Survey reveals player wealth disparity
by Michael Gray 
Nov 11th 2011 at 9:00PM
The top 1% wealthiest players control a mere 24.25% of the game's gold. Half the people who answered the survey had at least 35,000 gold. However, the bottom 75% of players controlled a mere 14% of the game's gold. This describes a huge disparity between the top gold earners and the bottom.
This isn't really a surprise, though, when you think about gold in game. In WoW, you are perfectly capable of running out of things to buy. There comes a point where additional gold no longer serves a purpose; unlike real life, where you can always buy bigger, fancier, and more expensive things, WoW has a high-end value cap. Gold becomes a goal all on its own. If you've got 35,000 gold in your pocket and you've already bought everything you want, what would you do with still more gold?
The survey results are interesting to read and definitely worth your time. But keep in mind that that roughly 2,500 people responded. The total number of players is more than three orders of magnitude greater; be careful about what conclusions you draw.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Economy
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
arkonrubik Nov 11th 2011 9:09PM
Would be awesome if we could turn that gold into real money for a good cause...
Like 10k gold and Blizzard makes a donation of a few bucks to the Red Cross or something!
Hih Nov 11th 2011 9:14PM
Now that's an interesting idea for a gold sink.
EverythingRuned Nov 11th 2011 10:33PM
The only downside to this would be that then the wow economy would become dominated by jerks that don't care about X cause ;(
Camo Nov 12th 2011 3:22AM
How does not caring make you a jerk?
If it does what about not caring about religion/sports/etc?
EverythingRuned Nov 12th 2011 9:41AM
If we institute "donate 10k gold, feed a starving child for a week", people might look at someone with that expensive mammoth mount a little funny.
And I think not caring about starving children might be different from not caring about football by a little bit!
And yes, I shouldn't have used the word jerk, even facetiously.
Twill Nov 12th 2011 7:01PM
The thing is, in WoW, there is no need for a ton of gold.
If Blizzard can make it so the poorest can have fun and make gold easily enough to do so, there isn't a problem.
Period.
If you're an Auction House tycoon with 10 million gold, good for you. I don't care. I don't spend my time playing the WoW auction house. I do like playing WoW. I always have enough money to do what I want (gem, enchant, glyph, get training & flying (even for alts)).
Thus, I think the current gold system in WoW is working great. If you have a lot of extra money, that's swell, but it isn't really a problem for anyone else.
And this is my big question to WoW Millionaires:
Why not play the real world economic game? You could be a IRL Millionaire!
Bapo Nov 11th 2011 9:10PM
Would've been nice it would have been a larger survey. Also, was this on a per toon basis, or throughout your entire account / server?
Xsinthis Nov 11th 2011 9:12PM
A per player basis, all gold across all characters, realms, factions, servers, and accounts. I tried to collect as much as i could, but a larger sample wasn't feasible for the time it would've taken. Honestly I was thrilled with the sample size I received.
Randomize Nov 11th 2011 9:17PM
I'd imagine that wealthier players would have been the ones answering this survey because poorer players are generally newer players and they haven't played long enough to go out and search for wow resources and answer surveys and whatnot.
Aykwa Nov 12th 2011 1:06AM
You're exactly right, and it's called self-selection bias. Probably a large part of their responses were from people who visit sites like this one. But that is one of the very first errors they mention in the details: An opt-in survey.
Santo Nov 11th 2011 9:17PM
Occupy Stormwind?
Udderpowered Nov 11th 2011 9:41PM
Bring back Occupy Greg Street!
murmaiderxx Nov 11th 2011 9:53PM
Santos L Halper?
epicboyz Nov 11th 2011 11:32PM
we are the 75%!!!
neoterous Nov 12th 2011 12:54AM
And folks like Basil Berntsen and Fox van Allen are the 1% >.>
Thander Nov 11th 2011 9:24PM
I think the use of gold is purposely limited by Blizzard to reduce the impact and frequency of gold selling and hacking. For an endgame character, mounts are really the only expensive thing you need. You usually make enough gold from quests to fund your mounts. Then, there's epic BoE gear you can buy, but that doesn't cover every item slot, and there's a easy enough alternative through group content.
I would be very interested in the results of a survey like this for Diablo 3, say a year after release. In a game like Diablo 3 where you really can buy anything with gold, wealth disparity would have larger ramifications.
AltMaster Nov 11th 2011 9:28PM
I find some of the results of this survey questionable at best - and, to be fair, the survey clearly states the likelihood of error given the way the survey was conducted. Not that this is a particularly important issue. But I've always been curious about how much gold other people have.
The reason I've always been curious is because after 4 years of playing I've never talked to anyone who had more gold than I do. They all think I'm "rich" And the most I've ever had is 150K. Now, I know, a lot of people have more than that across all realms, so don't everyone comment and say "I have hit the gold cap!" as though you were in the majority, because hitting it wouldn't be hard, it would just be tedious and pointless. :) But the reason I find error with the result of the survey is that it seems the VAST majority of players I've met over the years have very, very little gold, yet the survey states that 28% have over 100K. I'm on a high-pop server and I feel that number cannot possibly be accurate.
Xsinthis Nov 11th 2011 9:34PM
As I've mentioned before most of the sources of error would skew the results upwards, so these are the "upper limits" so it's very likely the average is lower, a lower % is over 100k, and the disparity is greater.
Also, I don't know about anyone else, but i never admit how much gold I have i public :P
Zamboni Nov 11th 2011 11:16PM
The more gold you have, the less likely you are to admit to it. I probably have more gold than my entire guild put together, yet I can whine about repair bills and the high costs of flasks with the best of them. The players with 30K or 60K will often readily admit to what they have, but above that many will attempt to obscure their numbers rather than boast about them.
AltMaster Nov 12th 2011 1:16AM
LOL. Well, I don't know how anyone might know who "Altmaster" is in the game, so I feel safe. Besides, I said the "most gold I ever had was 150K". I may be down to 2 bits by now. ;)
And if I had a million gold, I'd still farm for mats if Twilight Jasmine is selling for 250g/stack. heh.