wow Player Used 600 Million WoW Gold to Purchase $50K Worth of WoW Tokens for Diablo Immortal Purchases

[Stan 5,020]

A player spent a whopping 600 million WoW gold to buy nearly $50,000 worth of WoW Tokens for Diablo Immortal purchases (gem upgrades).

On June 22, 2022, Naecabon finished their project and used 600,000 gold in World of Warcraft to buy 3,242 WoW tokens worth nearly $50,000 ($15 per token). The whole process took 3 weeks because there's a cap on the number of WoW tokens you can buy each day.

The player had a ton of leftover TCG cards that Blizzard gave out at BlizzCon events and also bought more codes from people at BlizzCon who were looking to make a quick buck back then.

Naecabon spent the month of May flipping the TCG cards for in-game gold and ended up with about 600 million. The gold was converted to about $50,000 Blizzard Balance and used for upgrading gems in Diablo Immortal. 

Naecabon reached 7,000 Resonance and ran 2,165 Elder Rifts in Diablo Immortal.

Here's Naecabon's reply taken from Reddit.

Yesterday, on June 22nd, 2022, I finished my project of using just over 600,000,000 gold in World of Warcraft on purchasing WoW Tokens for Blizzard Balance, to use in Diablo Immortal for upgrading my gems. I managed to hit 7000 Resonance and unlock my 4 out of 5 resonating bonuses. I made a post a while ago about how ridiculous and over-costed the final 5 out of 5 resonating bonuses are, and they actually made them even worse on launch by cutting the resonating power on the boards in half from beta, so my decision to stop here was quite easy. WoW Tokens can be purchased in WoW off the Auction House for gold and can be turned into $15 Blizzard Balance per purchase. The process looks something like this. I had a bunch of leftover loot cards from years ago when Blizzard gave them out at BlizzCon events. I was one of those guys on the floor with a wad of 20s or 100s grabbing codes on the spot that people didn't really want for themselves and preferred the quick buck. Over the years, trying to sell them was near impossible as you get scammed on digital sales so frequently. They ended up sitting in a drawer collecting dust for ages. When I saw Diablo Immortal was coming to PC, I realized WoW Token balance would be usable in game for the shop purchases. I thought it would be really funny to try and build a "whale" character in the game using WoW Gold as the primary funding source. There's a sense of hilarity to me in dunking on a cash whale as a "gold whale." I spent the month of May flipping some old codes for Spectral Tigers and what have you in game for gold using Discord Markets. It's all entirely legal within the WoW TOS, so no harm no foul. I never used RMT (real-money transactions) in any way when it came to the gold, and I had no interest in trying to sell any of the gold for USD (as it's very difficult to do and it's quite easy to get banned). The project went well, and I managed to finish this at just a little under $50K total investment via WoW Gold. My character is now a proverbial powerhouse that dunks on cash streamers like jtisallbusiness (a self-declared $100K cash whale that streams on twitch) with scary efficiency. There's no real point to this other than to get the laugh out of it. When you see me battling cash whales in Battlegrounds, know that I'm engaging them using World of Warcraft currency as my main funding source. If I need to swipe some day to stay relevant, I'll cross that bridge and consider my options when the day comes. For now, I'll keep fighting the good fight. Cash whales, I'm coming for you. I am Naecabon on Prime Evils. Final Numbers: 6,497 total runes currently in my bags. That's 2165 Elder Rifts I ran myself since launch. 2165 Elder Rifts is about $48,648 spent. That's 3,243 WoW Tokens. You're throttled daily and can't redeem them all right away, that's the only reason it took me three weeks. It's much cheaper to run the rifts yourself than to spam buy off the Marketplace, you just have to put in the manual work in running the rifts. That's all I got. Until next time! PS. Before I get the usual influx of DMs about this (lol you guys are stalkers), yes... I am the No Mans Sky guy.? Still kicking! SYNDICATE RULES! PPS. I did actually manage to cause this to happen once! Hahaha, WoW players I am so so sorry XD

Furthermore, the player also explained why they didn't resort to selling TGC for real money.

Also, I need to stress that I understand that one can view gold as a "currency" with real cash value. Let me stress that selling WoW gold is a lot harder than you think. Ever since WoW Tokens became a thing, most players prefer to just buy it in game that way than risk their account over purchasing from third parties. It's also incredibly easy to get banned trying to sell gold yourself. It just isn't worth it. If you try selling loot codes on eBay, you can get scammed very very easily. These are not unscratched loot code cards from the original WoW TCG; these were exclusive to BlizzCon events and given out by Blizzard directly. They look like this. Selling these is nigh impossible. I did manage to get them cheap, but trust me - after losing cases on 90% of them to scammers (they've perfected the method), they're as good as useless from a USD perspective. Trading them for WoW Gold was about my only option.

Naecabon has been playing Diablo Immortal nonstop since it launched and it took 3 weeks to start the character and finish with 7,000 Resonance.

