World of Warcraft developer Blizzard announced today that players will be able to use their in-game gold from WoW to purchase virtual goods in other Blizzard titles, such as Overwatch and Hearthstone, albeit somewhat indirectly.
This cross-game shopping is powered by the “WoW Token“, an in-game item that can be purchased with real money, or bought with in-game gold at set auction houses within the game world.
When the WoW Token was first introduced by Blizzard in 2015, it was solely to provide way for players to buy more game time with their gold, redeeming their tokens for a 30-day extension on their World of Warcraft subscription. Today’s announcement revealed that players will now be able to redeem their tokens for Battle.net Balance, Blizzard’s online credit system that lets players make purchases in all Blizzard games from a single central account.
So, what does this mean? Well, if you’ve been grinding hard in Azeroth and now your Warcraft character has a serious amount of gold piled up, you can take that gold, buy a WoW Token, redeem it for Battle.net Balance, and spend that balance on some fun new swag in your other favorite Blizzard games. Maybe sell off that extra set of armor your character never wears, and treat yourself to some new Overwatch hero skins or a couple packs of Hearthstone cards.
Supply of WoW Tokens is limited, and standard Battle.net Balance restrictions apply.
A detailed explanation of the new WoW Token system can be seen in Blizzard’s official video here: