Other than being able to trade them for in game gold, seems that essentially that’s what they are.
You buy $15 gift certificate for $20 and you can either chose to redeem it for $15 or sell it in game.
Edit for developing arguments:
If I buy an Amazon gift card and sell it for in game gold, does that mean it’s not a gift card?
If Amazon gift cards could only be transferred through the WoW AH would that make it not a gift card? Or non transferable?
Pretty much. Although when you consider how other gift cards work, this is standard model practice. If you buy an AMEX from CVS that you wanna gift to a friend, you put an amount on it and then pay a 5 dollar activation fee. Same idea.
Wrong.
The only thing you can do with a token you bought with cash is sell it on the AH for gold. Your $20 gets one character of yours some gold (whatever the current amount is when you list it). That’s it.
The one who buys it in game can either use it for game time or for blizz store credits.
They’re pretty much just for buying gold, since you can gift someone gametime for $15 as long as you have their email.
Yeah. The best part is that no one is forcing you or anyone else to buy them.
you pay bizzard $20 to buy gold. you can also pay blizzard their own virtual currency in exchange for tokens which can convert into B-net cash, or game time.
The wowtoken is the best thing blizzard has done for the game, help people to get gold if they dont have the time to get it and also help players to pay for game time if they have some gold.
Wonder if there are consumer protection laws that prevent a gift certificate issuer from selling certificates for more than face value.
Don’t redeem it yourself if you buy one- that’s a waste of $5.
It was a way for Blizzard to combat gold selling, which resulted in tons of hacked accounts and GM headaches. You pay $20 for the token, sell it on AH. Someone uses gold to buy the token, and you get the gold. You’re basically paying someone’s sub for a month plus $5 to Blizz for facilitating a gold transfer. The amount of gold you get is based on supply and demand.
Less a gift certificate and more like a service.
You don’t think you buy a $20 iTunes card for $20 dollars do you?
Please try to stir the pot about something that can’t be blown up in five seconds of thought.
LoL, I knew you couldn’t resist this siren call. My apologies if I cut your lunch break short, unless your firm is in NYC.
I was wondering how many posts would go by before the legal stuff showed up, now we just have to wait for the lawyers to come and talk about suing Blizzard for false advertisement.
Activision-Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar business, they have a whole legal team on top of everything. Unless US laws change then tokens will continue to be sold without any legal repercussion, since it’s legal.
There’s this magical thing called “two monitors” where I can browse on one and code on the other. And since it’s Friday and the end of the year, there’s no more software releases until 2020.
I’m sorry that you can’t come up with an entertaining troll.
Just depends on how you see them, the extra $ is for the flexibility to either save/use them, gift time to a friend at will or get yourself some nifty gold.
One of the systems I appreciate most.
Just saying, you’re spending so much time and effort defending anti consumer practices I hope you’re getting paid for it.
If not, I’m starting to worry about some bizarre case of Stockholme syndrome as your held hostage by your love for the game.
Have you canceled your sub yet? You’re so upset at all these anti-consumer practices that I just can’t believe you still give money to them and all.
Plus I really want your stuff.
Yeah, man, that eight hours a month is just a huge part of my life.
It’s not a gift certificate/card though.
Wut?
I don’t know about the activation fee. I’m certainly not paying it when I buy gift certificates. I buy $50 certificate for $50.
Amazon will even go so far as to put in a nice personalized animation for the recipient without charging an activation fee.
And is that what were going to call that 25% cut, an activation fee?
I don’t know sounds a little greedy.
it wouldn’t bother me if blizzard made an extra $25 on every token. hell sell them for $50, and make $35. the money they are making is off the idiots that feel the need to buy gold. the token is just the by product that completes the process.
i have no problem buying game time tokens because i know i’m not the one giving blizzard the extra money. if you don’t like blizzard making a few extra bucks, complain to the gold buyers.
So it’s ok to steal from idiots? Is that the new ethical standard?