Activision Blizzard Announces New Way To Play WoW For Free

According to Activision Blizzard Inc

insiders, players of the company's World of Warcraft game will soon be able to pay for game time with "WoW Tokens" purchased from other players using in-game gold. The new tokens offer players their first-ever opportunity to pay for a World of Warcraft subscription without using real money. How it works Currently, World of Warcraft players pay up to $15 per month for subscriptions to the game. However, lead designer Ion Hazzikostas recently told Polygon that users will soon be able to buy WoW Tokens with real money and then sell them to other players via the game's auction house. (http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/2/8131385/world-of-warcraft-free-no-subscription-wow-token-pc-mmo) Therefore, players will be able to buy tokens off the auction house with in-game gold and redeem the tokens for free play rather than paying real money for a subscription. The price of the tokens will be determined by Blizzard based on a supply and demand formula, and the tokens cannot be resold once they are purchased from the auction house. Why the change? Users have been calling for World of Warcraft to become "free-to-play" for quite some time, but Hazzikostas is adamant that WoW Tokens are not an indication of a move in that direction. The creation of the tokens was partially a response to shady, third-party gold sellers. Now players have a legitimate way to pay real money for in-game gold, and Blizzard can potentially avoid losing profits to third-party sellers. Will the change move Activision Blizzard's stock? As of the company's most recent quarterly report, World of Warcraft had more than 10 million subscribers, a number that represents a two-year high for the popular game. Subscriber numbers got a boost of 2.6 million in the second half of 2014 after the launch of the game's most recent expansion, Warlords of Draenor. (http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/call-transcript.aspx?StoryId=2891046&Title=activision-blizzard-atvi-q4-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript) With a subscriber base of more than 10 million, WoW Tokens could potentially provide a revenue boost for Activision Blizzard depending on the pricing and the popularity of the tokens. The company has not yet announced a launch date for the new tokens.