In Midnight, we’re introducing a new virtual currency to purchase select Housing items. In this article, we take you into the philosophy surrounding this addition to the game while sharing some further insights on how we intend it to work.
20 Likes
uh oh lets see
5 Likes
Oh boy let’s go
EDIT: “It’s purchased with real money using your Battle.net balance and used in turn to buy Housing items from the Battle.net shop and in-game shop.”
We’re so cooked yall
204 Likes
So, it’s a microtransaction trap.
Just as some people feared.
274 Likes
holy cringe
157 Likes
Thank you for finally confirming.
Hearthsteel is a new virtual currency for World of Warcraft being added in the Midnight expansion. It’s purchased with real money using your Battle.net balance and used in turn to buy Housing items from the Battle.net shop and in-game shop.
8 Likes
Absolutely not. You need to go back to the drawing board. This microtransaction crap can go jump in a lake.
266 Likes
It is no different than what Swtor does and their system works great. 95% of all items earned in game and a small fraction from the cartel market.
8 Likes
Now put Tendies on the cash shop.
This thread is going to be LIT
18 Likes
Hhhhhhhold up…
Smaller Housing items in the shop are often low cost and players will want to purchase multiples of them
So instead of just doing bundles that can be purchased more than once with cash… or do like others mentioned and have a shopping cart with a minimum purchase price… you decided to make it convoluted? 
Since there’s this…
The VAST majority of Housing items are (and will continue to be) earnable in-game. Only a small fraction is available for purchase from the shop.
There’s no need for this…
a Virtual Currency
148 Likes
I can’t believe someone seriously typed this up and thought to themselves, “Yeah, that’s reasonable, they’ll go for that!”
Insane. If this RMT microtransaction “premium currency” isn’t earnable in game then I am deeply concerned with the direction the game is headed.
Absolutely nothing they said in this post is true or factual. Premium currencies like this are designed to prey on human psychology, to obfuscate what you are really spending and to increase the amount you spend by making it impossible to spend exact amounts, always leaving some amount left over after every purchase so it is viewed as a wasted unless more is purchased (a sunk cost fallacy).
It’s some of the most financially predatory LEGAL behavior a company can engage in and it’s frankly insane that it hasn’t been made illegal yet.
EDIT: actually, I take a small portion of what I said back. There is a small sliver of truth to what they said regarding ease of purchasing. That is the other significant component of “premium currencies”. They are not viewed as real money by purchasers, and as such they are far easier to spend on a psychological level. So while they frame it as “its easier to buy multiple items” (which is so ridiculously and incredulously laughable I don’t even know where to start so I’ll just hope everyone else sees how dumb that spin is and leave it at that), it’s actually, “its easier to buy multiple items because what you are actually spending is cloaked and difficult to parse”.
It’s significantly easier for the human psyche to spend 10 hearthsteel versus $10. Can you pay your gas bill with Hearthsteel? No, it’s intrinsically worthless. Decoupling your purchases so they don’t directly hit your bank account is the easiest most surefire way to increase spending.
Most premium currencies go through multiple levels of laundering so its difficult if not outright impossible to assess what a single unit of any given currency actually cost you in real money. In cases like this where, for now, there only seems to be a single level from real money to hearthsteel, the difficulty in assessing the value of a unit of hearthsteel is going to be in the “bonuses” you get from buying larger packs which will fluctuate the value making it virtually impossible to accurately assess what an item is actually costing you without keeping a ledger which no one is going to do.
176 Likes
SCRAP THE CURRENCY NOW!
The last thing this game needs a is a purchasable currency. If you’re going to sell items on the store, direct purchases of items only.
No more mobile monetization crap.
EDIT:
I’ve pulled the plug on my subscription over this.
Not the only reason, but this is definitely the last straw.
If you disagree with these actions - let Blizz know it in the only way they’ll listen.
Cancel your subscription.
Cancel your pre-order for Midnight if you have it.
Tell them the premium currency is why you’re doing it.
Don’t change your mind until they back down from this.
Enough is enough.
199 Likes
Can we use it to buy gilded crests???
8 Likes
LOL housing isn’t even released yet and you are already selling items on the shop. Anyone that believes this is simply willfully fooling themselves. 
101 Likes
SCRAP THE CURRENCY NOW.
This is garbage!
137 Likes
I pay a subscription for your game precisely so I can avoid these kinds of currencies. The idea that anyone will spend real money to buy a single copy of a piece of virtual decor is insulting.
187 Likes
There is no philosophy here, just greed. Stop with the mental gymnastics.
212 Likes
Thanks Microsoft!
35 Likes
Time to write a formal apology to Lorelei. 
11 Likes
The people that coped about “no confirmation” “wowhead clickbait” “just datamining” “they would never”
How many times do yall have to get bitten by the shark before you realize it’s not friendly? Be so serious people. You knew this was a premium currency for microtransactions on housing. Stop acting like the billion dollar company cares about you for anything other than money lol
102 Likes