World of Warcraft moves closer to free-to-play

The multiplayer role-playing game is launching the 'WoW Token', which could make paid subscription a thing of the past

World of Warcraft is set to launch real-money transactions and the ability to play without paying for a subscription, as developers Blizzard move to position the game against free-to-play competitors.

The company is introducing "WoW tokens", which can be bought from other players for in-game gold, or from Blizzard for real money, and exchanged for 30 days of game time. That currently costs 9.99 on Blizzard's Battle.net store, although it drops to 8.69 if bought in bulk. The changes mean players can for the first time buy in-game gold from Blizzard indirectly .