World of Warcraft's new second paid currency can be spent on Midnight custom housing

Blizzard is adding a new paid virtual microtransaction currency to World of Warcraft, allowing gamers to buy housing cosmetics for real-world money.

World of Warcraft's new second paid currency can be spent on Midnight custom housing
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Senior Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: Blizzard introduces Hearthsteel, a new real-money virtual currency in World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion, enabling players to buy exclusive housing decorations. Most housing items remain earnable in-game, with Hearthsteel priced to allow precise purchases without leftover currency, enhancing player-friendly microtransaction options.

Blizzard is adding new digital money to World of Warcraft that lets players buy decorations and other housing items for real-world money.

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World of Warcraft is officially getting a new virtual currency that can be purchased with real money. It's called Hearthsteel, and it's exclusively for WoW's new player housing system. Hearthsteel will become World of Warcraft's second paid currency, with the first being WoW Tokens.

"Hearthsteel is a new virtual currency for World of Warcraft being added in the Midnight expansion. It's purchased with real money using your Battle.net balance and used in turn to buy Housing items from the Battle.net shop and in-game shop,"Blizzard said.

World of Warcraft's new second paid currency can be spent on Midnight custom housing 1
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The studio clarifies that a significant proportion of WoW's housing decor can be unlocked without paying any money, pointing to the old trade-off of modern gaming: Spend time, or money (and if you're playing Blizzard's MMORPG, you're already spending both). Only about 36 items, give or take, will be priced with Hearthsteel.

"The VAST majority of Housing items are (and will continue to be) earnable in-game. Only a small fraction is available for purchase from the shop. Comparing this number against collectibles such as mounts is a good metric here, with more than a thousand mounts earnable in-game and only a few dozen from the shop."

Blizzard makes a rare promise that we don't see developers often give: The studio says that Hearthsteel's purchasable denominations will be priced in such a way where it makes sense for individualized purchases, or multiple purchases. Essentially, Blizzard doesn't want you to have to buy multiple bundles to unlock one item. Typically, microtransaction currency is priced in a way where users have to buy multiple denominations just to get what they want, often overlapping purchases and having unusable denominations that are left over.

"Similarly, the costs of items are designed to align with Hearthsteel offer amounts in a player-friendly way. Buying Hearthsteel at the amount you want lets you purchase the items you want without requiring you to think about which packs should be added together to minimize leftovers."

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