Blizz's motivation(s) behind Tokens

[Gorsameth]

So how does this $20 thing work if I'm using gold I amassed over the years (since I have millions) and never actually spend any money on it?

Your not paying 20, someone else is.
Blizzard doesn't care who pays the 20.

You being able to buy a sub with someone else's 20 dollars is better for Blizzard then you paying 15 for your own sub.

[Socialhealer]

So how does this $20 thing work if I'm using gold I amassed over the years (since I have millions) and never actually spend any money on it?

Someone else paid $20 to blizzard for that token.

You then pay xxx,xxx gold for the token for 1 month of gametime.

so things we know from this:

Blizzard sold 1 token for $20 to someone.
Someone paid xxx,xxx for 1 token(you).
Someone got xxx,xxx gold for 1 token sold on the AH.

[Black Goat]

Money. It's really not rocket surgery.

[Rucati]

People have mentioned that it gives Blizzard $20 for subs instead of $15, which is absolutely true, but it also extends further. I bought Black Ops 4 with WoW gold, I'll buy Modern Warfare with WoW gold. So instead of $60 from me, that's 4 tokens, which is $80 from other people.

Perhaps people will buy Overwatch skins that otherwise wouldn't have because they don't want to spend real money on cosmetics, well now they can spend WoW gold on them instead.

Or maybe people will play WoW that otherwise wouldn't have, I mean if you can get 150k gold per month the game is free for you, so I think a lot of people who don't want to pay $15 a month are still playing just because they can do it with gold. Hell, one of my friends and I fall into that category.

So it was pretty smart to sell WoW subscriptions for WoW gold. But it was genius to sell Battle.net Balance for WoW gold.

[Shadochi]

People have mentioned that it gives Blizzard $20 for subs instead of $15, which is absolutely true, but it also extends further. I bought Black Ops 4 with WoW gold, I'll buy Modern Warfare with WoW gold. So instead of $60 from me, that's 4 tokens, which is $80 from other people.

Perhaps people will buy Overwatch skins that otherwise wouldn't have because they don't want to spend real money on cosmetics, well now they can spend WoW gold on them instead.

Or maybe people will play WoW that otherwise wouldn't have, I mean if you can get 150k gold per month the game is free for you, so I think a lot of people who don't want to pay $15 a month are still playing just because they can do it with gold. Hell, one of my friends and I fall into that category.

So it was pretty smart to sell WoW subscriptions for WoW gold. But it was genius to sell Battle.net Balance for WoW gold.

Blizz is definitely racking up large profits on this. Since the token was introduced I spent around 1500 euros on battle net store using balance from tokens (Last time I checked was after the last winter sale, somewhere around 1300 euros in my balance transaction history). Since a token is 20 euros and they get converted to 13 euros of balance, means they earned around 2300 euros for 1500 "worth" (since its all digital) of product

[Twdft]

You then pay xxx,xxx gold for the token for 1 month of gametime.

A bit off-topic but please get battle.net balance for the token you bought with gold, you can save a little money buying longer subs instead of monthly.

[Lorianus]

Cant speak for blizzard's motivation but i like being able to buy Battle.net launcher games with wow gold > battle.net currency conversion.

[Prime92]

From a business stand point its pure genius, it makes them so much more money every time someone buys a sub with gold. why sell subs for $15 when you can make people pay $20?

In EU the cut is 13 vs 20 euro :O It's pure scam.

[hyphnos]

This comes up from time to time in various threads and there have been a few threads about specifically about Tokens iin general topics.

One motivation for them was pretty clear. Kill third party gold sellers. That worked.

Do you think this was their ONLY motivation or were there others? Did tokens have any other impacts that maybe they didnt expect?


p.s. Posting this in General would get alot more responses than here as much more traffic over there, but Im hoping responses in here will be from people that actually know what they are talking about.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

duh

[JoeGood]

I really dont know.. i have never bought nor sold a token, since i have enough gold.. there is nothing usefull to spend it on for me.. :/

[HydraWoW]

They get more money than a regular sub, while also harming 3rd party gold businesses

[starbuxs]

It’s funny, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I used to enjoy making gold in game but the second they introduced tokens that just killed that part of the game for me.

[Rucati]

It’s funny, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I used to enjoy making gold in game but the second they introduced tokens that just killed that part of the game for me.

