World of Warcraft, one of the few major MMOs still collecting player subscription fees, has begun the process of introducing an in-game microtransaction store. Blizzard says the store will start up initially in Asia, but that the company intends to expand in-game purchases to all of the game’s territories.
WoW Community Manager Micah Whipple says, “For (WoW) players who are already interested in the in-game items we offer, the benefits of an in-game store are pretty clear. We think everyone would appreciate the convenience of being able to make such purchases without having to leave the game, and ultimately that’s our long-term goal for the system, though there’s quite a bit of work involved in retrofitting those existing items into the new system.”
Whipple adds, “We’ll be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items we’re looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback… We’ve had a lot of requests from players in different regions for convenience-oriented (items) and as with other new ideas we’ve introduced as WoW has evolved, (player) feedback plays a hugely important part in determining what we add to the game.”
Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has more than four million registered players in Asia, with well over 3 million subscribers in China alone.
