A MMORPG is not one game, but rather a collection of many interconnected games. Different people pursue different personal win conditions; and the game has different counters telling you your iLvl, your various currencies, your achievement points, your PvP rank, and so on, so that you can follow your progress in your chosen goal.

Now I am one of the players interested in the economic subgame of World of Warcraft. I count my gold pieces (one and a quarter million at the moment) as indicator of progress. And I observe what is going on in the economic game. Which, right now, is an economic downturn.

Part of the problem is the major business cycles of World of Warcraft: Every expansion, every raise of the level cap, also increases the amount of gold in circulation. So long-term the game is inflationary, a stack of copper ore today on the AH costs a lot more than during vanilla WoW. Overlayed on that long-term trend, during each expansion there is a strong deflationary trend: The very first time an item drops it is worth a lot, and the price declines from the start of the expansion or patch that introduced this item. The bind-on-equip epics (crafted or looted) that were interesting and expensive in patch 6.1 are much less so in patch 6.2. Felblight went for over 700 gold when it was new, then dropped to around 400 gold, and now is frequently sold for less than 200 gold.

For an economic player, that is a problem. In spite of the term "gold farmer", very few people actually farm gold directly. It is a rather inefficient method of making gold. Instead you gather resources, maybe craft them into stuff like epics, upgrades, or 30-slot bags, and sell those to other players. So the lower the AH prices are, the less gold the economic players make. Long periods with no new content lead to market saturation and fewer opportunities to make gold.

In addition to this general trend that has happened before, I am observing a new effect: Blizzard in their infinite wisdom have decided that economic players like me are really the best of the best, and should be able to play for free. Which we do. Any economic player with the most basic skills can earn more gold per month than it costs to buy a WoW token, even on European servers where they cost nearly twice as much as on American servers. So there is really no reason for us economic players to cancel our subscription, as it doesn't cost us any real money, and every month we stay subscribed, we earn even more gold. I have 4 WoW tokens in my bags, and enough gold for 2 more years of subscription even if I didn't earn any further gold.

The same cannot be said about the other World of Warcraft players. The *do* have good reasons to cancel their subscription. Apart from flying, which people didn't want to lose, but probably aren't so interested in that it drives subscriptions, there will be no more new content until the next expansion. And it becomes increasingly unlikely that the next expansion will release anywhere soon, presumably the beta only starts with Blizzcon in November. Furthermore I believe that the WoW Token market is real, as Blizzard says. Okay, I don't see the person who is selling me his token for my gold; but historically MMORPGs had a lot of problem with third-party gold sellers, which suggests that there is no lack of players who are willing to spend real money on gold, and there is no reason why they shouldn't be willing to do so when the gold buying becomes legal. The difference in price between regions for a WoW Token for me is proof that this is a real market, and Blizzard is neither injecting gold nor tokens, every sale has a player buyer and a player seller. So while I pay nothing to play, other players pay double: Their subscription and mine. They pay my subscription by buying a WoW Token from Blizzard, selling me that token for gold, and then handing me that gold back by buying my stuff from the AH. Which is a rather good deal for me, and a rather bad deal for the non-economic player. I wouldn't be surprised if in view of the lack of content and the cost, non-economic players would quit the game at a higher rate than economic players.

The result of that is observable on the AH: Supply and demand are out of balance; all the stuff that economic players usually make money with, like crafted epics, essences to upgrade crafted epics, or bags, are present in large numbers on the AH, with nary a buyer in sight. That is leading to price wars driving down prices. You can get epics or 30-slot bags for less than 1,000 gold now. The upgrade essences are being sold for the price of the savage blood / felblight needed to craft them, giving away the soulbound resources and sorcerous elements for free. The flow of gold from the AH into my coffers has slowed down to a trickle.

In a way that is okay with me. My interest in the economic game is to observe the market and to develop new strategies to make money. Grinding out the same strategy for months is far less interesting. I'm growing bored of farming trapped animals for my barns, even if that is still a good money maker. I'm growing bored of logging on every character twice a day to collect resources from the garrison and do missions and daily crafts of soulbound resources. I think I have demonstrated that I can make gold in Warlords of Draenor, and that I have more than enough for the next expansion. I just need to decide how many tokens I still want to buy. Do I want to continue playing my alts and just don't bother with my level 100 characters any more? Do I want to try something else with those characters, like finally visiting some dungeons? I don't know yet. But the economic game for this expansion has lost its luster for me.