Graph and breakdown courtesy of wowauction.us.
Interestingly, this spike earlier today also marked the first time that the North American token had surpassed the European one in concurrent value. It remained far lower than the Taiwan token though, which reached a worldwide record setting 1 million gold price tag last month, resulting in Blizzard actually suspending sales for several days, before releasing an updated policy requiring accounts to have purchased at least 30 days game time and have over 30 days played in order to purchase tokens for gold – new measures to try to combat the much more rampant bots and gold farming in that particular region.
Opinions abound over what has caused this alarming inflation, with some blaming bots and other professional gold farmers, as the price has been growing from its low point of ~140k shortly after the launch of Dragonflight. At this point in the expansion, however, there’s much less to spend gold on – lacking major sinks like the Reins of the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur or crafting Shadowlands legendaries, and as a result, there are more players trying to buy tokens for gold than those trying to sell them, reflected in the price steadily rising.
While these high prices may be bad news for players looking to pay their subscriptions in gold, an interesting workaround exists within Classic WoW, where the token currently sits between 4 and 5 thousand gold – a much more manageable price that can be generated over the course of about a week of daily quests. The Classic token is much more restricted than its retail variant, however, only able to be used for gametime and unable to be converted into battle.net balance for use on the in-game store. While an odd little work around that does require some time invested on a Classic Wrath character, it is a far more manageable amount to farm for those who may be struggling to pay subscription costs.
