Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsWho's buying all that gold, anyway?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jun 11th 2007 at 2:47PM
Really, I'm curious. Who's buying this stuff? I've seen goldsellers advertising gold in amounts of up to 11,000 -- for over $1600. Perhaps you're doing a double-take at that number, but it's not a typo -- I do mean sixteen hundred dollars. Now, I paid $50 for the game itself, another $50 for the expansion, $15 a month to play, and the occasional $25 to move characters around, which means I've spent over $500 on this game in the two years I've played it. That already seems like a huge amount of money to me -- but if gold sellers are out advertising $1600 worth of gold, that must mean that at least a few people are interested in spending that much.All I can think of are the cries of agony that surely follow when the buyer is inevitably banned from the game. Blizzard does keep track of gold transfers, and I imagine that transfers in such high amounts set off red flags in their system. So what happens when you've just spent $1600 on virtual property that Blizzard has politely reminded you belongs to them? (Yes, Blizzard does hold on to the idea that all in game items are their property, and thus cannot be bought or traded for real money.) I can think of less risky ways to invest!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Crypt King Jun 11th 2007 5:51PM
WoW is a hobby, people spend money on their hobby. Some spend more then others. Whether against the "rules," or not, it's no different then spending money on a hobby.
If you have disposable income, what is different for the pocket book compared to buying gold or buying a cd, or buying a movie ticket, or renting a movie, or buying a new set of pens for your art, yadda yadda? Nothing, it's money being spent on what you want to spend it on, to further your entertainment. It's no less pathetic.
People forget, back in the day, before the hammer on the gold farmers prices in the AH for items, especially consumables was way more reasonable. Then the hammer and all the mobs with their pitchforks came out and they slowed and prices soared through the roof (loved the days of 25-30 gp Major Mana pot stacks). But wait that's different because the money's not going to some company it's going to greedy gouging players... Oh wait, that's different.
Beaverius Jun 11th 2007 6:05PM
Blizzard does keep tabs of huge gold transfers. I heard a story of a GM of a big guild, sending a few of his buddies 900g for a flying mount all at once. They saw the large transfers and banned him. he was able to get his stuff back and all that, but it just goes to show that they do keep track.
Not that I approve of this, but I've heard that gold sellers will send you money from different characters to try and bypass this.
Dan0 Jun 11th 2007 6:48PM
I'll play devils advocate here, and not saying that I have or ever will spend real-life money on in-game gold, I can understand the reasoning.
As many of you know, being in a progressing guild that is running higher-level instances can be a very expensive hobby. When you're buying reagents, pots and ultimately paying for repair bills, the amount of gold can skyrocket.
Now personally, I'm 24 and I work full-time as a copy-editor (40-60 hours a week depending on the weeks load) and I constantly find myself struggling to make enough money to be competitive ingame.
However, I do make enough money (and significantly more than some high-school kid who has all day to farm motes of fire) to afford luxuries in life. If I wasn't playing WoW, I'd probably be out buying a new DVD or an XBox360 game every other week or so. Therefore, dropping a few dollars on in-game gold would be completely feasable and save me from having to spend all my free in-game time working (i.e. farming) and do things that I enjoy i.e. PVP and new instances.
Would I ever spend $1600 just to get an epic mount? Absolutely not, that's just ridiculous. Doesn't mean I haven't thought about dropping $50 so I could repair for the rest of the month...
tomhennessy Jun 11th 2007 8:28PM
Look at it this way -
I'm a raider/PvP'er. I am mildly bemused by quests that don't give me useful item rewards, and my mind goes limp at the idea of farming or spamming IF to sell enchants. I would hate those things.
On the other hand, I do grind IRL. Let's say that I can grind $22 an hour. At going rates, I can trade that for ~300 gold. So... I can grind, hate it, and make 100g or so in an hour. Or. I can work, build my IRL resume, look good for working overtime, and make 300g/hr (all with no durability loss!).
Now, given that, it would be utterly stupid of me to ever grind. Unless I were a masochist. Which I'm not.
And, as far as "assuredly getting caught." Um...yes. Santa Claus will swoop down and catch me. Of the wow players that I know IRL, I would say that roughly 100% have purchased gold, in quantities of 100-5000g. Total # of accounts closed - 0. Now, of course, this is a small sample, but you get my point.
