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Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Economy, Making money

Well Blizzard has finally done it. After charging only for out-of-game services like faction changes and character customization, with the release of in-game pets on the Blizzard store, they"ve finally moved on to selling virtual items for real money. And there"s a word, dirty in the mouths of some, that"s floating around that some of you may not have heard or understood before: microtransactions. We wouldn"t blame you -- some of our own staff didn"t even know what they were just a little while ago. But with the decision to sell in-game items for straight cash, Blizzard has entered the fascinating and treacherous world of microtransactions. And if you"re going to follow them off into this world, you might as well at least know what they"re all about.

And so, we"re here to help. Whether you"ve never heard of microtransactions before, you"re convinced that they"re the devil and that Blizzard has grown too greedy for their own good, or you can"t wait to open up your wallet and get a Pandaren Monk to follow you around, let"s take a second and look at the history of the microtransaction model, what it means that Blizzard made this decision, and what might happen to the game in the future.

Continue reading A WoW player"s guide to microtransactions

A WoW player"s guide to microtransactions originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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