With the recent news that Activision Blizzard is buying back a controlling interest from Vivendi it was also made known that the current World of Warcraft world wide subscriber number is 7.7 million.

I came across this graphic made by redditor cat_trap who commented on this reddit thread related to the announcement.

I loved the idea of the graphic and decided to add my own graphic style. Read on past the jump for more on the graph.

It's not that often that we get to apply our gold-making strategies to make real-world money. Over the last few days, however, we've been playing around with selling items on the Steam Community Market.

The Steam Community Market is Steams place for buying and selling items, trading cards and much more for real-world money that is stored in your Steam wallet.This money can be used to buy other items, cards and games from Steam.

Watch Steam Community Market - Selling Strategies & Pricing Tricks on Youtube or head past the jump for the embedded video and more information.

I originally wrote about World of Warcraft going Free-To-Play back in October of 2011 in a post entitled How To Boil A Frog - Thoughts On Tradable Blizzard Store Pets (we'll call that Part 1) .

With the recent announcement by Bashiok that Blizzard is looking to sell +100% XP Elixirs in "Asian regions" and that an in-game cash shop is coming in a future PTR I think it is safe to say that Blizzard is at least preparing for the possibility of World of Warcraft becoming free-to-play-like if not fully free-to-play.

Head past the jump for my thoughts on World of Warcraft becoming free-to-play.

One of the most commonly asked questions we've received since we released the first Power Word: Gold Guide for sale was "Will it be updated for Mists of Pandaria?" We've always been a bit vague about the answer and now we are able to share why.

We're happy to say that our second paid guide "The Power Word: Gold Guide Volume II: Mists of Pandaria" is now available for purchase in The Power Word: Gold Store.

This new, separate guide contains over 70+ pages of information about making gold in Mists of Pandaria.

Read on past the jump for more information.

Today, February 7, 2013, marks the two year anniversary of the first post ever on Power Word: Gold.

When we marked our one year anniversary we made note of how much the visual look of the blog had changed.

This year we want to highlight the increased avenues for sharing gold-making information that have taken place. Read on past the jump for more.

Episode 053 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast. We bring you the latest World of Warcraft gold-making tips, tricks and strategies.

In this week's episode your host Jim Younkin discusses the anniversary of Power Word: Gold Guide, 83-84 MoP Items, Uber Blues, new 5.2 Engineering and Blacksmithing items and much more. And now on with the show!

Episode 053:
(Click the round "play" button next to the word "MP3" below to play in the embedded player.)
[MP3] Download and/or play this episode directly.
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Power Word: Podcast directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the Power Word: Podcast to your RSS reader or into iTunes manually.
[Archive.org] View this Episode's page on Archive.org.

Full show notes after the jump.

Exactly one year ago today we put The Power Word: Gold Guide up for sale.

Asking people for real-world money was a big change for Power Word: Gold. It was first step in an effort to move Power Word: Gold toward profitability.

Over the previous year we have learned a lot by selling the guide. We have learned about selling products online. We have learned about distribution. We have learned about about pricing. We have learned about marketing. We have learned about customer support.

Most of all, however, we have learned to appreciate the community.

We want to thank each and every one of you who has shown your support for the blog, podcast and livestream by purchasing The Power Word: Gold Guide.

Your support has meant the world to us. Thank you.

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Like this post? Get even more Power Word: Gold - Purchase our 100-Page Illustrated Gold Guide, subscribe via RSS, subscribe to the Podcast via iTunes or RSS, watch our Livestreams, follow us on Twitter, Circle us on Google+, Like us on Facebook, subscribe via Youtube and join us on reddit.

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Episode 049 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast. We bring you the latest World of Warcraft gold-making tips, tricks and strategies.

In this week's episode your host Jim Younkin looks back over what's happened with Power Word: Gold in 2012, where it's going in the future and much more. And now on with the show!

Episode 049:
(Click the round "play" button next to the word "MP3" below to play in the embedded player.)
[MP3] Download and/or play this episode directly.
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Power Word: Podcast directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the Power Word: Podcast to your RSS reader or into iTunes manually.
[Archive.org] View this Episode's page on Archive.org.

Full show notes after the jump.

I was recently interviewed by Chase Jacobs about my gold-making endeavors. The full interview has now been posted on Chase's new site MMO Sentinel as well as at Examiner.com.

We really enjoyed the interview. Read on past the jump for a short excerpt and links to the full word interview.

Now that Diablo III is out and we're actually able to play the game and get acquainted with the Auction House (gold for now, the Real Money AH has been delayed) we can finally start to get an idea what we might be able to expect from the Diablo III Auction Houses.

Whether these auction houses (Gold Auction House and Real Money Auction House) will be a success really depends a lot on what side of the auction you are standing on. While I won't go too far into my own theories on how this will pan out I wanted to take this chance to bring up a few things that are concerning me about the Auction Houses and their ability to provide players with real-money.

