What could World of Warcraft may have in common with Venezuela? The economic part of course. But in this part, WoW wins, and wins because its virtual currency ( Gold ), is 6,8 times more valuable than Bolivar, Venezuela’s “real cash”.
World of Warcraft Gold is More Stable Than Bolivar
But more interesting are the real numbers behind the above statement. One US dollar today is worth 68,915 bolivares, according to official rates, but it goes for 690,854 on the black market exchange rate the locals use. The black market rate is considered more trustworthy than the official rate, because the Venezuelan government has lost credibility among many of its people.
On the other hand, an official token, or in-game credit, in “WoW” is worth $20. Tokens also are sold to other players for gold, and their value changes through worldwide auctions. According to a WoW token price tracker, a token is currently worth 201,707 pieces of virtual gold.
Which means a single dollar trades to 10,085 gold pieces in WoW. This makes the fake money used in Azeroth, the mythical world of the game, about 6.8 times more valuable than the Venezuelan bolivar, and that’s why World of Warcraft wins in the economy part.
More than a year ago, one US dollar went for about 3,100 bolivares. Since then, the bolivar has lost 98% of its value.
Virtual Currencies and Cryptocurrencies
In a sense, one part of cryptocurrencies, which is open market and using buy and bid orders for buying goods, even if it is in game, it has already been tested and worked.
Players, who are real people, have found a away to influence the economic balance of the game’s world, and in sort, came to a consensus about the prices of various goods.
The only thing that haven’t been tested through the game’s economy, is the trade of goods between different servers (Let’s think of them as different countries). In a case like this the above numbers are not telling the whole story.
The WoW token is a global good that any player might need at any time, because it gives the user’s account 30 more days to play by consuming it. The prices of WoW tokens in different regions are also different.
Its region has its own servers which are not economically connected to each other. The reason behind that is that when World of Warcraft was created there wasn’t any technology sophisticated enough to handle millions of users on the same server.
The Final Test
It will be interesting to see how fast can players balance the economy of the game if and when all the servers connected to each other.
The result will give us a hint in order to understand how cryptocurrencies can impact the real world and how fast people can adapt to the change.
source: https://edition.cnn.com
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