By World of Warcraft is officially acquiring a premium currency solely for player-housing items, and Blizzard is now attempting to clarify its reasoning to a concerned and disgruntled player community.
Following a data extraction earlier this week that suggested the existence of a new premium currency named Hearthsteel, Blizzard has affirmed the currency’s authenticity and its implementation plan in a blog post. Once WoW’s Midnight expansion launches, Hearthsteel will be purchasable with real currency and will exclusively be utilized for housing items in the in-game store. Items and Hearthsteel quantities available for acquisition should correspond in a “player-friendly manner,” Blizzard mentions.
The primary inquiry from many players is why introduce a virtual currency at all? Microtransactions have been part of WoW for quite some time now. Blizzard confirmed earlier this year it would offer premium housing items, which was anticipated. However, acquiring a stylish store mount or transmog set has traditionally been accomplished with real money rather than requiring the initial purchase of a currency. According to Blizzard, utilizing real money for obtaining multiple items can be “inefficient, troublesome, and frequently tedious.”
Blizzard appears to imply that players who buy housing items from the store will have to acquire multiple instances of the same item if they wish to obtain, for instance, a complete set of chairs, instead of making a singular purchase and subsequently placing as many chairs as desired.
“Employing an in-game currency could enhance the efficiency of acquiring many of these kinds of inexpensive items,” Blizzard asserts.
Blizzard emphasizes that, similar to store mounts, the vast majority of housing items can be earned in-game through gameplay, with only a limited selection of housing items sold in the shop. Housing items connected to a core class or race identity, or “thematically relevant decor,” will not be available in the shop either. A housing catalog will be visible in the house-decorating user interface, giving players the ability to preview decor items (including those from the shop), allowing them to decide if they want to purchase or pursue earning a specific piece of decor.
The conclusion of Blizzard’s Hearthsteel blog post encourages players to continue providing feedback, and judging by comments on platforms like the WoW subreddit, there’s a significant amount of (negative) feedback to share. Some players do not find Blizzard’s reasoning for the virtual currency persuasive.
“The only motivation for a virtual currency is to do the exact opposite and push people into purchasing more items because they have leftover balance,” user Pariah comments. “As if this is unknown to anyone these days.”
As another user, Lord0fHats, expresses: “Selling housing decor and such was an obvious choice, but they had to adopt an especially toxic method to do so. Very disappointing.”
Whether or not player concerns and feedback will lead Blizzard to rethink its strategy remains unknown, yet for many players who have awaited player housing for decades, the transition into a virtual currency appears to be nothing more than a cash grab.
In other WoW microtransaction updates, the game’s notorious $90 dinosaur mount might be returning to the store. Early access to housing, meanwhile, is expected to be implemented with the game’s 11.2.7 patch before the end of the year, with Midnight officially releasing early in 2026. Those looking for WoW to debut on consoles will need to keep waiting, as the game’s director stated a console adaptation of WoW isn’t in development.
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