(It should be noted that this may likely be the last Diablo III-specific post on the main Power Word: Gold blog. About 6 months ago we set up Power Word: Gold Diablo which can always be found at diablo.powerwordgold.net to discuss making real-money in Diablo III. All future Diablo III-related posts will be presented there. If you want to be updated on new posts please follow our Diablo III-specific RSS feed.)

Read on past the jump for my thoughts on the Diablo III Auction Houses.

We are proud to announce that The Power Word: Gold Guide has been fully updated and is now current with the recent (Feb 2012) overhaul of TradeSkillMaster's user interface, new modules and new features. The Power Word: Gold Guide is now more useful than ever!

If you've been struggling to learn TradeSkillMaster the latest Power Word: Gold Guide is a great in-depth manual for doing nearly everything in the addon. We were lucky enough to have Faid (from Clockwork Riot) work along side us to update the TradeSkillMaster section of the guide and, while I'm not usually one to brag, the new TSM section turned out fantastic! Head to the Store to buy the guide now or read on to find out what else we updated.

Episode 025 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast. Your host flux and guest Chris Hanel bring you the latest World of Warcraft gold-making news, tips and strategies.

In this week's episode we discuss undercutting, how much gold-ming time is worth, tailoring and much more. And now on with the show!

Embedded Player - Episode 025:


[iTunes] Subscribe to the Power Word: Podcast directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the Power Word: Podcast to your RSS reader or into iTunes manually.
[MP3] [Ogg] Download the Episode directly.
[VBR M3U] [MP3 via M3U] Stream the Episode.
[Archive.org] View this Episode's page on Archive.org.

Full show notes after the jump.

Watch as Faid (from Nerf Faids) completely obliterates the credibility of this for-pay "gold guide". (Also check out Faid's corresponding blog post.)

All I could think after watching Faid's video was get 'em a body bag.

Unfortunately there will be people out there who will be suckered into buying guides like this. Thanks to Faid's hard work I know I won't have to worry about any of our readers falling into such a trap.

If any of our readers have felt ripped off by a gold guide that they have paid real money for be sure let us know via email ([email protected]) or in the comments below.

If any of our readers are new to gold-making and are looking for a good solid starter guide be sure to check out our 100% free guide "The Power Word: Gold Guide - Free".

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Like this post? Get even more Power Word: Gold - Check out our 100% free Gold Guide, subscribe via RSS, subscribe to the Podcast via iTunes or RSS, follow us on Twitter, "Circle" us on Google+, "Like" us on Facebook, subscribe via Youtube and join us on reddit.

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Episode 021 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast. Your hosts flux and Faid bring you the latest World of Warcraft gold-making news, tips and strategies from the last week.

In this week's episode we discuss the introduction of the bind-on-equip Guardian Cub pet available from the Blizzard Store, cooperating with glyph competition, low level gold-making and much more. And now, on with the show!

Embedded Player - Episode 021:


[iTunes] Subscribe to the Power Word: Podcast directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the Power Word: Podcast to your RSS reader or into iTunes manually.
[MP3] [Ogg] Download the Episode directly.
[VBR M3U] [MP3 via M3U] Stream the Episode.
[Archive.org] View this Episode's page on Archive.org.

Full show notes after the jump.

I want to keep bringing the community new and great video content but require the proper tools to do so. This is where you come in.

This video is an appeal to any kind-hearted community members who would like to donate to the cause of helping me purchase a full version of Fraps. Fraps is the gold-standard when it comes to capturing in-game footage.

So if you are feeling generous please sake a moment and donate using the PayPal button below or in our sidebar. Any amount is welcomed. Even just $1 helps out.

Thanks again for being so supportive of myself and the gold-making community as a whole. <3 -flux

Show your support now.

UPDATE 1: 3/16 5pm $0[██__________]$37 Thanks D!
UPDATE 2: 3/17 3pm $0[█████_______]$37 Thanks D and J!
UPDATE 3: 3/18 11am $0[████████████]$37 Thanks B and D! Success!!

The show of support has been humbling to say the least. Thanks to all who donated. You put your money where your mouth is and I'll forever be grateful. Thanks as well as those who showed their support by retweeting and getting the word out.

I'm in the process of purchasing a full version of Fraps and hope to have my first non-choppy video out soon. -flux

The problem.

If you read my post from yesterday you know I've been working to rid my blog of MMO gold seller ads.

I had been discussing this in the comments of a reddit post I made a few days ago and during the discussion a redditor shared their big list of MMO gold seller sites that need blocking.

I am passing along this information if you too would like to keep these ads from showing up on your blog.

Here is a link to the comment where they give the list. As you can see it is quite extensive and gives us a little bit of an idea as to how many players are in this.

Love /r/wow!

I loved reddit. I love the WoW subreddit. Besides WoW it is one of my favorite places to interact with fellow players. Imagine my dismay then when a recent post from PW:G that I had submitted was flagged as having MMO gold seller ads on it.

How was I going to deal with it? What could I do to try to keep this from happening in the future?