
Over the holidays it occurred to me that I need to do more WoW related posts. Why? Because I feel like it. Last month I was ready to review a gold seller when I had a paypal issue… And then it was Christmas. I digress, but I WILL get you some more wow gold reviews SOON! In the meantime, I have decided to summarize World of Warcraft from the currency perspective.
- November 23, 2004: World of Warcraft was first released on this day. After roughly 5 years of development and testing, Blizzard went live with patch 1.1.1. At this time of WoW Classic, it was the same game yet different. Blizzard was competing with the likes of EverQuest, FFXI, and a few other MMORPG games that were a grind. WoW was no exception, though it was a comparably lesser grind than the other games.
At the time of launch, one of the only outlets to buy wow gold was from IGE.com, considered by many to be the pioneer of RMT. IGE was said to be selling gold initially at $40+ per 1 gold, and then in the next couple months shifted its price to around $40 per 100 gold. That is a BIG change from today’s prices.
- December 5, 2006: Two years and countless patches after WoW Classic was released, Blizzard releases “The Burning Crusade” expansion; the first for World of Warcraft. This patch added some new instances, locations, a level cap increase to 70, and many bug fixes and gameplay improvements. This is also when the original ZA bear – Amani War Bear – could be obtained.
At the time of TBC, the price for wow gold was hanging around $13 for 100 gold.
It was around this TBC era that Blizzard started to crack down on gold sellers, increasing the price of world of warcraft gold, and also creating an air of caution from gold buyers. In was reported in June 2006 that Blizzard banned 30,000 accounts, followed by a July report that Blizz has banned 60,000 accounts (and 22 million gold). In hindsight we can see that this did not solve much for Blizzard except increase cd key and timecard revenues.
- October 14, 2008: Fast-forward (again) nearly 2 years since the release of TBC, and Blizzard releases the arguably best MMORPG expansion — Wrath of the Lich King. In its first 24 hours of release, it sold more than 2.8 million copies. This expansion introduced a LARGE amount of new content, including new zones, a level cap of 80, and the introduction of the Death Knight hero class. Since this patch, Blizzard has started to solidify WoW as the #1 MMORPG.
Even with account bannings ongoing, gold sellers would not be deterred, and the price of gold was selling at around $13.00 for 500 wow gold on IGE.com.
- October 12, 2010: Almost on queue, two years after WoTLK, Blizzard launches the Cataclysm expansion. Just like its predecessors, this patch has outsold all the others with 3.3 million copies sold in the first 24 hours. This very large expansion introduced many new zones, increased the level cap to 85, and added two new races: Goblins and Worgen. This is also the time players got to enjoy using their flying mounts anywhere in Azeroth, finally.
After the release of Cataclysm, players could find wow gold prices at around $5.00 per 1000g.
- September 25, 2012: Another two years has passed and we are at the near present: Mists of Pandaria is released! The the joy of a mostly bored player base, Blizzard has released an expansion that is mostly Chinese… Quite ironic due to the issues Blizz has been having with Chinese gold farmers / spammers. In this expansion, Blizzard has added a new zone, several new dungeons and PvP zones, along with a new race and class: The Pandaren race and the Monk class. As you probably know, the Pandarens look like a panda, and the monk class is a fist-based class, similar to monks in other MMORPGs.
After the release of MoP, there was a huge initial demand of gold on all servers. As the law of supply and demand dictates, prices rose sharply for gold while supply was scarce. Months later, the prices have gone back down and you can find wow gold for under $1 per 1000 at sites like IGE.
In summary, you can see the price of WoW Gold continues to get cheaper as the years go by. I would attribute this to inflation, and Blizzard knows this. As with most MMORPGs, the developers need to introduce “money-sinks” for players to use their money at an NPC (to remove the gold from the economy, unlike the AH) on things like the Grand Expedition Yak at 120,000 gold, before discounts.
And for those of you who think tldr, here is a picture speaking more than 1000 words:
