Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet

[Laughriot]

Glad to see Blizzard has finally started outright selling gold from their website.

[Kaneiac]

Oh, you mean the game that originally came bundled with the Orange Box; an outstanding value. The game that has been updated with new maps and game modes for years, free of cost? The game that went free to play because of said microtransactions and hats? That one?

Thanks for proving my point.

TF2 had those microtransactions while it was pay to play; and it sells weapons that include an in-game benefit. WoW isn't at that point yet, so as far as I'm concerned, comparing Blizzard to Valve is completely insane. Two different business models. Who's to say WoW won't head down that road and become free to play? Oh, but then you'd have something else to bitch about.

[Prag]

Wow... I didn't even THINK of the change between Bind-On-Account and Bind-On-Use....

So they essentially raised this price of this item for the people who buy their pets for the sole reason of owning pets... because now they have to buy it multiple times.

That's a real kick in the nuts.

[Yoyodyne]

Example ----> On day one there will be say 200,000 sold on US servers. That is 200 per AH if you assume half sell and half keep them (250 servers x 2 sides). Blizzard makes $2 million. With 200 in the AH they will start at prices such as 10,000g but as more people list you will see prices go well below 5000g. Maybe even 2-3k or less. On day one. And the people who don't want to pay real money will wait till day two or three when the pet has reached 500 listed in the AH and prices are going into the 1-2k area and people are upset that paid the $10 to get gold and find that they wasted their money. As time passes into the next week this will be over since everyone will have the pet either paying $10 for it or just buying it for gold off people that had to list it for 1,000g to at least get something for it. The experiment will end and no one will ever buy tradable items from blizzard again to make gold.

This is GUARANTEED to happen. I know what I am talking about. So everyone just sit back and watch it fade into background. It will make blizzard some extra money which is always fine to me as long as the items are vanity. Tradable (yes that is how you spell it) or not.

[Khadhar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ja-wTVFvYw Relevant.

[Lumocolor]

Getting so close to re-activating my sub, all that is missing now is WoW going F2P and a real money auction house and i'm back.

[Kaeleena]

We're against gold selling... except when we're the ones selling you the gold!

Seriously though, if you don't think this pet on the AH is going to stabilize around the value of gold after the first week, you don't understand how markets work. On low pop servers/factions, this pet will likely be higher than the value of gold.

[Syio]

People have been selling the pets by exploiting the 'gift' system anyway. As if this makes a difference to the end user. Stop being hypocrites; Blizzard is a business and I would rather see them earning than losing for the sake of some people's misguided 'morals'. Least I can buy pets now without fear of it being a bannable offense.

Edit:
That said... the face really does look wonky. I will weigh if it's worth the real cash or virtual cash because HEY! WE'VE GOT OPTIONS NOW! WOO!

[Vallcorr]

Alright, blizzard isn't selling gold. They're selling pets. The same amount of gold will still be in the market. The gold comes from the players, not computer generated by blizzard. That said i think this is just another pathetic ploy by blizzard to milk as much money as they can from their subscribers before alot of people quit.

[Freese]

Don't people already sell pet store stuff anyways? I don't see what the big deal is.

[Sensa]

Blizzard just should have made this pet a Sheep with cute puppy dog eyes because the ONLY reason they are offering this pet is that ALL you SHEEP have proven, over and over again, that you're stupid and vain enough, to allow Blizzard to make millions of dollars off you (with very little effort or cost) because you will buy virtually any piece of virtual junk they sell.

You SHEEP have no one to BLAME but YOURSELVES !!!!!

Stop buying these crappy, useless pets and the problem will go away.

[JRSpaniel]

Eh... I'm a pet collector, but 10 bucks for essentially a regular pet? Nah.

