It was time for me to restock some Blizzard balance before BlizzCon started, and refresh a few months of game time on each of my accounts. The cost of the token has never really bothered me, but I know for some others the high value has been a bit of sticker shock. Normally the NA token is quite a bit behind the EU token, but we’re slowly closing the gap.
I think there’s a number of reasons for this, number one – items in the market. You can buy extra tenders, you can buy transmog, pets, mounts, character services – all of this can be purchased with gold. Plus there’s all of the other Blizzard games you can also use gold for. I bought Diablo for my husband, but I used gold. New pet? Let’s buy it with gold. Yes, I know I could wait until they put that adorable cutie on the trade post, but why not just use gold.
When people have a reason to buy tokens from the AH (ie: Bnet balance) the cost of the token goes up. When there’s nothing to buy, it goes down. There’s been lots to buy for a good while now, and I don’t see that slowing down any time soon.