink in the game, mounts perhaps waaaaay back, for those unaware not just some new flying mounts but actually being able to use the mounts. Gold inflation go up but the prices don't, at this rate the Master flying skill would need to cost like 500k instead of the old 5k to have the same effect

In cases of both gold and $$$ - I would spend them on something really useful, not just useless vanity items (except things, that would provide customization, I would want to have - for example armor dyes with my favorite colors). For example: mounts, pets, transmog items? Useless crap. Flying, some BOA things, that provide advantage to alts, like Heirlooms, Garrisons? Yeah, that's what I would spend gold/$$$ on. See? Anything, I would spend gold on - would most likely be considered P2W, especially in P2P/B2P game.

P.S. And artificial gold sinks, like Reforging - is things, I hate anyway. Something on a par with 1.5K Garrison blueprint prices. Yeah, in the past such prices were reasonable, but now they're simply artificial gold sinks - nothing more.

[aziras]

If we for a second assume that Blizzard does not control supply and demand. Which they easily could.

Then it is a matter of simple supply and demand. If more players want to buy tokens to "play for free" than players want to sell tokens to "buy gold for RL money" then token price goes up.

It is only natural in a lifecycle of a game like WoW.

Right at expansion start many players are back, they are racing to max out and stay ahead of the curve, so some players are tempted to buy gold to skip all the grinding they can. This drives prices down - supply is high.

As the race slows down and upgrades cannot be bought anymore those same players both have more time to farm, but also less need for gold. This drives prices up - supply is lower.

Then at the same time, a group of players sitting on mountains of gold knows they can stop paying real money and just burn their stash because they can easily farm the money back in a month. So these players stop stockpiling gold and instead want to play for free. Similarly those who are about to quit may simply decide to cancel their subscriptions and just play as long as they can for their gold stash. Drives up the prices - demand is higher.

[unbad]

...The reason seems fairly obvious to me.

Did no one else notice that the price began to skyrocket after it was reported that Blizzard would be adding the ability to use WoW Tokens for other in-game services? This is when the gold cost began to move to where it is now, going up roughly 20k gold in all.

[Craxus]

People are leaving WoW because legion is shit.

Noone wants to play a game where you have as big chance of progressing as winning a jackpot.

If you can't progress in legion then you probably are bad and should quit anyways.