After months of rumors, Blizzard Entertainment has finally announced the WoW Token, an in-game item that can be redeemed for 30 days of World of Warcraft subscription time.

The new token will be sold for real money through the WoW store, which also sells vanity pets, mounts, and transmog equipment. Players will be able to purchase WoW Tokens for real money and then sell them to other players for gold through a new dedicated section on the in-game auction house

The gold value of the WoW Tokens will shift according to supply and demand, but players will not be able to set the actual price of the tokens. Instead, players will be automatically provided with a quote for how much the token is currently worth on the auction house, and that is the amount they will receive regardless of what the token actually sells for later.

“The WoW Token feature is designed to facilitate the exchange of gold and game time between players in as secure, convenient, and fair a way as possible, and without making players feel like they’re playing a game with their hard-earned money,” Blizzard wrote in a blog post. “Having a set current market price and a straightforward exchange system is the best way to achieve that—you don’t need to worry about whether your Token will sell or not due to being undercut or the market shifting, and everyone receives exactly the amount of gold they were quoted.”

It is hard to predict the exact effects WoW Tokens will have on the in-game economy, but it could be good for both buyers and sellers of the items. Players who need gold but do not have the time or desire to earn it in-game can effectively buy it for cash instead, and players who find themselves earning more gold than they can spend could play WoW for free.

The new WoW Tokens are similar to the PLEX system that as long been used by Eve Online, which also allows players to buy and sale game subscription items in-game. But unlike WoW Tokens, the selling price for PLEX is determined by players rather than the game. PLEX can be traded between players and even transported on ships, an incredibly risky move that once resulted in a player losing $6,000 in PLEX when his ship was destroyed by other players.

Blizzard has yet to announce the cost of the new tokens, but as with Eve’s PLEX items, it will almost certainly be higher than the regular month-to-month subscription price.

Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment (c)