Unregistered Jun 11th 2007 10:31PM
no gold buying for me. just not worth the risk of being banned. so i'm level 70 and dont have a flying mount. big deal. i dont play everyday so i dont have a problem. i could borrow off my guild members but like i said, i am not in any big hurry to get it. i figured the money will roll in eventually, since there are a lot of quests i havent done yet in the outlands, which should net me over 3k gold by the end of it.
Thallid Jun 12th 2007 12:25AM
Put it this way.
If I didn't spend my money on the various things I have, (Oathkeeper's helm, 2 20-slot bags, PLing Engineering, buying rep grind turn-in items, etc.) I would swear that I would be the richest person on my server.
Which leads to my point that it seems like making money in BC seems less of a trying experience, but more of a side benefit of all the things you do. (Reputation grinds, questing, etc.)
Either way, I don't see why anyone WOULD need to buy gold if BC is just crying to people for their gold handouts.
Esko Jun 12th 2007 12:50AM
I used the remaining change on a gift debit card to try the gold purchasing services (a very minimal purchase) and I was surprised in how fast they fulfill requests. Service is good but I guess the only people that would use this service is those that dont have time to build that bankroll...
Shakka Jun 12th 2007 1:31AM
Ive bought the gold for my epic flying mount, cuz i couldnt be arsed to farm the cash myself.
Paid 68€ for 6000g, and i can live with that.
And ofc you *can* farm it yourself in Outland, but when you work 10 hours a day, it will take you 6-8 weeks before you get it, and a lot of farming in your 3-5 hours a day.
I didnt want to spend my spare time doing that, rather enjoying Battlegrounds, and Raids with my Guild.
Now, with having the (300) Riding Skill its pretty easy making 150 gold a day for nearly no effort with the new daily quests so its prolly gonna be a while before i need some cash again^^
And on a Sidenote, if Blizzard *could* they would sell Gold themself, but if they did people would blame Blizzard that they squeezing out more Money from their customers by doing so.
-Shakka
spinninnzen Jun 12th 2007 1:53AM
Exactly. Alot of people look at it like this. If it takes them X amt of time to earn X amt of gold. They look at it as time wasted and/or taken away from perhaps the limited time they have to quest/raid w/e. Its the same reason why you dont build your own furniture (for most people) or harvest/hunt your food or build your own computer etc etc. its not that you cant do it, but at some point the time you would need to invest becomes more valuable then the money you can spend for immediate gratifcation.
len Jun 12th 2007 7:29AM
Does no one listen to the goblins? Time is money, friend. And my time is worth thousands of times more than that of a gold farmer.
I bought a high-end laptop to 2-box to save time leveling alts, but I'd never buy gold. Why? Because every transaction in-game is recorded, and because I'd never play WoW if it became some gay-ass buy-your-way-in status competition like Second Life.
Quoi Jun 12th 2007 8:47AM
@29
They would never sell it, because it would devalue the hell out of the WoW economy.
kaiser90 Jun 12th 2007 9:06AM
I agree with those who say that their RL time is more valuable than the money it costs to buy gold. I remember buying 500g pre-BC after grinding my AV rep up to exalted so I could immediately buy the Unstoppable Force and Don Julio's ring. Could I have quested and farmed up the gold needed? YES! Was I willing to spend the days of farming necessary to do so? NO! If you are one of the people who enjoy grinding for hours a day...more power to you! I would rather spend my time in game running instances or questing with friends, etc. That $50 purchace saved me from hours of mindless boring grinding and was WELL worth it in my opinion. If you can't afford to buy gold, by all means dont! But don't look down so much on those of us who can and choose to trade RL money for time.
ben1778 Jun 12th 2007 10:10AM
Hmm that's a lot of money for a huge block of gold. If they are advertising it there must be at least some demand, or it not, at least some indicator in their sales figures that justifies the attempt to market that amount of bulk gold.
I can see perhaps dropping $20-30 on gold if that would get me a decent amount to work with, but it won't on the US servers I play on.
I earn my gold the old fashion ways... throwing shadowbolts at things, stabbing things in the jaw, looting the corpses, and the time honored tradition of buying low and selling high. I try to curtail my spending on little things like rep items and stacks of potions.
