Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet

[durenas]

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, we’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services. However, please keep in mind that there's never any guarantee that someone will purchase what you put up for sale in the auction house, or how much they'll pay for it. Also, it’s important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts. (You can read more about our stance here.) While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that’s preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling “black market” and account theft.

Emphasis mine. I think Blizzard has realized that they've lost the gold selling war and are trying to capitalize on it instead of fighting it. This is hardly as shocking an announcement as it once would have been thanks to the D3 AH. Programs like this have worked out fairly well for games like Eve...maybe someday you'll be able to get game time from gold (a la Eve)?

I think it's more along the lines of: they were trying to fight the gold selling black market without offering a viable alternative. Without some kind of viable alternative it is really REALLY difficult to stifle that kind of demand. I knew when I saw the diablo 3 AH that it was only a matter of time before we started to see the cracks in the wall in world of warcraft.

[paloalto]

You could buy them already? Whats you're point?

Buying pets, selling pets, buying weapon. Everybody sing with me,

"Obsidium cleaaaaaver, Obsidium cleaaaaaaaver, just $20 at your localllll Blizzard store."

[Zace]

Oh Blizzard how you have fallen.

[Eliot123]

I wonder how fast the price in AH will drop under 1k.

[Deleted]

How about they finish the DK T13 set before working on pets n stuff :

[Jagstang]

You guys are being as stupid as always. This is not more of less "OMGOMG OFFICIAL BLIZZARD GOLDSELLING" than the TCG items, which have always been tradable. So your QQ is about 5 years late.

Aren't the TCG items rare, and a bonus for purchasing the card game? The TCG items were never guaranteed.

This is a direct purchase of an item, probably the first of many that allows the player a guaranteed item meant to be traded for gold. Spend real money purchasing an item directly from Blizzard and then trade that item in-game for gold.

[Amberdusk]

Just my opinion--if Blizzard is going to sell this pet and allow it to be tradeable and listable in the AH, lower the price of it.

Since it is single use for one character, instead of making it $10, make it ridiculously cheap--like $1 (or less) for each pet. Then they would sell like hotcakes out of the Blizzard store, and maybe the gold sellers wouldn't bother with them, because the return on investment would be too low. (LOL, who would really buy a $1 pet on the AH for something like 50,000g from a gold selling company? ).

[isendims]

So... u cant have the pet on all your toons? sick.....

[Expectations]

The other MMOs that usually do that are F2P. WoW isn't.

That is true most are, but they also have the Premium option to have extra perks too. WoW has kept the Monthy Sub, and opted to give us a lot of the extras for no charge. But each time there is a vanity item avaliable people flip out about how they think that a big business like Blizzard is fleecing the community by charging for services. Go figure a company always wants to make more money.

[Farora]

So we're in the final stages of squeezing money out of Wow.

[Williamgood]

Basically a step to see if diablo auction house is the way to go.

[Deleted]

So there we have legal gold selling.

[Deleted]

Aren't the TCG items rare, and a bonus for purchasing the card game? The TCG items were never guaranteed.

This is a direct purchase of an item, probably the first of many that allows the player a guaranteed item meant to be traded for gold. Spend real money purchasing an item directly from Blizzard and then trade that item in-game for gold.

You can buy the TCG stuff on ebay and sell it on the auction house...........yea.............HUGE difference..........NOT

[Deleted]

i dont get why people are always complaining about stuff like this.
It won't make you stronger in the game.
If you want it buy it.
If you want it to earn money buy it.
If you dont want it dont buy it.
Problems solved.
Blizzard is a company and guess what, company's wanna make money.
And this is a way to make money without directly harming the game. So whats the problem

[durenas]

I wonder how fast the price in AH will drop under 1k.

The value of real money is a built-in deflation insulator(if that makes sense). It will stabilize to the point where nobody will plunk down 10 dollars just to sell for a measly 1k. I would expect it to vary between 10k-20k-ish. Nobody's obliged to sell for less than they think it's worth. If the price is too low, people will just hang onto it until the price rises again.

[Melodi]

Not a fan of this at all. I am find shelling out the money for a new pet/mount if I like it because of the fact that I got it on ALL characters. Now, it's $10 for one pet on one character versus $10 for all of my characters on my account. I really hope they do not do this for future items or I will no longer be buying them. Which is sad, because I collect pets/mounts and this one is especially cute!

[Farora]

i dont get why people are always complaining about stuff like this.
It won't make you stronger in the game.
If you want it buy it.
If you want it to earn money buy it.
If you dont want it dont buy it.
Problems solved.
Blizzard is a company and guess what, company's wanna make money.
And this is a way to make money without directly harming the game. So whats the problem

They're taking small steps towards selling items that do give you an advantage.

[GhostInTheFog]

not like it's a big deal anyway. everyone is going to have the bright idea of trying to sell these things for gold and the AH will flood with them. They'll go for like 200g a piece.

[Skippert]

Many other games have the means to buy ingame currency for real money, but when WoW moves that direction people flip a bitch. Why? These other games STILL have issues with gold sellers just like WoW does. This won't make them go away, but will make things easier for those with a disposable income. I don't really see the issue...unless your upset that you are a hard core professions farmer... /gasp

The difference often is, WoW has a subscription fee. Other games are often free to play, so the only way they make their money is with these "fashion" items etc. you can buy. It's more of another subject though. For instance, switching servers in WoW costs reallife money (10 euro's or so), while you already pay 13 euro's or so a month and while the whole service is 99.9% automated. That's disgraceful. There's where the anger of players starts. You can feel it's not justifiable for a game that already costs you money. These "fun" pets however, I don't give a sht. They can cost 5, 10, 20 euro's and still be tradable ingame, I don't care much. I don't see how it hurts me. I just don't buy the pet.

[paloalto]

And this is a way to make money without directly harming the game. So whats the problem

It does harm the game. In a game where players depend on the economy of their servers to not only be able to keep up with gold sinks, avoidable inflation like this will harm it. This is just the first step.