World of Warcraft to get in-game store for microtransactions

Nine years after its initial launch, World of Warcraft is set to go through a major change in its upcoming content patch, numbered at 5.4. According to Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok, World of Warcraft is going to get an in-game item store which will house the game’s microtransaction system.

While microtransactions aren’t new for World of Warcraft, with special mounts and pets already being available from Blizzard’s online store, the new system will let the company sell items like the Enduring Elixir of Wisdom, which upon consumption will give players double the experience points they would usually get from completing tasks like killing monsters or completing quests.

As the old adage goes: What would Illidan buy?

According to Bashiok, however, items like this will first be made available in the Asian version of the game. "First, 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: specifically, an experience buff to assist with the leveling process, as well as an alternate way to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune," said Bashiok in a forum post.

Lesser Charms of Good Fortune can be combined to create Elder Charms of Good Fortune, which gives players an extra chance at loot after defeating raid bosses. Many players on the Battle.net forums fear that this would essentially open the door for Blizzard to add more substantial items to the item store, with some even fearing that the company could potentially start selling hard-to-acquire gear in the item store.

The announcement has caught a lot of criticism from players, since this would essentially turn the game into the equivalent of a free-to-play game with microtransactions but without the game itself being free.