World of Warcraft to Add $20 WoW Tokens Soon

Blizzard is gearing up to shutdown the unauthorized, third-party gold-farming websites out there by launching World of Warcraft's new WoW Token feature.

MMO-Champion reports that Blizzard's upcoming WoW Token feature will cost $20 apiece, and should be going live soon. These tokens will be given to a character of your choice on your account, where the character can use it to add 30 days to the owners' account. The player has the chance to give purchased tokens to their friends as a gift or to sell them on the Auction House for gold. Likewise, this lets players with stockpiles of gold buy their monthly subscription with WoW's in-game currency instead of spending real life cash. This is meant to fizzle out the people who have purchased in-game gold via third-party gold-farming websites, as people who want to buy gold can just get tokens and sell them. These gold-farming websites are not only blacklisted by Blizzard, but accounts who are caught buying gold are often banned as well.

Here's what Blizzard's representatives had to say about Patch 6.1.2. which will add the option to buy WoW Tokens:

We’ll begin rolling out the WoW Token in the weeks following Patch 6.1.2’s release, starting with the Americas game region (including realms serving North America, Oceania, and Latin America) and then expanding to other game regions in the weeks after that. Launching the Token once Patch 6.1.2 has been live for a while will help us ensure the foundation for the feature is solid, and kicking things off with a single region is the best way for us to ensure everything’s going smoothly before launching worldwide. We’ll provide further updates on timing as we get closer to the Token’s launch in each region.

Because the Token exchange has to start somewhere, we will be setting the initial gold value of the WoW Token ourselves. The starting gold value in each region will be based on several factors, including regional in-game economies, but ultimately our goal is to select a fair and reasonable starting price. After that, the Token’s gold value will be determined dynamically based primarily on player supply and demand. Simply put, if more WoW Tokens are being listed than are being purchased, the price will automatically drift downward over time. If people are purchasing Tokens from the Auction House faster than they’re being put up for sale, then prices will go up accordingly. As a reminder, to help make sure players can trade WoW Tokens confidently, once a Token sells, the seller will receive the amount of gold they were quoted at the time they listed their Token.

We know a lot of you are excited to exchange a WoW Token or two, and we’re looking forward to making the feature available in the near future. We’ll provide additional updates on the rollout of the WoW Token feature soon.

Blizzard has three different subscription plans for World of Warcraft. The monthly rate is $14.99, a three month subscription's flat rate averages out to $13.99 and the six month bundle turns out to be roughly $12.99 a month, so buying a $20 WoW Token (which adds 30 days) is a bit steep, but it's a nice way to get in-game gold by putting it on the Auction House