However, to many people this is a hobby, and I know from collecting comic books for years what kind of money people are willing to throw at a hobby. Hell I collect swords too and I've paid a *lot* for a handmade sword that I will never use. Looking at WoW as a hobby, the money makes sense... looking at WoW as a plain video game, it doesn't. Its really just a frame of mind.
billychaos Jun 12th 2007 10:16AM
I can tell you exactly, it's people with money but no time.
KirkDelta Jun 12th 2007 11:10AM
I don’t really care about people blowing a ton of money for 5000g so they can get there epic mount. What I do care about is the exploit sites. For 25$ you can get access to sites like www.tault.com and http://www.mmoverload.com. These sites are the real bullies. A former guild m8 of mine ( he has now been kicked doe to the use of exploits and cheats in battle grounds ) posted a guide with locations of mobs who instant span all over the place.
People using exploits like that dramatically change the game experience, since the can float the auction houses with blue items, cloth, primals and other stuff.
They are using bugs in the game to get ahead in an unfair way. I also hate Botters. Damn you glider. Damn you to hell!!
mojoman Jun 12th 2007 11:25AM
Me and my wife both play WOW and we have 2 kids. I have the means to buy gold but I would never do it.
1) I don't think it's necessary because compared to Lineage 2 where I came from, gold in WOW is faily easy to come by.
2) Just because I have less time to play does not give me the right to screw the game up for others. If i beat anyone in a PvP fight, at least I know it's fair and I didn't win because of the uber equipment I bought but with things i earned in game.
If you don't have the time then maybe you shouldn't play an mmorpg. If you want to just have uber equipment and PvP, maybe you should play Guild Wars. If you're a casual player like me and my wife, then play to have fun and don't expect to get things overnight. That's why you subscribe to the game in the first place ... Isn't it?
Paw Jun 12th 2007 2:55PM
No need to buy gold from anyone. I earn what I need and almost always have what I need when the time comes for it. If not, play a little more and you'll get it. Playing a pally now, so that gold I would have otherwise spent on a mount has come in handy buying better armor.
I know some of you don't care for the AH markups, but I am a casual-type player, so I don't have the kind of time it takes to get the kind of gear from playing for it. It is easier and quicker to farm mats and vendors (I know some people don't like that either, but it works for). I can't dedicate the time a guild wants for raiding and such, so I won't be getting my gear in thayt manner either.
Side-bar on the kid who commented about not being able to comprehend kids raised by parents addicted to WoW. (I presume "kid" based on the text presented) Many parents who play are not addicted. We consider ourselves hobbyists. Most of us, while we could easily, would never waste money like this for an intangible, proprietary commodity found only in a video game.
In case you were mistaken that video games are a 90's invention, many gamers my age were kids when the first video games popped onto the market way back when in the early 70's. Pong, Tank, Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc etc. The first computer games came out almost at the same time the first personal computers were gaining momentum as well, in the late 70's early 80's. We are digital gaming. We didn't invent it, but we were raised on it. Most of the devs creating these games today are my age, if not a little older. I have kids...4...3 girls with no desire for gaming (no problems there) and a son who does, as well as plays soccer in 4 different leagues and competitive skateboarding, all while holding down a 4.2 GPA in high school. I don't think having a dad who plays video games affected him in the negative at all. Do I consider myself addicted? Maybe I am. But all things in moderation, I just "need" to play to unwind, just like any hobbyist uses his/her hobby for. Relaxation mainly.
Krick Jun 12th 2007 5:43PM
I've made a lot of money farming Pyrewood Village (but only at night when they're werewolves), Wailing Caverns, and Shadowfang Keep. I can sell most low level (19 and under) green items on the AH for 50s-1g each, with a few rarer more desirable twink green and blue items going for much more. Plus, the listing fees are so low, you can just set a higher price and keep listing items until they sell. Some of the other items like Perfect Deviate Scales from WC sell well too. The ideal farmer, in my opinion, is a combat speced Rogue with skinning and enchanting as professions. Just get the biggest bags you can, leave non essential items in the bank and farm the hell out of the three places mentioned above. Oh, and for farming, get the SellValue add-on. With it, you can type /il when your bags are full to see a list of everything you have sorted by sell price. Then you can decide what to toss to make room if necessary.