[Fudge]

Example ----> On day one there will be say 200,000 sold on US servers. That is 200 per AH if you assume half sell and half keep them (250 servers x 2 sides). Blizzard makes $2 million. With 200 in the AH they will start at prices such as 10,000g but as more people list you will see prices go well below 5000g. Maybe even 2-3k or less. On day one. And the people who don't want to pay real money will wait till day two or three when the pet has reached 500 listed in the AH and prices are going into the 1-2k area and people are upset that paid the $10 to get gold and find that they wasted their money. As time passes into the next week this will be over since everyone will have the pet either paying $10 for it or just buying it for gold off people that had to list it for 1,000g to at least get something for it. The experiment will end and no one will ever buy tradable items from blizzard again to make gold.

This is GUARANTEED to happen. I know what I am talking about. So everyone just sit back and watch it fade into background. It will make blizzard some extra money which is always fine to me as long as the items are vanity. Tradable (yes that is how you spell it) or not.

Nope, I'm glad you 'know what you're talking about', but you're wrong. The people buying this to basically buy gold are not going to completely drop the floor on the price. The LOWEST average you will see this for is 8500, or about 1.17/k..

[Kayko]

Q: Could I put the Guardian Cub up on the auction house to try to make some gold if I wanted to?While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection

Sell pet on Blizzard online store and a vendor in game. Goal Achieved and arguments null.

[k1037]

Every time something like this happens, people complain and the response is "this isn't a big deal and the slippery slope is a fallacy." Then, later... the next time we actually do progress farther down the slippery slope, it's "this was already in the game, look back at that stuff, and nobody complained back then."

Some of the fanboy responses to this are as bad as the D3 real-money AH responses were. The D3 RMAH allows gold-buying, thereby directly and unavoidably controlling all (including regular/gold) AH transactions. But the #1 fanboy response was/is, "You don't have to use it if you don't want to!" Durr, it doesn't matter if you use it - you'll still see the effects. That's the whole point of the outrage.

I think this decision shows that the Q3 sub losses are going to be pretty terrible, and they want to have alternative revenue streams up and running by the end of the month so that they have something positive to show their investors. Since they can't start up their "buy a super duper awesome look" Transmogrify store (the ONLY reason they finally decided to add that feature) until December.

[Deleted]

Yet another step closer to Blizzard selling Gold through the Blizzard store.

It's coming. You know it is.

[Deleted]

Nope, I'm glad you 'know what you're talking about', but you're wrong. The people buying this to basically buy gold are not going to completely drop the floor on the price. The LOWEST average you will see this for is 8500, or about 1.17/k..

Your assumption has two flaws. One, you assume all sellers will know the gold price and you assume they act rationally. Both are not true. I've sold mounts for 2-3 times the gold value, i've seen people undercut eachother until everyone makes a loss. Those people who have no idea how the AH works will freak out when they see many pets being sold and undercut until they sell, simply because they are afraid they won't sell at all. Prices will definitely drop to 4k, same price as the tournament pets.

[Jiggles]

TF2 had those microtransactions while it was pay to play; and it sells weapons that include an in-game benefit. WoW isn't at that point yet, so as far as I'm concerned, comparing Blizzard to Valve is completely insane. Two different business models. Who's to say WoW won't head down that road and become free to play? Oh, but then you'd have something else to bitch about.

You're glossing over a lot there, bud.

First, the default weapons are just as good as the unlockable ones. Most of the unlockable weapons are for fun, and they're often the weaker choice. I wouldn't care at all if Blizzard wanted to sell gear, if you automatically got a default gear set that was just as good as the store options. Second, while TF2 did have microtransactions added later in its life, it never had a monthly fee, nor DLC fees (Call of Duty, anyone?) for its updates. Of course, now it's completely free to play. Valve didn't have to do that, but it did.

Finally, why would Blizzard make WoW free to play? They've got defenders like you who are perfectly happy paying a monthly fee and full price for expansions, on top of all that revenue from "premium" items and services that are usually hallmarks of a F2P game. Without, you know, that pesky "free" part.

In any event, it's irrelevant whether WoW goes F2P in the future: we're talking about Blizzard's greed now, not some distant point in the future.

[Alleji]

How about a way to SELL my gold for real money?

[Spotnick]

LOL, Blizzard finally found an original way to sell gold.