That is funny because it's the exact opposite for me. I never cared at all about gold because I felt like there was nothing to use it on. Now I can buy Blizzard games, WoW time, Hearthstone cards, etc. all with gold. There's a real reason to actually grind gold and try to make money outside of just having a large amount of gold sitting in your bags.

It's actually become one of my favorite things to do on WoW nowadays.

[Mirishka]

That is funny because it's the exact opposite for me. I never cared at all about gold because I felt like there was nothing to use it on. Now I can buy Blizzard games, WoW time, Hearthstone cards, etc. all with gold. There's a real reason to actually grind gold and try to make money outside of just having a large amount of gold sitting in your bags.

It's actually become one of my favorite things to do on WoW nowadays.

You sound like a friend of mine. She went from 'eh' about farming gold to making millions, and uses it to pay for her sub, game services, etc.

[Velerios]

Their goal? Simply cash in some money. Sure it has some benefits like driving away 3-rd party gold sellers and some huge drawbacks like devaluating EVERYTHING in game since EVERYTHING (titles, mounts, feats of strength...) can now be bought directly within the game with no risk or effort, making it even more valueless than it was before the token introduction. Blizzard’s goal was just to get back the money that wasn’t gained because of gold sellers, easy as that. They couldn’t care less about the others effects (prestige rewards devaluation, boosted server economy and trade), which can be fine considered ATVI is a business that has to make money.

So it is like always (since some people always bought gold to get what they wanted). Just now they do it officially, but absolutely NOTHING changed. The rest has nothing to do with Evil corporate - tinfoil hat edition, blizzard just accepted the reality.

[Djuntas]

There are bad and good, but I still much, much rather have it like this. Playing wow for "free" is nice. On top of that I can buy other in-game things or other blizzard games.

I just hope the price stays low, but we'll see how inflation plays out in next expansion....If we peaked or not. Pretty sure I made as much or more gold in BFA as I did in legion, but Im also an AH player mainly...never bothered with mission tabels.

[Schattenlied]

This comes up from time to time in various threads and there have been a few threads about specifically about Tokens iin general topics.

One motivation for them was pretty clear. Kill third party gold sellers. That worked.

Do you think this was their ONLY motivation or were there others? Did tokens have any other impacts that maybe they didnt expect?


p.s. Posting this in General would get alot more responses than here as much more traffic over there, but Im hoping responses in here will be from people that actually know what they are talking about.

Obviously one motivation was to get more subscribers... There's plenty of people with more gold than they need and not a lot of spare RL money to spend on games, tokens are a way to get those people to sub for longer than they otherwise would... I'd have stopped playing a long long time ago if I couldn't pay my sub with gold.

[[Apok]]

In EU the cut is 13 vs 20 euro :O It's pure scam.

In the uk sub is £9.99 and the token is £17

[kranur]

There was really no other motivation, the only other thing was that they were brilliant about it and also turned it to profits while hitting on many points. It made people that wanted to sell their excess gold happy, it made people that wanted to buy gold happy, it removed the scamming potential from gold to cash transactions while making some of their 13$ be worth 20$.

Some may not like it, but like it or not, gold selling has been a thing since forever and no matter how much they would have struggled, there was just no way to get rid of it as long as people wanted to buy/sell gold. You see, it wasn't only the gold farmers that were selling gold, there were also many legit players that were doing it (myself included, I've sold plenty of gold for RAF months back in Cata). While that in itself was against the TOS, the other big problem was the scamming, plenty were getting scammed into losing gold, cash and even compromising their accounts.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Its about making money. Some people stay subbed because they think they are playing for "free" when really it's another guy paying 20 bucks instead of them paying 15. The same thing goes for buying games and services because they can get 60 bucks for a 49.99 game for example. Then the money going to 3rd party gold sites slowed way down and instead was redirected to Blizzard. But at the sametime it moved a lot of the carry market into gold, but at least now Blizzard gets a cut of the value.

All you can say is who cares to it at this point. For one it won't be going anywhere. Finally it did have a major community net positive of slashing out gold selling in the game. But in the end it is just about Blizzard making more money for basiclly just having a background system functioning. So no real labor costs, small as hell RND to get it rolling, and not much upkeep aside from what is already going on to keep the game itself going. Trust me the millisecond it isn't only profitable but INSANELY profitable it will be yanked.. but it won't ever happen. The internet has proven some whales will carry any weight with a credit card as long as they get to show off how cool they are.