It took the 3 weeks to start the character and finish the 7000 resonance. I've been playing nonstop since it launched. It took about the entirety of May to swap the codes in various marketplaces for gold; I went to work on that the second I heard about the PC port in late April. Getting 600M Gold in current Retail WoW is probably literally impossible as an individual. It was somewhat possible when Boosting was still a major resource, but Blizzard has since outlawed it and made large sums of gold harder to come by. It's the equivalent of asking someone how long it would take a F2P to get maxed out five star gems in Diablo Immortal; theoretically possible, sure... but in practice? It's not gonna happen. Back then I would go to events with a few Gs in my pocket, and do the usual wheel and dealing on the floor. The people selling me these codes didn't really give two shits about them, they'd walk up to a raffle line and win a prize and walk away with it, and then see me haggling and say hey give me cash for this and I'd say sure here ya go! So you'd scoop em up fairly cheap. But cheap back then is laughable now when you consider that loot cards have skyrocketed anywhere from 300 to 800% in the last five to six years. The supply and demand has been absolutely nutty with them.

Mad respect to Naecabon!

Source: Reddit

[Prophet001 543]

I wonder if people understand that Blizzard gets $20.00 for every token transaction.

[Lith 52]

1 minute ago, Prophet001 said:

I wonder if people understand that Blizzard gets $20.00 for every token transaction.

So? What's your point?

[Prophet001 543]

1 minute ago, Lith said:

So? What's your point?

You'll figure it out.

[Lith 52]

Just now, Prophet001 said:

You'll figure it out.

There is nothing to figure out, your comment doesn't contribute to the topic at all.

[TheJayco 17]

Why?

[Bobbis 208]

10 minutes ago, Lith said:

There is nothing to figure out, your comment doesn't contribute to the topic at all.

Prophet is stating that while the OP is a gold whale, Blizzard still made that $50k in cash, since someone else paid money for the token. So whilst OP's point stands, that's (s)he's not put a cent into the game directly, they've still made ActiBlizz $50k for Diablo Immoral. Though since the token is paid for as $20 for $15 back, AB actually made MORE money this way than if OP had just bought it normally, an extra $16.6k I believe, easy money.

[Lith 52]

9 minutes ago, Bobbis said:

Prophet is stating that while the OP is a gold whale, Blizzard still made that $50k in cash, since someone else paid money for the token. So whilst OP's point stands, that's (s)he's not put a cent into the game directly, they've still made ActiBlizz $50k for Diablo Immoral. Though since the token is paid for as $20 for $15 back, AB actually made MORE money this way than if OP had just bought it normally, an extra $16.6k I believe, easy money.

I know exatly what he was thinking no need for the explanation, I still think it doesn't contribute the topic, also it's not even completely right. Some1 already paid for the tokens, wheter some1 buys it or not doesnt change a thing. If OP bought it normally it would be 50k extra over the cost of the tokens. 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Lith

[Dejo93 984]

I am not sure whether to be impressed or terrified with what this guy did

[Baharok 234]

[darkgreenwax 409]

4 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

I am not sure whether to be impressed or terrified with what this guy did

I too am imprerrified.

[Andser 34]

5 hours ago, Lith said:

I know exatly what he was thinking no need for the explanation, I still think it doesn't contribute the topic, also it's not even completely right. Some1 already paid for the tokens, wheter some1 buys it or not doesnt change a thing. If OP bought it normally it would be 50k extra over the cost of the tokens. 

The purchase of a token with gold does in no way make any money to blizzard, they have the freedom to adjust prices with demand/ingame inflation and their system of doing so isn't public. However, I think you can only buy tokens with gold if someone else paid for it with money, which means that the only money it could make blizzard is if this act of bulk buying blizzard currency increased demand for buying gold with REAL money.

There are multiple strategies to increase demand, through marketing (which wasn't involved here), or price change. So unless this caused buyers of gold to receive more gold for the same 20 dollars, blizzard made nothing from his currency changes.

[Helvorn 57]

This is fringe crazy stuff that just happens. People are bored to hell in WoW and any crazy stunt possible, will be made somehow. Sure at first sight no harm was done here. He flooded that server with gold, but this gold would have been made nonetheless, just sometime later. I dont see how this has hurt anyone.

Why putting so much gold into the predatory abomination called Diablo Immoral is another case, but that wasnt the topic.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Helvorn

[Lith 52]

19 hours ago, Andser said:

The purchase of a token with gold does in no way make any money to blizzard, they have the freedom to adjust prices with demand/ingame inflation and their system of doing so isn't public. However, I think you can only buy tokens with gold if someone else paid for it with money, which means that the only money it could make blizzard is if this act of bulk buying blizzard currency increased demand for buying gold with REAL money.

There are multiple strategies to increase demand, through marketing (which wasn't involved here), or price change. So unless this caused buyers of gold to receive more gold for the same 20 dollars, blizzard made nothing from his currency changes.

I think we are talkign about the same thing, idk why you quoted me tbh.

[Trest 61]

The more tokens get bought for gold, the more Blizz raises the gold price of tokens. Which, in turn, incentivizes those who pay $ to buy more tokens to sell for gold.

Things like this player’s mass purchasing of tokens raise the gold cost of tokens, and lead to an increase the total tokens sold to $ buyers. More profit for Blizz, more expensive tokens for the rest of us.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Trest
clarification of ambiguous “this”