'World of Warcraft' Currency Is Now Worth 7 Times as Much as Venezuela's Cash
Venezuela’s real world currency--the bolivar--long ago fell below the value of the fake gold in Azeroth, the mythical setting of World of Warcraft (WoW). What’s remarkable is how much more valuable that virtual currency has become.
To put things in perspective, last August, WoW‘s virtual gold was worth just under twice as much as the bolivar. Today, it’s worth nearly seven times as much--and possibly a lot more than that if you consider the black market value.
Here’s how the math works out.
Per Google, one U.S. dollar is worth 68,915 bolivar.
Compare that to the price of WoW tokens, official in-game credits that can be used to extend a player’s play time or buy in-game items. Tokens can be bought with either $20 real world cash or sold for a fluctuating amount of in-game gold. One tracking service lists the current gold price of a token as 203,035 pieces. That works out to about 10,152 gold gaming pieces per USD.
By those calculations, World of Warcraft virtual gold would be worth 6.8 times as much as the bolivar.
If you factor in the black market rate of the bolivar, though, the difference is even more staggering. Dolar Today, which tracks the black market rate of the bolivar, seems to say the currency’s current value is 636,771.03 per U.S. dollar.
By that figure, WoW gold would be worth nearly 62 times as much as Venezuela’s official currency.
Of course, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has shifted his support away from the bolivar and over to the recently-launched national cryptocurrency, the Petro. Venezuelan citizens, meanwhile, have taken to bartering in their day to day business dealings.
VanceKelley on May 8th, 2018 at 05:21 UTC »
Isn't a country's choice of its "base" unit of currency somewhat arbitrary?
For example, in the USA it is the dollar. In Japan it is the Yen. The US dollar is worth a hundred times what the Japanese Yen is worth. It doesn't mean that the USA is 100 times richer than Japan, or that the average American earns 100 times more than people living in Japan.
quantum_ai_machine on May 8th, 2018 at 05:15 UTC »
Yes, Venezuela has crazy high levels of hyperinflation, but what a click-baity headline.
A WoW token/ gold could be worth 20 dollars for example and then would the headline read "'World of Warcraft' Currency Is Now Worth 20 Times as Much as US's Cash"? What crappy journalism. Just say the country had 6000% inflation or whatever.
Dzugavili on May 8th, 2018 at 05:12 UTC »
So, WoW currency is worth 100 times as much as the Yen.
I don't think this is a great way to measure currencies, given that the base unit and purchasing power are two different things.
Edit:
Flipped it: 1/100th of a Yen per gold piece. Still, not a good way to measure this.