Blizzard’s World of Warcraft is disappointing receiving its first premium currency after 21 years, if a recent datamine is to be believed. While Blizzard’s popular MMORPG has survived on monthly subscriptions since its release in 2006, the game is now adding a new currency to support its player housing feature.
Player housing—a feature which has been requested for over a decade now—allows players to own a house within the world of Azeroth. Launching alongside the Midnight expansion, players will be able to customise their homes and even save blueprints to share with friends. Additionally, Blizzard isn’t locking items behind high difficulty bosses so that casuals can enjoy the feature. So, what’s the catch?
Unfortunately, the new feature does appear to be launching alongside new monetisation. In a recent datamine of the Midnight expansion alpha build by Wowhead, a new premium currency dubbed Hearthsteel was discovered.
The datamine found multiple images relating to the currency which depicts Hearthsteel as silver coins adorned with the icon for player housing. These images show the coins in various sized piles, just like how premium currency in free-to-play titles is displayed within an in-game store.
World of Warcraft has never had its own premium currency. Yes, there are paid items, largely cosmetics, but they usually cost normal money instead of forcing players into a new economy. Maybe this means player housing currency can be traded, or maybe it’s simply a way of trying to mask how much some of these housing decorations will end up costing players when they launch.
Additionally, there’s also the scummy way that premium currency bundles work. If a single item is actually, say, 700 Hearthsteel, but you can only buy 500 or 1,000 Hearthsteel bundles, Blizzard can push you to spend more on the currency than you actually want to. After all, that’s how every other game with premium currency works.
What’s most annoying about the introduction of premium currency into World of Warcraft is that Blizzard are attempting to sneak it in. Per PCGamer, players have already noticed a redesigned premium shop that has more tabs than every before, so we know something is coming. Additionally, Blizzard has revealed tonnes of information about Midnight and player housing, so why is its monetisation being planned as such a surprise?
At FRVR, we recently talked to Marvel Rivals game director Guangyun Chen about monetisation in free-to-play games and how you need to earn players’ money. Hiding your monetisation until the last possible second is the opposite of that: it feels disingenuous, deceitful and just disappointing.
