Blizzard is adding a new premium virtual currency to the game. World of Warcraft along with player housing in the upcoming Midnight expansion for the MMO. It's called Hearthsteel and is “purchased with real money using your Battle.net Balance and in turn used to purchase housing items from the Battle.net Store and the in-game store,” as detailed in this week's blog post.
Fast comments that the “vast majority” of housing items can and will continue to be earned through gameplay, with a “small portion” being traded for Hearthsteel. Even then, you will be able to purchase items sold for Hearthsteel using WoW Tokens obtained from in-game gold. Housing items that are “associated with core concepts of a player's race or class, or that already exist in Azeroth, will not be sold in the store,” as well as “thematically important decor that players know and love.” Hearthsteel is intended solely for home bums: “there are no plans to use it for a trading post, mounts, transmog, or pets.”
Everything is fine. But Blizzard's reasons for adding a new premium currency to a game that was already doing reasonably well seem sketchy.
As the developers themselves put it in this blog post: “Why bother when we already have a Battle.net balance?” They justify the introduction of Hearthsteel by noting, first, that “real money transactions require a more thoughtful and careful process to ensure adequate financial protection for both parties.” To which all I can say is show your work, Blizzard, because I have no idea what you're talking about.
The developers add that purchasing items with real money “can be an inefficient, inconvenient, and often tedious process when a player wants to purchase multiple items,” citing the example of purchasing a full set of chairs, candles, and a dining table for a banquet. They claim that “using in-game currency can help make the process of obtaining many of these types of low-cost items more efficient.”
I… don't really see it, and neither do the Wowsers. Reddit (by using PCGamer). As one user pointed out, why not just allow players to simply add a few purchases to their cart rather than rolling out the newfangled Azeroth doubloons?
It appears that the real rationale behind Hearthsteel is the same rationale that drives the ability to purchase virtual currencies in general: they cloud how much you're actually spending in real-world monetary terms, and often force you to overspend by spending virtual currency in specific quantities rather than allowing you to buy exactly what you need. The addition of housing to WOW Midnight is sure to cause a boom in microtransactions – I think it's just Blizzard adding a little more grease to the gutter.
Late last year, consumer protection group called on the European Parliament to put an end to such predatory practices in video gamesbut a huge number of publishers rely on virtual currencies, especially in the free-to-play space. It's time to beat the drum again as you suffer inside your chalet on the shores of the Razorwind.
