Since World of Warcraft was launched in 2004, it has been a pioneer for massively multiplayer online role-playing games MMORPGs in establishing a robust in-game economy driven by gold. It’s one of the central aspects of WoW play, influencing everything from the equipment and mounts players can purchase to the reagents they need to craft new gear or level up their characters.

A player acquires in-game gold in a variety of ways. They may receive it as a reward from completing quests, selling items to vendor NPCs or other players in trade, through the Auction House by placing deposits/cuts on auctions and via in-game mail. The auction house is also the primary way to sell excess items for real-world money. Players can also earn gold by looting dead mobs, completing quests with a money reward component or acquiring it in other ways that don’t involve putting an item up for sale for example, a player who pays to fly or taxi to another realm.

The most a player can carry at a single time is 9,999,999 gold. There are a few things that can deplete this limit, such as purchasing an item or reagent from a vendor NPC. A player can also deposit gold into their guild bank, though this doesn’t affect their in-game balance. The limit on the amount of money a character can hold is also increased whenever a player completes a new class, faction or race.

While a few players have made substantial amounts of money through legitimate means, the vast majority of WoW currency is earned by using bots to systematically farm items like copper, mithril, dreamfoil and thick leather. These bots flooded the market and created deflationary pressure on the Auction House, forcing everyone to lower prices to compete. Eventually, the deflation became so severe that even Blizzard had to crack down on the farmers with waves of account bans and an in-game addon that filters chat to prevent gold spam, just like email spam filters.

As of this writing, Venezuela’s bolivar has long ago fallen below the value of the fake gold that powers the economies in the fictional land of Azeroth. According to the website WoWTokenPrices, a $20 token will net you roughly 10,000 gold. So, that’s a pretty solid return on your investment.

However, introducing in-game gold directly into the economy would create inflation and destroy the underlying system that keeps the price of items reasonable. The gold would become less valuable than the in-game experience, resulting in the game’s prices skyrocketing and turning around to bite Blizzard back as players assigning less real-world value to their in-game gold. This is known as the gold sink and it’s a key part of the reason that Blizzard isn’t adding the ability to buy WoW Tokens for real-world money. A more detailed explanation of the reasons behind this change will be announced at a later date.