The next World of Warcraft expansion has been announced, “Mists of Pandaria”. It was revealed at BlizzCon over this weekend. Some major new features include: increasing the level cap to level 90, a new race, new Pandaria game zones, and a new pet battle system.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an official Mists of Pandaria release date yet, but based on the previous expansion announcement dates vs. release dates timeline, we can estimate to see a release date sometime in mid-late December (Just in time for the holiday rush). I expected it will be on many gamer’s wish lists this year.

See below for previous expansion release timelines.

• Burning Crusade – Expansion Officially Announced: November 9th, 2006

  Release Date: January 16, 2007 (2 months, 7 days apart)

• Wrath of the Lich King – Expansion Officially Announced: September 15th, 2008

  Release Date: November 13, 2008 (1 month, 29 days apart)

• Cataclysm – Expansion Officially Announced: October 4th, 2010

  Release Date: December 7th, 2010 (2 month, 3 days apart)

As for a price, it should be priced at $39.99 like previous expansions were, with a more expensive collectors edition available as well.

It will be interesting to see what will happen to Wow Gold prices over the upcoming months, be sure to watch. Previous expansions have caused spikes in Wow Gold prices from many gamers returning to World of Warcraft, as well as anticipation for new features.

You can check prices on your server now, by running a search for your realm and faction.

~ Happy Hunting

US Average WoW Gold Price Graph:

EU Average WoW Gold Price Graph:

Happy Gaming,

- Eric @ MMOShift.com

Saw this posted in my daily news feed this morning. Figured some people here would be interested in it. It’s a long read (I didn’t read it all), but I noticed some interesting stats.

Such as: ~25% of MMO gamers buy from the secondary market.

Also, in the report they say that the secondary market across all games is estimated to be worth $3 billion USD annually (half being from Chinese gamers), but they base this off their claim that the average NA/EU/JP buyer spends over $300 year on goods, and the average Chinese buyer spends just slightly under $100 yearly, grossly over estimated numbers. While there are people that spend those amounts, I see the average being closer to $150 on the US/EU/JP side (not $300) and significantly lower than that in China.

Page Link: http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.1076.html
PDF Link: http://www.infodev.org/en/Document.1076.pdf

WSJ Coverage: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/07/selling-virtual-game-winnings-a-3-billion-industry/
The Washington Post Coverage: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/world-bank-says-online-gaming-industry-is-a-boon-to-asia-economy/2011/04/05/AF1cebrC_story.html

I’ll add some more response to it later, but for now have a fun Friday!

Eric @ MMOShift.com

Here’s the latest graphs:

WoW Gold Prices Trend (US): (price range from $1.8 – $3.0 per thousand)

EU prices haven’t seen as much of a lift yet, but some of the lower priced vendors have moved their prices slightly up.

WoW Gold Prices Trend (EU): (price range from $1.6 – $3.4 per thousand)

*Charts continue automatically updating daily. Compare prices on your server for more exact values.

We’ll keep watching to see what happens, and keep you updated if we hear of any cause for this change. How long will this continue for?… I’m not sure yet, but time will show.

Happy gaming,

Eric @ mmoshift.com

You can see the decline clearly in our daily average price history graphs:

WoW Gold Prices Trend (US): (price range from $1.5 – $3.8 per thousand)

WoW Gold Prices Trend (EU): (price range from $1.3 – $4.3 per thousand)

*Charts continue automatically updating daily.

Run a price comparison on your server/faction for exact pricing. It’s unclear how long this trend will last for, but we’ll find out soon enough.

Happy Gaming!

- Eric @ MMOShift.com

The domain name Wow.com is owned by AOL. It was previously used for an unofficial World of Warcraft blog, but is now a daily deal coupon site, similar to Groupon and DailyDeals.

AOL recently launched “Project Phoenix”, a beta for their latest version of the AOL web based e-mail client. This new revamp of their platform allows you to create a personal e-mail (ex. username@aol.com) off of the domains AOL.com, Wow.com, Games.com, Love.com, and YGM.com (short for “You Got Mail”).

You can request access to the beta at this link (http://phoenix.aol.com/). After you enter your e-mail, you will get an email like this:

They send your “invitation” e-mail a day later. (Mine came after 16 hours, requested with a gmail address.)

If you follow the link in the e-mail (blue button), it sends you to the registration page.

Finish filling out the information (security questions, birthday, etc.) and you’re done.

You can use this e-mail in the AOL web-client, or forward it to other clients (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) using POP3 or IMAP. Details for that are here.

Just a reminder, all the email addresses ending in Wow.com are not owned by Blizzard employees or World of Warcraft employees, so watch out for scam e-mails.

Have fun!

- Eric @ MMOShift.com

There has been a noticeable increase over the past two days in World of Warcraft Gold prices, on both US and EU realms. This could be over recent news of Blizzard going after merchants paypal accounts with “intellectual property” claims, causing limitation to the gold sellers money supply. In addition, the Chinese New Year is in 2 days (Feb 3rd), a holiday that has resulted in market price increase in previous years.

Well enough talk, time to see those charts:

WoW Gold US Price Trend Graph: (price range from $2.4 – $3.8 per thousand)

WoW Gold EU Price Trend Graph: (price range from $2- $4.3 per thousand)

*Charts continue automatically updating daily.

Keep in mind the graphs represent an average across all realms, factions, and sellers. To find more accurate prices for your exact realm and faction, run a price compare on our site.

And back to the news about Blizzard attacking gold vendors for selling their “Intellectual Property”, short term will cause price increases, and if blizzard continues long term will shift vendors to alternative payment methods. (Google checkout, moneybookers, major credit cards…). We’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if this commotion lasts.

Happy February Everyone!

Cataclysm has clearly had a extremely successful launch with 4.7 million players purchasing and updating to the latest World of Warcraft expansion in the first month. In addition, 3.3 million of those were sold in the first 24 hours of the expansions release according to Blizzard. The expansion was released in 9 countries between December 7th and 9th.

Blizzard claims to continue to have 12 million worldwide active subscribers to the game, so many players have still yet to update to the latest expansion.

During the first month release of the game, World of Warcraft prices rose and peaked at an average of $4 per thousand gold, and then dropped to about a $2.8 per thousand average with a low end price of about $1.8 per thousand. The price has not changed much since around December 21st. Keep in mind the following graphs represent an average across all servers, factions, and sellers. To find more accurate prices for your exact server and faction, run a price compare on our site.

WoW Gold US Price Trend Graph

WoW Gold EU Price Trend Graph

*Graphs continue to update daily

Gold prices don’t seem to be changing drastically at their current rate, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Happy New Year to everyone!

- Eric @ MMOShift.com

Sorry for the delay in the update, had some PC issues over the weekend, resulting in me having to reformat my computer.

WoW Gold Price

The price of WoW Gold shot up in reaction to the release of World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, Cataclysm. But a few days after the release, we can see the price increase was due to speculation as well as a spike in buying demand, which hasn’t followed the inflated price.

Due to to this, the price over the past week went from a 2-4$/1k price range pre-cataclysm, to a 4-7$/1k price range post-cataclysm, and has now returned to a 2-5$/1k price range. Many sellers are still trying to keep a high price of 3.5+$/1k, with GameUSD keeping their price a bit over 2$/1k. Do a search for more specific prices for your realm.

WoW Gold US Price Trend Graph

WoW Gold EU Price Trend Graph

*Graphs continue to update daily

EVE Isk Price

Meanwhile, EVE Isk prices continue to remain strong, holding at 32-43$ per Billion Isk, with Offgamers and GameGoody on the lower end. EVE Time Cards (aka PLEX) are as always still 35$ per 60 days from Shattered Crystal.

EVE Isk Price Trend Graph

Aion Kinah Price

Aion Kinah prices have started to balance out after a huge decrease in value due to a inflation in the games economy.

Aion Kinah Price Trend Graph

- Eric @ MMOShift.com

Last night, Cataclysm was released on both EU and US World of Warcraft servers. The reaction to this launch has rapidly increased WoW Gold prices, especially on the US realms. The question is how high will they go?

WoW Gold price range across all servers between sellers was about 2-4$/1000 gold just last week, which has now risen to a range of 3-5$/1000 gold.A jump of 50% on the low price. Search for your realms prices above to see more specific pricing.

Here’s the graphs of the trend of the averages across all sellers/servers/factions:

WoW Gold US Price

WoW Gold EU Price

For anyone who hasn’t purchased their Cataclysm CD-Key yet, I recommend grabbing it from  Offgamers or Shattered Crystal. Price remains at 40$ for US, and 50$ (~35€) for EU.

Due to the huge hype Cataclysm is bringing to World of Warcraft, we haven’t focused on the other games on MMOShift lately. So here’s the news from their prices:

EVE Isk Prices

EVE Isk Prices range is 30-40$ per billion isk, and 35$ for eve time codes.

The price of Isk continues to fluctuate slightly, but has been staying around the same price for a bit. Shows a strong economy in Eve.

Aion Kinah Prices

Aion Kinah prices have fallen greatly due to high inflation in the games economy. Kinah can now be bought for as little as 0.50$ per million on US servers, but the prices of the items in the game have increased, so it balances it out.